Archive for the ‘General Buffoonery’ Category
Half-Inventing Stuff part 2
Throwing Your Vote Away
I don't really believe in voting. I know that's not the most original sentiment and even sounds like the type of overwhelmingly "look how anti-establishment I am - I'm sure that no one else is as serious about it as I am" phrases for which I could call someone out. But, my argument is the same as the usual (it's super-rare for one vote to matter) and the wonderfully apolitical "status quo" thing. Case in point: the big hubbabaloo about the balance of power shifting to the Democrats in Congress last November. A whole lot of nothing has come of that. Iraq is still going on and the president's rather liberal immigration make-over was deeee-nied. Status Quo!
It was kind of like this.
Every November, this leaves me at a cross-roads - what's a better way to waste my vote? To not vote? To go to the booth with zero knowledge of anything going on? Yesterday I chose the latter.
First, let me say that the voting location, The Pennsylvania Institute of Technology, is probably the creepiest set of buildings I've ever seen/been inside. Architecture that screams "stay out," the type of church/chapel that you'd see in a movie where the devil comes back and has his big face-off with a holy warrior, big trees which make creaking sounds at night, and worst, a wholly inadequate access road for fire trucks.
Having manned up enough to get out of my car, I walked around rather aimlessly looking for an entrance to the fortress. No doors were labeled, but I managed to walk into what I learned was the completely wrong wing of a building that I'm sure you'll see on Ghost Hunters in a few years when the county condemns the place. Voting was simple - I signed my name, waited in line with one person in front of me, listened to one of the other voter's 3-year-old scream like a maniac, then was next in line.
I got into the booth which had electronic push buttons, then developed a strategy. I saw there were a lot of women in the races, so simply, for every random guy I voted for, I voted for two random women. I also made a point not to vote for the school board person who registered under both Democrat and Republican. How dare he make a mockery of our two party system! How dare he!
So, having done my part for women's lib., I pressed the green "vote" button to lock it all in, and I had just done my civic duty. Of course, if Delaware County effectively closes down for one week each month due to my voting patterns, maybe I did more harm than good. (I should really be a stand-up comedian.)
Throwing Your Vote Away gets four stars. It sticks it to the man (or maybe the woman, in this case) and gives me slight moral superiority over those that protest voting by completely not voting. Unfortunately, it kind of takes a long time getting there, finding the right entrance, then getting back (especially if the voter in question chose to man-it-out and not actually look to see where the place was, and instead, relied on the "fact" that he could, in his mind's eye, picture the street sign which said "Manchester" though he had no idea where that sign he was remembering actually was.) In terms of doing even more to throw a vote away I have a few options: vote on only one item - so when they talk about about how many people voted, the actual races will have fewer total votes than there were actual voters OR play battleship with the two columns of little lights which glow when you press the candidates' names. Ah, democracy.
It was kind of like this.
Every November, this leaves me at a cross-roads - what's a better way to waste my vote? To not vote? To go to the booth with zero knowledge of anything going on? Yesterday I chose the latter.
First, let me say that the voting location, The Pennsylvania Institute of Technology, is probably the creepiest set of buildings I've ever seen/been inside. Architecture that screams "stay out," the type of church/chapel that you'd see in a movie where the devil comes back and has his big face-off with a holy warrior, big trees which make creaking sounds at night, and worst, a wholly inadequate access road for fire trucks.
Having manned up enough to get out of my car, I walked around rather aimlessly looking for an entrance to the fortress. No doors were labeled, but I managed to walk into what I learned was the completely wrong wing of a building that I'm sure you'll see on Ghost Hunters in a few years when the county condemns the place. Voting was simple - I signed my name, waited in line with one person in front of me, listened to one of the other voter's 3-year-old scream like a maniac, then was next in line.
I got into the booth which had electronic push buttons, then developed a strategy. I saw there were a lot of women in the races, so simply, for every random guy I voted for, I voted for two random women. I also made a point not to vote for the school board person who registered under both Democrat and Republican. How dare he make a mockery of our two party system! How dare he!
So, having done my part for women's lib., I pressed the green "vote" button to lock it all in, and I had just done my civic duty. Of course, if Delaware County effectively closes down for one week each month due to my voting patterns, maybe I did more harm than good. (I should really be a stand-up comedian.)
Throwing Your Vote Away gets four stars. It sticks it to the man (or maybe the woman, in this case) and gives me slight moral superiority over those that protest voting by completely not voting. Unfortunately, it kind of takes a long time getting there, finding the right entrance, then getting back (especially if the voter in question chose to man-it-out and not actually look to see where the place was, and instead, relied on the "fact" that he could, in his mind's eye, picture the street sign which said "Manchester" though he had no idea where that sign he was remembering actually was.) In terms of doing even more to throw a vote away I have a few options: vote on only one item - so when they talk about about how many people voted, the actual races will have fewer total votes than there were actual voters OR play battleship with the two columns of little lights which glow when you press the candidates' names. Ah, democracy.
Pitchfork Media’s Review of “Shine On” and “Get Born” by Jet
When you read a review, you expect certain things. You want to hear some insightful positives and negatives regarding the thing being reviewed. You don’t want to be talked down to. You hope to have an overall idea of whether said object is worth seeing/listening to/buying/reading/visiting/eating/doing/throwing things at. And after you’ve done any of those things, you want to come back and read that review again to determine whether you agree or think the reviewer is out of his mind. Basically, you expect reviews like this and this. Then you go to a website whose supposed specialty is reviews, and you see something like this. This “review� only manages to fit one of those criteria, that being the last one… that this reviewer is totally out of his mind.
A long time ago, when the second Franklin movie was being planned, our discussion took a long detour, with us arguing over the definition of the phrase “cop out�. There were numerous e-mails sent back and forth trying to determine if an idea that I came up with was something that constituted this. You can read highlights here. This argument was never really solved, but I stand here today telling you once and for all, that this “review� is the definition of “cop out�.
