Dave | unobtrusive lucidity

Playing Catch-Up

Ahh…technology. What would we do without it? And, perhaps more to the point, what are we going to do with it?

Little technological malfunctions set me on edge at times. Take last night for example. For the second time in a few months, I experienced a password glitch with my Barnes & Noble account, and I couldn’t sync a book I had just purchased with the Nook’s iPad app. Three minutes of trying later, and by the time I called customer service, I had all but announced my return to paper books out of frustration.

I’m better now, though. Thanks for wondering.

Along more academic lines, there has been a lot of interesting thought in the past few decades about the metaphysical or theological implications of technology…what we as mankind are attempting to achieve through our progress. One doesn’t have to look far for the perpetual stream of thought-provoking insight on how our technology is changing us even as we create it. What and how we invent, and the things for which we ultimately use our inventions, say a great deal about us as a people.

I remember, for example, checking a book out of the library when I was in elementary school about the city of tomorrow. The book was large, with lots of pictures. I remember that it portrayed cars that traveled on mono-rail type circuits through a futuristic city…cars that you didn’t actually have to drive, but rather simply told an address and let them take you there. Everyone used them in this book, and I remember thinking that this would be a tremendously cool experience. Of course, the concept of intelligent cars was a natural desire to take hold of the America psyche, because we love our automobiles. I remember, when I was young, my father joking about how he wanted a Knight Rider type of vehicle that would leave its parking place and come to the front of the grocery store to meet us. I remember that I sort of wanted that, too, because, again…how cool would that be?

Interestingly, now that the technology exists and is being actively tested, it turns out that there are some interesting legal ramifications involved, beyond the social questions of whether or not we trust our programmers to be able to prevent our cars from getting us into accidents.

Beyond the theological implications of technological development, there is a world of legal quagmire here. Our progress, in short, is decades ahead of our legal system. Inventors, as it were, travel at warp speed, while law-makers remain in sub-space. Nowhere can this be seen more readily that in the privacy debates that dominate our headlines on a regular basis, to say nothing of how the copyright system struggles to keep up with the unprecedented availability of music, film, and literature available at a moment’s notice.

I’m fascinated at the age in which we live. The technological advances that have occurred since my grandparents’ generation is unprecedented, and now, in my generation, the legal system is scrambling to keep up, largely at the behest of those who stand to make the most money in the new age (as usual). The number of things that could change on a moment’s notice to be no longer free, or to be completely illegal, alternately mystifies and scares me. What is constant is that I’m always amused at how the legal system perpetually moves at a proverbial snail’s pace to attempt regulation of the information sharing that has changed the face of mankind.

I think that, by the time they’ve caught up with our current position, that we’ll be decades further ahead. Which leads me to wonder: what does this sort of information and artistic availability look like with a wholly incapable system of regulation in place? I think we will continue to see the answer to that question play out in the years to come.

Photo Attribution: visual velocity pc

All The News That’s Fit to Print

I think it was around a year ago that my friend Katherine introduced me to the Story of the Week blog, and it went immediately into my RSS reader. The blog is a project of the Library of America, and offers a free, downloadable piece of fiction, poetry, dispatch, etc. each week. Take what you want to read, leave what you don’t…I periodically find myself dropping their weekly offering onto my e-reader for future perusal.

Twice I’ve read true crime pieces from this site, including this weekend. This most recent piece was a re-print of the journalistic account of a grisly murder in Iowa in 1900, and is collected in True Crime: An American Anthology. At 17 pages, its a fast read, and was an intriguing way to end my weekend.

Reading this collection of newspaper articles by the same journalist, I was struck by the writing style. I’m amazed at how the quality of writing in articles from 1900 is so much better than articles written today. The pacing, the use of language, the vocabulary…all of superior quality. I realize, though, that newspapers, which are only one generation from extinction today, were the primary means of communicating events at that time, and people sat down to read these true stories that were occurring around them. Just as today’s video-based or radio journalism continues to hold an entertainment component, so those stories were told in a such a way as to present the facts in a manner that kept the reader engaged. This was not the inverted pyramid of print journalism as we know it. This was storytelling.

While these accounts seemed a bit sensationalist is their own right (perhaps its impossible to do journalism without a touch of this), I found myself thinking that I just don’t read this quality of storytelling in journalistic endeavors any more. Even weightier news sources, such as the New York Times or the BBC, condense their offerings to make them more quickly read and more easily digestible. This is a product of an online culture, I realize, in which we seem constantly pressed for time as we scan information in increasing quantities, all the while hyperlinking across the Internet to this or that reference in the middle of an article.

There are still sources of good storytelling in our news media today. I typically find them in magazines more than mainstream news…publications such as the New Yorker or the Atlantic present commentary on current events with a more literary feel, analyzing aspects of modern happenings of which the reader was likely unaware. Of course, these publications are just that: commentary. You don’t pick up the New Yorker every week for breaking news.