I can gather by the video clip shown here that the “reviewer� doesn’t like Shine On, but I was interested in hearing some actual insight into what makes it good or bad. Granted, the CD wasn’t that great (there were three songs on it that I thought were really good, but the rest was kinda mediocre), but it doesn’t deserve to have its review have nothing interesting or meaningful to say at all. I don’t know how a high-fallutin’ website like pitchforkmedia decided that that was representative of their organization, but recently, they even put up a similar video, claiming it was a JET music video. Obviously, the pretentious music-lovers have a thing against the Aussies rockers, but I really can’t figure out what it is.
The review of their first album, Get Born, gives us a little more understanding, but I use the word “little� literally. It’s presented in the form of a discussion between the band and the owner of a venue where they’re supposed to be putting on a concert. Things go wrong at the concert and the fans turn on the band. Sure there are opinions presented about the band, but I’m sure they’re all completely over-the-top exaggerations from someone who’s never seen them live or met them. I can’t imagine a band (aside from the Flaming Lips or Ozzy Osbourne) actually demanding [thirty f%$&in' angry alligators with top hats on, Iggy Pop shooting out of that cannon, and midway through sending in the kid from the iPod commercial.] It may work as a review of the band, but as a review of the album it fails miserably.
It only mentions three songs from the CD (very briefly) and it only has two points that I gleaned from the whole thing. The first is that all their songs sound like other bands (citing AC/DC, Iggy Pop, Wallflowers, Oasis, Bon Jovi and the Rolling Stones). The second is that they have “insipid love songs that sound like wedding band covers� and “insipid lyrics, we say 'Come On!' and 'Oh Yeah!' every five seconds�. So basically the guy only knows one insulting adjective. You know, there’s a thesaurus feature in MS word, and I’d assume there’s also one on the trendy Mac you also probably use. Insipid: dull, bland, wishy-washy, characterless, colorless, trite, tame, unexciting, uninteresting, boring. Maybe none of those words sounded smart/insulting to readers enough, though I’m partial to the word “trite"
Here’s the thing that the review is missing. The music is fun. It’s not meant to be high art. It’s not meant to be genre-pushing. It’s meant to be music with easy-to-learn lyrics and melodies that you can put in your car CD player, turn the volume way up on, roll down your windows and shout at the top of your lungs and have a good time. And it completely succeeds at that, something that this reviewer was competent enough to pick up on. There’s a good mix of fast and slow songs (so the whole CD doesn’t sound the same, a huge pet peeve of mine), and I like most of the slower songs. I understand that a lot of the faster songs sound similar, but they’re catchy enough that it doesn’t bother me (a problem that the second CD had), much like with critically lauded Franz Ferdinand. As far as the words go, I’m not expecting poetic lyrics, so why should I complain that they’re not there? Did people who went to see Pirates of the Caribbean complain that there wasn’t a deeper meaning in the dialogue, or that it wasn’t a British period piece about some queen from the 17th century? I would hope not. They should be expecting to have fun. That’s all I expect out of it. That’s not to say that I shouldn’t hold the band accountable for bad music, I just don’t think that criticizing lyrics for this kind of music is really the way to go. Do critics complain about the lyrics to “SHOUT� or “MONY MONY�? Some of the songs on that Fountains of Wayne CD, Welcome Interstate Managers had TERRIBLE lyrics, but critics dismissed them because of how fun the melodies were.
Now some of you who are familiar with Aaron Copland’s book, “What to Listen for in Music�, would say that I’m only listening to this album on a “sensuous�, or maybe an “expressive� level, and that to fully understand why music is good or bad, I have to be listening to it on a “sheerly musical� level as well, combining the three. Well, in response to that I would claim that there isn’t too much to it on a musical level, but my musical knowledge is limited. I’m learning to increase what I hear when I listen, but I want to understand what makes this a musically good or bad album. That’s why I went to a site where I knew I would find a harsh but intelligent criticism of the CD. But there was none of that there. Instead, all I got was a poorly-written, profanity-laced diatribe against the band for mimicking other bands. Personally, since there really isn’t any truly popular band playing right now that sounds like them, I don’t have too much of a problem with it, but I’m reviewing the review, and not the band or CD, so that doesn’t really matter.
Zero stars for the cop-out Shine On so-called review.
½ star for the creativity to write a review for Get Born as a dialogue. Minus four and a half for not having any substance to it at all, not talking about the songs, and basically complaining because Jet has songs that sound like bands that lots of people like.
Inadvertently Recreating a Scene from Garden State
Though each time I go to China, I make a pledge to write many reviews (usually a stretch where I've written very few) and not follow through, I'll quietly imply that same pledge now, and begin and start here.
With the fact that flying to China from the U.S. is an awful experience, many of my co-workers get small prescriptions (2 or 3 pills total) for sleeping medicine. I'm not a big fan of taking even over-the-counter taking medicine as it is (my family has a history of awesomeness), but the flight is just plain awful for 15+ hours at a time. With that in mind, I stopped at CVS the night before my trip and purchased a bottle of Advil PM, not exactly prescription sleeping pills per se, but maybe they'd help a little bit.
Potential captions for this picture
1) No, not this scene.
2) I'm dark and brooding, too!
3) Because if the girl on the far left weren't touching his hand, he'd return to the land of lollipops and gumdrops.
Skipping ahead to being on the plane between Chicago and Hong Kong (China), the first (of like 7 drink services - the flight is that long) came through, and international flights serve alcoholic drinks free. For whatever reason (maybe because it seems poetic), sleeping pills are "supposed" to be taken with red wine. Sure, the package explicitly says "do not mix with alcohol," but I want to be dramatic, darn it. I get a 175mL mini-bottle (about half of a soda can) of red wine from a whichever vintner in California was willing to offer United Airlines wine at 3rd world prices. I take two Advil PM pills, then finish the bottle of wine.
Now, I had to be at the Allentown airport at 5:15am, so as one could imagine, I was pretty tired to begin with but rather uncomfortable because of the whole "being on an airplane" thing. I started noticing the fact that I had drunk wine, then shortly thereafter, went from lazy-feeling because of the wine to full-out, "boy, I'm starting to feel more sleepy than I was before." This turned into, "wow, I really don't feel like moving, but I'm not sleepy. Ooh, look how interesting the wall in front of me is."
So, for about an hour (I think - it was about half of the movie "Marie Antoinette") I sat there, dazed staring at the wall in front of me on the airplane as other passengers did their business, getting things from their stowed luggage, heading to the facilities, taking little strolls down the aisle. It's like the chemicals had slowed me down to the point of not being able to process the outside world my choices had made it so life was passing me by. Oh no, I was inadvertently recreating a scene from Garden State!
Extra bonus points for providing which Scrubs episode ending on a similar note to my ending.
Inadvertently Recreating a Scene from Garden State receives two-and-a-half stars for, well, I'm not sure. I won't be repeating the experience on the way back (maybe with significantly more Advil PM's, though I doubt it), so I guess that counts for everything.
A refresher for those who haven't seen the movie or for whom it's been awhile...
With the fact that flying to China from the U.S. is an awful experience, many of my co-workers get small prescriptions (2 or 3 pills total) for sleeping medicine. I'm not a big fan of taking even over-the-counter taking medicine as it is (my family has a history of awesomeness), but the flight is just plain awful for 15+ hours at a time. With that in mind, I stopped at CVS the night before my trip and purchased a bottle of Advil PM, not exactly prescription sleeping pills per se, but maybe they'd help a little bit.
Potential captions for this picture
1) No, not this scene.
2) I'm dark and brooding, too!
3) Because if the girl on the far left weren't touching his hand, he'd return to the land of lollipops and gumdrops.
Skipping ahead to being on the plane between Chicago and Hong Kong (China), the first (of like 7 drink services - the flight is that long) came through, and international flights serve alcoholic drinks free. For whatever reason (maybe because it seems poetic), sleeping pills are "supposed" to be taken with red wine. Sure, the package explicitly says "do not mix with alcohol," but I want to be dramatic, darn it. I get a 175mL mini-bottle (about half of a soda can) of red wine from a whichever vintner in California was willing to offer United Airlines wine at 3rd world prices. I take two Advil PM pills, then finish the bottle of wine.
Now, I had to be at the Allentown airport at 5:15am, so as one could imagine, I was pretty tired to begin with but rather uncomfortable because of the whole "being on an airplane" thing. I started noticing the fact that I had drunk wine, then shortly thereafter, went from lazy-feeling because of the wine to full-out, "boy, I'm starting to feel more sleepy than I was before." This turned into, "wow, I really don't feel like moving, but I'm not sleepy. Ooh, look how interesting the wall in front of me is."
So, for about an hour (I think - it was about half of the movie "Marie Antoinette") I sat there, dazed staring at the wall in front of me on the airplane as other passengers did their business, getting things from their stowed luggage, heading to the facilities, taking little strolls down the aisle. It's like the chemicals had slowed me down to the point of not being able to process the outside world my choices had made it so life was passing me by. Oh no, I was inadvertently recreating a scene from Garden State!
Extra bonus points for providing which Scrubs episode ending on a similar note to my ending.
Inadvertently Recreating a Scene from Garden State receives two-and-a-half stars for, well, I'm not sure. I won't be repeating the experience on the way back (maybe with significantly more Advil PM's, though I doubt it), so I guess that counts for everything.
A refresher for those who haven't seen the movie or for whom it's been awhile...
The Promotion of ‘Borat:Cultural Learnings of Ame’rica for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’
Maybe this ridiculous outfit is what I need to get the womens. High Five!
This guy is everywhere! I mean it. I mean it. Not just the ubiquitous ads for the movie, either. He may very well be the first person I've seen promoting one thing on Letterman, Leno, Conan, and The Daily Show, and a half-hour appearance in Opie and Anthony, in less than two weeks. And not only has the actor, Sacha Baron Cohen, been on all of them, he's been on all of the as Borat, and done so in multiple segments on at least two of them. On Leno, he made a bed with Martha Stewart, and on Conan, he chased Conan around the stage with a pair of scissors, followed by one of the most bizarre musical performances I've seen on his show. In all four appearances the interview topics were different and fresh. Here's a compendium of all of the media appearances. The guy even had a "float" in the NY Halloween parade, which is basically just a costume showcase and giant party. The "float" consisted of about 20 Borat impersonators. Completely ludicrous. I'm sure he's got a myspace thing going as well. I have never seen an ad campaign for a film that was so in your face. The thing is, the movie was so inexpensive that it made up its cost in the first week. They can throw all kinds of money into the advertising, and it'll still come out on top. And it's an hilarious movie to boot. Congrats on getting everyone in the country's attention.
There isn't a person in the country who doesn't know about this movie. I'm nearly certain. Five stars.
Thinking of What’s Probably the Best Possible Thing to Put in a Going Away Card Ever
I don't mean to pat myself on the back....well, okay....yes I do. Someone I know who is from Switzerland (the French-speaking part, for whatever that's worth) and spent the last few years living in the US is moving back to Switzerland very shortly. A blank-on-the-inside going away card was passed around, and it was obvious that most people thought about what to write for about 30 seconds then decided on, "Good Luck! We'll miss you!" No problem, it's not like they didn't mean it. But not this guy. I gave it 15 seconds of thought, and inscribed this gem of pure wit: "...and I thought it was a New Jersey accent!" This ranks right up there with Nate's Christmas card message about people leaving their dogs outside to freeze during Christmas. Incredibly proud of myself, I thought to sign my name to my masterpiece and pass on the increasingly valuable card, except I realized that maybe I didn't want the recipient thinking I was all funny and not enough serious, so I stamped a "Good Luck! We'll miss you!" at the end.