Now, I don’t think media outlets can find a way to package breaking news headlines in poetic language if they are to present them at the speed of our information age…at least I never found a way to do so in my journalism days. But, I think that more care with the language could be afforded. While commentary lends itself more easily to storytelling, I don’t think we have to divorce our news articles from the art altogether. There’s just something more substantive to the events of which we’re reading when this is done…they seem more real.

Perhaps another issue at play here is the fact that the distinction between commentary and news is now blurred in a confusing manner. I spent most of journalism days writing op-ed pieces. When I did so, they were separated from the news sections, because they were commentary, not news. The reader understood the difference by the column’s placement in the paper.

Today, American media outlets refuse to present just the news. They wrap the headlines in impromptu commentary and run their commentary as news. The result is not op-ed, but propaganda for the political leanings of a particular media outlet. No longer is the viewer or reader trusted to make up his or her own mind after being presented with “just the facts.”

Unfortunately, the public’s ability to do so will then atrophy, like a muscle that hasn’t been used in too long. Most viewers or readers don’t want to spend the energy to think critically about current events, even though they are perfectly capable. They want someone to tell them what to think.

And that is worlds away from hearing someone’s thoughts or reasoned perspective on an issue. Because that is real commentary, the stuff of good op-ed columns: a different perspective on the events at hand, presented as a perspective, and offered as thoughts to be considered.

I’m fascinated to watch as the line between journalism and commentary blurs, and takes the care of the language down with it, digressing into a psychologically-crafted collection of buzz words and persuasion intended to foster groupthink among the viewers, and resulting in inflammatory rhetoric that only does harm, and not good.

We really need a return of good, balanced storytelling. And I don’t just mean in fiction. Because we really are smart, folks. We really are capable of thinking for ourselves and making up our own minds about the issues at hand.

We really don’t need someone to cross the line and start thinking for us.

I promise.

Photo Attribution: salimfadhley

The Proof of Bad Writing

Just a couple of quick thoughts, delayed by Blogger’s recent outage.

We were watching Bones last night. I think the writers may actually be pulling that show back from the train-wreck that they permitted it to become. After we finished the most recent episode, Hulu sort of automatically plays episodes of similar programs. This time it chose to play Body of Proof, which is essentially a cheap attempt to copy Bones. Apparently, television networks simply copy the success of others if they can’t come up with anything original (read: most of the time). I don’t recommend Body of Proof: it’s written poorly, the characters are stereotyped, and the directing…well, the directing…

I looked up from reading whatever it was I was reading in the middle of the show, because it had digressed into background noise for me. The scene that was taking place when I looked up involved the protagonist talking to a child in a living room. Her partner enters the scene behind her, standing next to the front door of the home, and tells the protagonist that they have to leave. She acknowledges her partner, says goodbye to the child, and then exits the scene…off to the viewer’s left, leaving her partner standing beside the front door behind her. The show promptly cut to the next scene.

What???

That sparked some conversation in our living room. I feel bad for the actors. I feel bad for them because I can’t tell how good they are, and, if I never see them cast in anything else, I’ll never know, and always have a bad impression of them. I’ve worked in a lot of live performances in my life, and, although most of that time has not been on stage, I’ve learned some important things. An actor can be incredibly gifted, but if they’re working under poor direction…and especially if they’re working under poor direction of a poor script…they’re going to look like they don’t know what they’re doing.

There are other examples, though, of actors that have saved projects with just a little extra help. I’ll use The Happening as an example. The Happening is the only screenplay I’ve seen from Shyamalan that wasn’t outstanding…all of his other films have been superb. The Happening was, however, well directed, and gave the actors, especially Zooey Deschanel and Mark Wahlberg, an opportunity to work with the screenplay in a way that breathed some sort of life into it. Deschanel, in particular, literally transformed some of the scenes with facial expressions alone. The film wouldn’t have survived without their excellent performances, and the direction that permitted them to develop those performances.

My issue with Body of Proof is that it has neither. The direction is poor, and the writing is forced, contrived, and even melodramatic at times. The actors, as a result, appear clueless. Here’s to hoping I manage to see these actors in something else sometime…I’d love to see what their abilities truly are.

A Review of “Thor”

I’m a comic book, super-hero geek.

Try to hide your surprise at this revelation.

When I saw the trailer for Thor, my initial reaction was that it looked really sharp. The plot? I figured it could go in either a really good, or a really bad, direction. My weekend was made very happy by the fact that the former was true.

From an acting perspective, the major actors all turned in excellent performances. Chris Hemsworth captured the character of the cocky immortal who needs to learn his lesson well, and I was impressed with his physical mastery of the character and the fact that he brought a good range to the performance. I have no recollection of Hemsworth from Star Trek or his other work, so this was essentially his debut performance for me. I was impressed.

I found myself equally impressed with Natalie Portman’s performance. While she perhaps didn’t bring as much range to her performance as Hemsworth, she breathed life into her scenes with fantastic facial expressions, which are a tell-tale sign of good acting. This was a pleasant surprise for me, because casting Portman opposite any actor playing Thor seemed a remarkably odd choice at first blush. The screenwriters, of course, took some liberties with Portman’s character, Jane Foster, but this should ultimately be expected with film adaptations, and will be a problem only for the most devout of comic book purists. Even then, the chemistry between the two actors will likely salvage any contrarian opinion.