Best. Going-Away-Message. Ever.
I see your "BLANK" and raise it...hmm....awesome hundred dollars.
(See, she's from Switzerland and has a very obvious French accent .... eh, never mind.)
Best. Going-Away-Message. Ever.
I see your "BLANK" and raise it...hmm....awesome hundred dollars.
(See, she's from Switzerland and has a very obvious French accent .... eh, never mind.)
Empty Bookshelf’s First 100 Reviews
So here we are at the first of what may be a few reviews of our first milestone, 100 reviews. Not only is this the first review of this milestone, but of what could be very many milestones. We here at the Bookshelf like the word "milestone", and don't believe in Thesauruses. So here we go, our first hundred in a nutshell.
The first actual review happened way back in October of 2005... remember that time before the Steelers won the superbowl, before "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" movie, before Dick Cheny accidentally shot his friend while hunting, and before Bristol, United Kingdom celebrated the 200th birthday of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (actually April 9) by relighting the Clifton Suspension Bridge?
Dan's first review was aimed at complaining about post-game hype surrounding an extremely long baseball game. Of course our readers probably care about boring Astros-Braves baseball games as much as they seemed to care about my terrible review of the dictionary. Even though that picture was good, it was nowhere near the five star quality of this image. I too tried my hand at reviewing food, but it was an utter failure. On the plus side, my review of the letter to the editor is one of my favorites, and my first review actually got eight comments, including this link. The few following that grilled chese review focused mostly on music, my opinion of "Good Night, and Good Luck", a particular episode of Trading Spouses, and Dan's opinion of My opinion of "Good Night, and Good Luck". Dan also said that the Colbert report wouldn't last, which seems to have been proven false.
October seemed to be us finding our footing.
November saw Dan's Cleveland Trifecta, a diatribe against horses, a road that he liked, an episode of "Coach", and his complaints about how much he aches, now that he's an old man. I started the month strong with the Beth review, but struggled through the rest of it, with lame reviews like Thursday, a type of tooth"paste" that doesn't work for me, and an insightful, yet completely unnecessary complaint about my nosebleeds. My FAO Schwarz review kinda made up for them, but the highlight of the month involved Dan and I sparring about how Christmas is coming earlier every year, and something about me being a time-traveling sheep.
November didn't see much improvement over October, but the Christmas stuff was entertaining.
December got a bit better, even with a few less reviews. I busted out the old NES games, for a few reviews that I swear are not trying to copy off of XE, another personal favorite, Christmas Cards, Adam's first review, Dan throwing the hate down on Pitchfork media, and a suprising amount of people commenting on Roger Ebert's take on video games. The biggest advance in December was the pop-ins, that added added some clarity to our parentheses-obsessed-writing.
December was a highly engaging and entertaining month, even with only nine reviews.
2006 rolled around, and January saw Dan get political, review half of a book, not like warm winters a lot. I only contributed three of ten reviews that month, but all three of them were relatively alright, mostly because "Where In Time is Carmen Sandiego", and "The Simpsons" after season 9 is so easy to complain about.
January's topics fell off a little.
February, while being the shortest month, was also a monster for us, as far as number goes. A whopping twenty-one reviews. To be fair, 17 of them came in our envelope-pushing live superbowl reviews, the biggest stunt pulled in the history of reviewing anything and everything on a five star scale. The only other reviews of any substance were my Gauntlet Review of the Beatles albums, and Dan's digging up of our one-issue underground high-school newspaper.
Despite the big stunt, and two good reviews, February was kinda lacking.
March just plain sucked. Four reviews total. One by me. Three mega-reviews by Dan.
April was slightly better, with another of my top five of my reviews, Legacy of the Wizard. The other four I would give an average of 3 stars to, but since there were only four during the month, that's going to cancel out the Legacy of the Wizard bonus and take it down a half star.
For my money, May was our best month yet. Dan's contribution was the lengthy three-part TV landscape review. I threw out quality stuff with my Songs for Silverman, and Degree Navigator reviews. The shorter American Dreamz and Davinci Code video game reviews were serviceable, but my immense LOST season 2 review tops everything.
June fell off a bit. Four reviews total. Split two and two. Mine were based on a ridiculous news story, and anger at other people for coincidentally coming up with the same ideas as me. Dan tried to put everything into perspective by seeing how well the entire history of human ingenuity and artistry stacked up in the interstellar community, and complained a little about how the national geography of roadways isn't designed to suit his needs.
July was filled with the (I gotta admit my ignorance as to the relevance of this phrase... and wikipedia does nothing to help) Navel Gazing set. I was had for a few minutes by a Jimmy Kimmel hoax, and I thought the critics were a little too harsh on Shayamalan. Despite the mediocre numbers for the month, I'd give it a 3.5
This gives us a per-month average of 3 stars, which isn't too shabby.
In my first ever review, I reviewed the concept of this website. I claimed that we wouldn't be able to keep it fresh, that we'd run out of ideas, and that we wouldn't be able to stay somewhat funny at least. I believe my exact quote was "It has the potential to provide hours of entertainment for readers, and shape their lives for years to come. However, the downside is that it could get old real soon, and provide us with nothing but an excuse not to get real jobs."
Well, I think we've significantly proven wrong every single point that I just brought up. We have 29 categories, 19 subcategories, and even two sub-sub categories. We're still writing about reasonably different things, and while we may have slacked on the funny in recent months, we still bring the 'A' game on occasion. As far as my quote goes, I'd be willing to bet that we've provided maybe a few hours of entertainment for a handful of people, which probably did nothing to shape their lives for even the near fututre. On the upside, it hasn't gotten old, and we have gotten real-ish jobs.
For all of these reasons, I'm willing to up our star rating by half a star, over the average rating of 3. I've also realized that my method of calculating the rating might not be the best, so I'm gonna throw in another half star for a final rating of 4 stars out of five.
And for those of you playing along at home, yes, this technically is the 100th review and so therefore should be included. This review receives 3 stars for not having much to offer in the way of witty musings, and for having a faulty overall rating method, but for packing so many subjects and links into one review.
Navel Gazing Part 2: Sneakers as Temporal Landmarks
Now that is a triple-word-score $5 title!(all ridiculousness aside, stick with me, I'll explain what I mean by that later. I really couldn't think of a more condensed name for the concept.)
Those that know me and read the website (I'd wager the two are almost mutually exclusive -- except for the ragtag bunch of misfits that Nate drags in) know that my Youth was marked by complete, abnormal interest in a variety of subjects. I'm not sure of the exact order, but it went something like this: dinosaurs, space, birds, Star Wars, airliners, fighter jets, and what I've sort of landed on now, computers and cars. That's all well and good as it could be, and until very recently (yesterday, to be exact), I thought these phases were the be all and end all of "where I was" at a particular time, the landmarks (or buoys) on to which everything in my past had been tied. As in, when I'd page through my old, binding-suffering-because-of-overuse copy of Audubon's Field Guide to North American Birds (1994 edition, of course), I'd remember X, Y, Z that happened around that time. Same thing when looking through my old space books, the binders I put together about airplanes, my dinosaur toys, etc, etc. I had thought that those were it for "way back when." I think the reason for thinking in these terms is that each stage stands alone as a very discrete point in time. I can't put my finger on exactly when I was interested in airplanes, but it was after such-and-such and before other such-and-such. Obviously, this isn't how life goes, it's rare for there to be a finite and complete "end" to something. Sure, I still remember bits and pieces from each "stage," but I'm not usually adding more to whatever it is that I know and remember about each. I hadn't put much thought to it, but these academic pursuits really only have memories about the particular subject associated with them: sitting in the cold, convincing myself that I was always just one more roll of film away from taking a picture good enough for Birder's World with my crappy camera, and on and on. That's the sort of thing I remember when I look through my old bird books. That's all well and good, but as I'm looking at it now, I must not have been a very interesting kid, only remembering things related to these rather niche interests. So that leads us into yesterday.
Oh, the memories. Sort of.
I have a bit of a soft spot for sneakers; my Oakley Twitch review might've shown that, but being that I limit my purchases to the shoe in question, it's quite under control. Recently, the Nike Free 5.0's have intrigued me. I have one pair of what I'll call not-sitting-around sneakers, so I definitely don't need these new sneakers, but I think they look nifty, and having tried them on, they're very comfortable in their own, unique way (just like Nike would have you believe). So, this sneaker-centric internet browsing led to a corner of the internet I knew existed but didn't realize quite how serious they were. The sneakerheads/shoeheads. All things considered, that's fine. There's no better place than the internet to complain about how "Nike's reissue strategy really screws over the collectors because they claim a colorway will be limited, then change the packaging and sell it to everyone." God bless the internet. Anyway. All this led me to this exact page, a history of all the Air Jordans. At first, there's little significance there, I've never owned a pair of Air Jordans, they were way out of what my mom decided my sneaker price range was and by the time I was buying sneakers myself, they were still way too expensive, and more importantly, I wasn't really into basketball sneakers anymore. But where this comes together is how big a deal sneakers were for elementary and middle school boys (that's not a universal thing, but consider it a blanket statement). Looking through the list of Air Jordan's, the first ones I remember as being "the new ones" were the Air Jordan 5's, released in 1990. I was 8, but I can remember who the first person I knew that had them and how much I wanted them. I remember seeing the kids wear them for intramural basketball games at the East Side Youth Center, and on and on. And these aren't people or things I've even thought of since then, way back in 1990. Oddly enough, going through the rest of the Air Jordan's up until 1996's Air Jordan 12. I had no intention of purchasing a pair then or now, but I remember talking about the new colors that would come out every month or so with my more athletic-minded friends at the time, many people I hadn't thought about since then (until randomly looking at pictures of sneakers online), and oddly enough, the first time I really thought about the interior details of my middle school, something I thought I had forgotten since the day of my 8th grade "graduation."
It goes on and on, looking at any of the high profile sneakers from 1990-1997, lots of stuff I didn't realize I remembered. But it ends there in 1996/1997. Sneakers after that don't elicit anything. I thought about it for a while, and I realized why. That's when simple things like sneakers were phased out by a more serious interest in music. Like anyone "young," I had always enjoyed TV, movies, and Top 40 radio, but around 1996/1997 (14 or so years old) most everyone has had a couple serious years acquiring his or her own personal taste in music. Before that point, oddly enough, sneakers provide those "temporal landmarks," but after that time, it's really music that reminds me in that same way. Of course it's not just music, there are all sorts of "touch points for memories:" textures, smells/scents, pretty much anything, even the way a Chevrolet Lumina's steering wheel feels. But none of this is news to anyone, we're all simply interested in different things at different times in our lives. I had sneakers, but I'm sure other guys (and girls) have video game "sponsored" memories (I have some of those, mainly from being at friends' houses, what with my mom associating video games with some sort of figurative devil) or memories when you find a Goosebumps book in the basement of your house.