From a plot perspective, the story stays true to Marvel’s immortal character who is modeled after the thunder god of Norse mythology. His reckless love of warfare finds him unfit to inherit his father’s Asgardian throne, and places him in the position to uncover his brother, Loki’s, nefarious plots, while he grows as a person (helped along, of course, by Jane Foster). Character development runs light in Thor, but the viewer doesn’t miss it so much because this is epic, sweeping story telling, of the sort that is all about plot and little about characterization. In short, this film isn’t meant to develop deep characters, it is meant to introduce the audience to an epic hero.

And, in that, it is successful. The lead-in to the upcoming Avengers film is quite blatant, and certainly left me wanting more. Long-term comics fans will like to know that the movie also briefly introduces Hawkeye…just enough to get you interested, of course (and the child in the row in front of me asking his father, “When’s Hawkeye coming back?” made the moment for me, in any case). I found interesting that the end credits close with the proclamation that “Thor will Return in the Avengers,” sort of reminiscent of the old James Bond films.

The epic, sweeping storytelling is, of course, a visual feast. Nothing pleases a comic book fan more than when the super-hero on the screen looks like the super-hero on the page, and, in that regard, Hemsworth could not have been cast, or costumed, better. My only hesitation is that Mjolnir is designed perhaps a bit too much like the image from the page, because it felt like a prop at times, almost breaking the illusion. This especially occurred when others attempted in vain to lift the hammer, and I found myself thinking, “it looks like cardboard.” The only other significant visual discrepancy I found was the semi-Celtic design left in the ground when Asgardians arrive in our realm. The design has no explanation, other than to look interesting. I suppose that, if that was its only purpose, it succeeded.

These minor issues notwithstanding, the combat sequences were well choreographed but not overbearing, and the balance between live action and CG was superb and without distinction as you watch the film. In fact, I would say the action sequences featuring Thor in battle are visually perfect, complete with the spinning hammer and slinging, hammer-propelled flight. In this, you won’t be disappointed.

The finishing touch on this particular super-hero film is that parents will not feel uncomfortable taking their children for any reason. There is, in my mind, absolutely no objectionable content here for parents to concern themselves about, and that is important for a film about a mainstream super-hero such as this. Important, and a delicate balance to strike if the film is to do the character justice.

And it does.

Thor opened this weekend. If you grew up loving Marvel comics, as I did, or if you have just recently become enamored with their films or publications, you’ll want to see this movie. Certainly, it is one of Marvel’s best film adaptations to date.

Photo Attribution: popculturegeek

How Critical Is Our Story

I love when I hear an amazing new perspective on something, a fresh way of seeing things that would never have occurred to me otherwise, or at least not anytime soon.

I listened to a podcast this week with Dana Gioia, in which he discussed the importance of arts education in the U.S. I’m always ultra-sensitive to this subject. It seems that, whenever I hear education or education reform discussed in the U.S., the emphasis is always placed on science, math, and technology. All of these disciplines and areas of expertise are very important, and I don’t claim that they’re not. I’m troubled, though…perpetually troubled…that so little emphasis is given to arts education. Most public schools have obligatory music programs (the marching band, after all, is a staple of half-time shows), and an old Broadway musical is often performed at the end of the year. In general, however, if a school board had to cut a position and the choice fell between a visual arts instructor or a physical science teacher…well, you and I both know who is most likely to be brushing up their vita.

For our empirical data-driven, evidence-based culture, there is hard data to quantify the increased odds of success in various aspects of life that connect with a history of music education. Theatre holds huge opportunities for learning team-work, teaching acceptance and self-esteem. The visual arts or photography hone visual acuity in huge ways. The list could go on. I’m struck by how we complain about the distress of our youth culture…or the distress of the adults in our culture, for that matter…while not investing in the artistic experiences that make us better as people.

Gioia connects this personal development with literature, as well. He talks about the importance of everyone growing up with a basic understanding of story and plot, and how they move. His assertion of this alludes to the fact that our lives are stories, and that the hopelessness and desperation that drive depression and extreme acts of self-harm, for example, are easily attributed to no longer being able to see a plausible and successful direction for one’s own story. Knowing that there are always a myriad of possibilities for every story gives the reader hope that the protagonist will still make it through…likewise in our own stories.

And this is to say nothing about the ability to effectively communicate our thoughts respectfully to each other.

This is more of the interdisciplinary thought process of which I’ve grown so enamored…the Burkian principle that every discipline serves as a lens through which every other discipline can be viewed and understood. I look forward, hopefully not in naivete, to when we weigh the arts (and humanities in general) as heavily in our support as the disciplines that make us financially and vocationally competitive with the rest of the world, because we realize that the humanities make us more mature as human beings, which makes us better able to use the skills that make us competitive vocationally.

Gioia spoke more eloquently of the interdisciplinary understanding of our lives and human condition than I have heard in some time. His call for an emphasis in arts education is something that all of us would do well to heed with whatever circles of influence in which we may find ourselves.