Navel Gazing Part 2: Sneakers as Temporal Landmarks receives three-and-a-half stars due to its main point's obviousness as the review went on. The hyper-ambitious title perhaps hinted at possibilities left unanswered and avenues unexplored. Also, I'm a firm believer in sneakers being the ultimate artifact of contemporary design for point in time (heck, look at that Air Jordan overview, and see how the shoes from the early 90's, with their neon colors, which were the new hotnessâ„¢ way back when -- my goal for the too many pairs of Oakley shoes I have is that they'll be a bit more long-lasting in terms of style), and I've not touched on that concept one bit above.
Those that know me and read the website (I'd wager the two are almost mutually exclusive -- except for the ragtag bunch of misfits that Nate drags in) know that my Youth was marked by complete, abnormal interest in a variety of subjects. I'm not sure of the exact order, but it went something like this: dinosaurs, space, birds, Star Wars, airliners, fighter jets, and what I've sort of landed on now, computers and cars. That's all well and good as it could be, and until very recently (yesterday, to be exact), I thought these phases were the be all and end all of "where I was" at a particular time, the landmarks (or buoys) on to which everything in my past had been tied. As in, when I'd page through my old, binding-suffering-because-of-overuse copy of Audubon's Field Guide to North American Birds (1994 edition, of course), I'd remember X, Y, Z that happened around that time. Same thing when looking through my old space books, the binders I put together about airplanes, my dinosaur toys, etc, etc. I had thought that those were it for "way back when." I think the reason for thinking in these terms is that each stage stands alone as a very discrete point in time. I can't put my finger on exactly when I was interested in airplanes, but it was after such-and-such and before other such-and-such. Obviously, this isn't how life goes, it's rare for there to be a finite and complete "end" to something. Sure, I still remember bits and pieces from each "stage," but I'm not usually adding more to whatever it is that I know and remember about each. I hadn't put much thought to it, but these academic pursuits really only have memories about the particular subject associated with them: sitting in the cold, convincing myself that I was always just one more roll of film away from taking a picture good enough for Birder's World with my crappy camera, and on and on. That's the sort of thing I remember when I look through my old bird books. That's all well and good, but as I'm looking at it now, I must not have been a very interesting kid, only remembering things related to these rather niche interests. So that leads us into yesterday.
Oh, the memories. Sort of.
I have a bit of a soft spot for sneakers; my Oakley Twitch review might've shown that, but being that I limit my purchases to the shoe in question, it's quite under control. Recently, the Nike Free 5.0's have intrigued me. I have one pair of what I'll call not-sitting-around sneakers, so I definitely don't need these new sneakers, but I think they look nifty, and having tried them on, they're very comfortable in their own, unique way (just like Nike would have you believe). So, this sneaker-centric internet browsing led to a corner of the internet I knew existed but didn't realize quite how serious they were. The sneakerheads/shoeheads. All things considered, that's fine. There's no better place than the internet to complain about how "Nike's reissue strategy really screws over the collectors because they claim a colorway will be limited, then change the packaging and sell it to everyone." God bless the internet. Anyway. All this led me to this exact page, a history of all the Air Jordans. At first, there's little significance there, I've never owned a pair of Air Jordans, they were way out of what my mom decided my sneaker price range was and by the time I was buying sneakers myself, they were still way too expensive, and more importantly, I wasn't really into basketball sneakers anymore. But where this comes together is how big a deal sneakers were for elementary and middle school boys (that's not a universal thing, but consider it a blanket statement). Looking through the list of Air Jordan's, the first ones I remember as being "the new ones" were the Air Jordan 5's, released in 1990. I was 8, but I can remember who the first person I knew that had them and how much I wanted them. I remember seeing the kids wear them for intramural basketball games at the East Side Youth Center, and on and on. And these aren't people or things I've even thought of since then, way back in 1990. Oddly enough, going through the rest of the Air Jordan's up until 1996's Air Jordan 12. I had no intention of purchasing a pair then or now, but I remember talking about the new colors that would come out every month or so with my more athletic-minded friends at the time, many people I hadn't thought about since then (until randomly looking at pictures of sneakers online), and oddly enough, the first time I really thought about the interior details of my middle school, something I thought I had forgotten since the day of my 8th grade "graduation."
It goes on and on, looking at any of the high profile sneakers from 1990-1997, lots of stuff I didn't realize I remembered. But it ends there in 1996/1997. Sneakers after that don't elicit anything. I thought about it for a while, and I realized why. That's when simple things like sneakers were phased out by a more serious interest in music. Like anyone "young," I had always enjoyed TV, movies, and Top 40 radio, but around 1996/1997 (14 or so years old) most everyone has had a couple serious years acquiring his or her own personal taste in music. Before that point, oddly enough, sneakers provide those "temporal landmarks," but after that time, it's really music that reminds me in that same way. Of course it's not just music, there are all sorts of "touch points for memories:" textures, smells/scents, pretty much anything, even the way a Chevrolet Lumina's steering wheel feels. But none of this is news to anyone, we're all simply interested in different things at different times in our lives. I had sneakers, but I'm sure other guys (and girls) have video game "sponsored" memories (I have some of those, mainly from being at friends' houses, what with my mom associating video games with some sort of figurative devil) or memories when you find a Goosebumps book in the basement of your house.
Navel Gazing Part 2: Sneakers as Temporal Landmarks receives three-and-a-half stars due to its main point's obviousness as the review went on. The hyper-ambitious title perhaps hinted at possibilities left unanswered and avenues unexplored. Also, I'm a firm believer in sneakers being the ultimate artifact of contemporary design for point in time (heck, look at that Air Jordan overview, and see how the shoes from the early 90's, with their neon colors, which were the new hotnessâ„¢ way back when -- my goal for the too many pairs of Oakley shoes I have is that they'll be a bit more long-lasting in terms of style), and I've not touched on that concept one bit above.
Navel Gazing Part 1: A History of Violence
Once again, the generous sponsorship of the Fruit Stand/DVD store made this review possible. Be sure to stop by and enjoy a 50% discount if you're not American!
I’ve said I don’t enjoy writing movie reviews, so I’ll try to skirt around specifically “reviewing� the movie in that exact term, but it’ll be tough considering the movie is intertwined with its message.
Usually when someone goes out of his or her way to create something “deep,� “thought-provoking,� “challenging� or the like, the final product doesn’t end up being any of those things, if only because if it draws too much attention that goal (“deepness�) instead of the movie itself. It’s incestuous, but I’ll link here to my review of Inside Man with my brief commentary on its very out-of-continuity “thought-provoking� scene of the seemingly vicious bank robber being disgusted by a Grand Theft Auto-look-alike. A History of Violence practically begs for over-analysis starting with its vague but simultaneously pointed title. The director, David Cronenberg, is very much on the record talking about the philosophical issues raised by his movie.
All That You Can't Leave Behind. (bonus points for invoking a U2 song in a faux-deep manner!)
Most “deep� movies become grossly over-analyzed, with the arguers forgetting what the movie was about and what happened in it (or what the movie wasn’t about and what didn’t happen it—Donnie Darko fans, I’m looking in your direction). Throw in some psycho-babble (“Munich was about how Israel became self-actualized in the 1970’s and 80’s�), and you’re good to go. Without putting it terms of whether it was a good movie or not, Munich certainly had enough going on it to not need this over-analysis. (Okay, to be fair, some people have complained that not much of anything happened in the movie, other than Eric Bana sweating like a maniac when he was getting his pump on.) Oddly enough, “A History of Violence� needs this discussion; not a whole lot happens in the movie; it could basically be considered an immediate and direct sequel to Goodfellas. (I liked A History of Violence enough that I won’t ruin the “how� and “why� that lingers throughout the story for our readership, but if you’ve seen Goodfellas, you’ll understand what I mean about it being the next step in the Goodfellas story.)
Sure, plenty happens in A History of Violence, but the characters spend so little time onscreen reflecting on it; the extent is really “how long have you lied to me? And did I marry your past or just an identity you arbitrarily created?� The viewers are in the same position as the characters after the open-ended conclusion of the movie. Like the characters, the viewers are asking themselves, “What’s in me? What am I capable of if something needed to be done?� “Would I be able to leave behind my ‘history of violence’?� �How far removed is sex from violence?� And most importantly, “what would I do to leave that history behind me?� The movie doesn’t provide an answer beyond implying that people will do ‘what it takes,’ and leaving violence in the past doesn’t mean that it won’t find you. Oddly, any discussion of the movie uses the term “violence� as if it is something more than just a concept, as if it’s a physical thing, like a jacket, a car, or a computer. Is this violence as presented in the movie worth considering a physical object? No one talks about happiness in such terms. In fact, the only other concept that gets this treatment is love. It would be convenient to say that there’s some “duality� between the two, one being a requirement to survive and one being involved in the process of making more of oneself, but that would be the unnecessary analysis I talked about above. But, this is entitled “Navel Gazing,� so I’ll stand by my statement, intellectual preposterosity or not.
That’s why the movie works in spite of it being a rather thin story. It hits all the right notes to leave the audience asking questions “with� the movie, not “at� the movie. It’s a dangerous angle from which to make a movie, but it was pulled off with great success. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t at least thought about the issues it raises after seeing it, whether or not the train of thought evolved/devolved (I vote for devolved) into a Plato-esque debate about the increasingly less-and-less abstract concept of “violence� as presented by the movie.
I guess the singular moment from the movie that led to me writing at some length about this was actually not in the movie itself, but in the DVD’s special features which showed snippets of interviews with David Cronenberg at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005. Almost in passing, he said something along the lines of: Humans are the only animals on the planet that could conceptualize a world without violence. (Of course, for the smart-alecks out there, I know that animals can’t really conceptualize anything, it’s more about what an ideal world would be for other animals versus what would seemingly be the ideal world for humans.) There’s something to be said for that; we’ve been doing the human thing for a while, and there has been and always will be plenty of violence to go around. Is our ideal world really one without violence?
Navel Gazing Part 1: A History of Violence receives four stars because as a philosophical treatise, it was a rather superficial and derivative train of thought stemming not from an original idea, but a movie which had an explicit goal of “getting people to think about how violence works.� Of course, the movie gets all the credit in the world for succeeding in “getting people to think� when that goal is usually a superficial ploy to attract pretentious white people (meaning NPR listeners—for future reference, NPR did pimp this movie like crazy).
I’ve said I don’t enjoy writing movie reviews, so I’ll try to skirt around specifically “reviewing� the movie in that exact term, but it’ll be tough considering the movie is intertwined with its message.
Usually when someone goes out of his or her way to create something “deep,� “thought-provoking,� “challenging� or the like, the final product doesn’t end up being any of those things, if only because if it draws too much attention that goal (“deepness�) instead of the movie itself. It’s incestuous, but I’ll link here to my review of Inside Man with my brief commentary on its very out-of-continuity “thought-provoking� scene of the seemingly vicious bank robber being disgusted by a Grand Theft Auto-look-alike. A History of Violence practically begs for over-analysis starting with its vague but simultaneously pointed title. The director, David Cronenberg, is very much on the record talking about the philosophical issues raised by his movie.
All That You Can't Leave Behind. (bonus points for invoking a U2 song in a faux-deep manner!)
Most “deep� movies become grossly over-analyzed, with the arguers forgetting what the movie was about and what happened in it (or what the movie wasn’t about and what didn’t happen it—Donnie Darko fans, I’m looking in your direction). Throw in some psycho-babble (“Munich was about how Israel became self-actualized in the 1970’s and 80’s�), and you’re good to go. Without putting it terms of whether it was a good movie or not, Munich certainly had enough going on it to not need this over-analysis. (Okay, to be fair, some people have complained that not much of anything happened in the movie, other than Eric Bana sweating like a maniac when he was getting his pump on.) Oddly enough, “A History of Violence� needs this discussion; not a whole lot happens in the movie; it could basically be considered an immediate and direct sequel to Goodfellas. (I liked A History of Violence enough that I won’t ruin the “how� and “why� that lingers throughout the story for our readership, but if you’ve seen Goodfellas, you’ll understand what I mean about it being the next step in the Goodfellas story.)
Sure, plenty happens in A History of Violence, but the characters spend so little time onscreen reflecting on it; the extent is really “how long have you lied to me? And did I marry your past or just an identity you arbitrarily created?� The viewers are in the same position as the characters after the open-ended conclusion of the movie. Like the characters, the viewers are asking themselves, “What’s in me? What am I capable of if something needed to be done?� “Would I be able to leave behind my ‘history of violence’?� �How far removed is sex from violence?� And most importantly, “what would I do to leave that history behind me?� The movie doesn’t provide an answer beyond implying that people will do ‘what it takes,’ and leaving violence in the past doesn’t mean that it won’t find you. Oddly, any discussion of the movie uses the term “violence� as if it is something more than just a concept, as if it’s a physical thing, like a jacket, a car, or a computer. Is this violence as presented in the movie worth considering a physical object? No one talks about happiness in such terms. In fact, the only other concept that gets this treatment is love. It would be convenient to say that there’s some “duality� between the two, one being a requirement to survive and one being involved in the process of making more of oneself, but that would be the unnecessary analysis I talked about above. But, this is entitled “Navel Gazing,� so I’ll stand by my statement, intellectual preposterosity or not.
That’s why the movie works in spite of it being a rather thin story. It hits all the right notes to leave the audience asking questions “with� the movie, not “at� the movie. It’s a dangerous angle from which to make a movie, but it was pulled off with great success. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t at least thought about the issues it raises after seeing it, whether or not the train of thought evolved/devolved (I vote for devolved) into a Plato-esque debate about the increasingly less-and-less abstract concept of “violence� as presented by the movie.
I guess the singular moment from the movie that led to me writing at some length about this was actually not in the movie itself, but in the DVD’s special features which showed snippets of interviews with David Cronenberg at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005. Almost in passing, he said something along the lines of: Humans are the only animals on the planet that could conceptualize a world without violence. (Of course, for the smart-alecks out there, I know that animals can’t really conceptualize anything, it’s more about what an ideal world would be for other animals versus what would seemingly be the ideal world for humans.) There’s something to be said for that; we’ve been doing the human thing for a while, and there has been and always will be plenty of violence to go around. Is our ideal world really one without violence?
Navel Gazing Part 1: A History of Violence receives four stars because as a philosophical treatise, it was a rather superficial and derivative train of thought stemming not from an original idea, but a movie which had an explicit goal of “getting people to think about how violence works.� Of course, the movie gets all the credit in the world for succeeding in “getting people to think� when that goal is usually a superficial ploy to attract pretentious white people (meaning NPR listeners—for future reference, NPR did pimp this movie like crazy).
My Frequent Stabs at Highway Planning
I'm no Civil Engineer, but I'd like to think of myself as a Monday Morning Traffic Planner. Some people have football; I have traffic jams. I don't think of myself as an impatient person; it's just that I hate indirect routes, especially within cities. I also think highways should be endless straight lines with no changes in altitude or direction. In fact, I think roads in cities should all be highways, too. You say, how would this work? I say, it would all cater to me.
Bring. It. On.
It's be very simple. Roads would be paved to connect points to which I frequently travel. I don't need a highway to get to Wawa or the supermarket, but for anything over 3/4 of a mile, it's the highway or the, uh, no-way. Longer trips simple involve longer new highways.
Well, there isn't much more to it than that. When sitting in the car on a yet another long trip to a familiar destination, I've come up with some more details.
Obviously, a very good idea.
My Frequent Stabs at Highway Planning receive four hopeful stars because of how much more useful the highway system would be when it would cater exactly (and only) to my needs. Unfortunately, part of my "frequent stabs" involves thinking about how much money it would take to enact such a plan, but unfortunately, I don't think there's a number that big, and I'm stuck with yet another half-invented idea.
Bring. It. On.
It's be very simple. Roads would be paved to connect points to which I frequently travel. I don't need a highway to get to Wawa or the supermarket, but for anything over 3/4 of a mile, it's the highway or the, uh, no-way. Longer trips simple involve longer new highways.
Well, there isn't much more to it than that. When sitting in the car on a yet another long trip to a familiar destination, I've come up with some more details.
- Obviously, there'd be no speed limits. Well, none for me at least. Imagine going 100mph with nothing to worry about because the road is perfectly straight and perfectly flat. It's top speed cruising the whole time.
- I've realized that other people might find use for the roads, even if the exits are only at my frequent destinations at one end and my house at the other. Everyone can use the roads, but I have to approve them first. They also have to pay a toll. To me.
- All the roads would be named after me.
Among many others there would be:
- The Dan Fuller East-Side / South-Side Expressway
- The Fuller Cross-Country Thoroughfare (stopping in Evanston, IL)
- The Dan Fuller Media to Concordville Extension
- The Allentown to Bear Creek Highway
- The DF (a highway connecting Media and Allentown)
- The Dan Fuller Honorarium Bao-An to Industrial Zone 7 Overpass
- and on and on...
Obviously, a very good idea.
My Frequent Stabs at Highway Planning receive four hopeful stars because of how much more useful the highway system would be when it would cater exactly (and only) to my needs. Unfortunately, part of my "frequent stabs" involves thinking about how much money it would take to enact such a plan, but unfortunately, I don't think there's a number that big, and I'm stuck with yet another half-invented idea.