Augmented Vision
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Aerothorn" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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08:34 pm
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The Dark Legacy
I don't have evidence of it, but I would not be at all suprised that Twin Peaks was the first show (outside of soap operas) to use the "previously on" device, and at the very least would have been instrumental in popularizing it. The DARK SIDE of its legacy.
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05:16 pm
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The Downside of Living with Americans...
...is that they're all going out to Thanksgiving dinners. Everyone, apparently, except me, because I wasn't invited to any (which is particularly bad when all the people you're sitting next to are talking about the feat they're all attending). I don't like most Thanksgiving food so it's not a huge deal, but it does remind me just how isolated I am.
This will be more of a problem in two days, when it's my birthday. I currently haven't thought of anything special to do for it. You can't really have a birthday party with one person.
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10:06 pm
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Differences
Trying to sum up, in one sentence, my issues with the one person at Goldsmiths who really gets on my nerves: "Peter is the kind of guy who thinks that smoking is cool."
Then I realized that it would also be pretty accurate to say "Dylan is the kind of guy who thinks that smoking isn't cool."
A tough gap to bridge!
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09:39 pm
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"Diane, I'm holding in my hand a small box of chocolate bunnies."
Given that it had its own damn magazine, I'm not going to be offering any new takes on Twin Peaks or its pilot (which I have just finished viewing). Still, a few notes for me, a 21st Century Viewer:
It is not what I was expecting. This is good. I was led to believe that it was incredibly weird and surreal. It's not. I wouldn't call it standard fare, but it's non exactly violating any laws of reality. I get the impression that this impression of it as really weird stems from later in the second season - while I've purposly kept myself in the dark about plot specifics I know the history of the production, and the major change that happens in the middle of the second season. Anyway, it's suprisingly easy to get into. I imagine part of this is also that I'm approaching this as someone whom grew up in a post-Twin-Peaks TV universe; I imagine much of what made it fresh and startling has since been co-opted by other shows.
That said, a few things stand out. First, the audio is very unusual, eschewing a normal TV score (with the exception of the title theme). I swear, they were playing something like ska half the time.
Also, I have NEVER seen this many speaking roles in a televison series, certainly not in a pilot! The cast is HUGE! I imagine they could afford this as they were using entirely unknowns and character actors, and I suspect they shot largely on location rather than using lots of sets. Which is the other detail: this makes me homesick. The mountains! The trees! The diners! I want Washington back.
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02:27 pm
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I Am Pretend Rich
It is fun to be pretend rich, sometimes. Amassing massive wealth in an RPG, or successfully playing virtual political future markets. Of course, the net effect of the latter is that you wish you'd been playing it for real. The latter is always scary in its prediction: currently only 5% think a public option will be approved. Yikes! I'd be making tiny gambles on this stuff if it was legal in the USA. Damn, maybe I *should* have opened that English bank account.
Anyway, on the virtual money front, Gamespot claims that the current value of my game collection is $8,395. This value has been horrifcly broken since its introduction many years ago, and it seems to have actually gotten worst, possibly because a greater section (though still small) of my collection is free and/or cheap indie games.
Basically, they've calculated that each of my games is worth $20. I wish!
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09:17 pm
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TOMORROW WAS ANOTHER DAY
Just in case I haven't emphasized enough that Goldsmiths College is Brazil, I'd like to bring you these directions for turning in my final paper. Keep in mind that at Hampshire, the process is "hand it to the professor." Here, I have to hand it into the departmental office. But that's not all!
"POLITE NOTICE TO STUDENTS
Any coursework handed in to this office must be accompanied by a completed STANDARD COURSEWORK COVERSHEET which includes your receipt.
Coversheets are available from room G16 (behind you to the left of the porter's desk).
PLEASE NOTE:
*We are unable to supply you with stationary.
*You should complete your paperwork before entering this office.
*You can go to the Library in the Rutherford Building if you need a pen, a stapler, a photocopier/printer or a place to collate your work.
Only work receipted before 4.00pm will be considered within the deadline.
IF YOU ARE STILL IN THE QUEUE AT 4.00PM YOUR WORK IS LATE."
Highlights of this announcement include:
1. A complete lack of explanation as to what the fuck the coversheet is or what they mean by "receipt"
2. A complete lack of explanation as to why this is necessary.
3. The claim that room G16 is "behind me and to the left." As if they somehow know where I'm going to read this.
4. Their claim that I can get a stapler at the library. This is a lie. I have looked.
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06:22 pm
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Some Ideas on FINDING JOURNAL ARTICLES
So I've spent hours today trying to track down a copy of Zavattini's manifesto on Italian Neo-realism titled "Some Ideas on the Cinema." And I haven't been able to. It's really, really frustrating, and while it's not strictly necessary to write my paper, it will provide the grounding I strongly desire.
Of course, doing a search for it in one database, it instead gives me an article by the instructor of the class. Weird.
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03:33 pm
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argh
The level of misinformed commentary on the new mammogram recommendations is driving me insane. Seriously, maybe you should READ THE REPORT before criticizing it.
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10:57 pm
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Damn you, good graphics
Depressing but accurate quote from Eurogamer's Retrospective of No One Lives Forever
"You simply couldn't make No One Lives Forever today. You couldn't because it would be too long, require far too many assets, and most significantly of all, risk all the cost of development on a comedy game - a genre that no longer exists. Its international scale, its enormous volume of content and its emphasis on making you laugh add up to something that feels like it's from another age - an age before an FPS lasted six hours and cost $250 million."
It's true. Back then you could get away with this massive stuff on account that it didn't take *that* much effort to create the art assets. Now...not so much.
Also, why the fuck are there (a few surgent adventure games aside) no outright comedy games these days? It's BIZARRE. Gaming has to be the only medium without an established comedy genre. And comedy FPSes...well, I think NOLF was the first and last.
Man, I need to play that again....it's been a good seven years at least, given that I lent it out in eighth grade. What a great game. I feel like it's been largely forgotten.
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09:37 pm
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damn you, optimism
no more optimism for me when it comes to migraines
Frequent scenario: I start getting a migraine in the evening. I don't take eccedrin because I don't want to be up all night, so I wait to see if it will go away on its own. It doesn't. By the time I take eccedrin, it's already gained momentum and hurts like a bitch, AND I stay up really late anyway. Fabulous.
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01:01 pm
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Impressions of Waking Life
Author's note: These impressions are based on the first 36 minutes of the film. See why below.
Pretty late to the party here, but feel like writing this down regardless.
The back of the DVD makes it sound like Waking Life is intended as a serious examination of "life's most important questions." This is bullshit.
Basically, what we're shown is a progression of talking heads cherry-picking pieces of science and philosophy to justify their world-views. Which is par for the course, except so often the philosophy is only shallowly understood and the "scientific facts" are flat-out wrong (this is most egregious in the "bedroom/reincarnation" scene). So I'm tempted to just write the film off.
Except that I think that would be selling Linklater short, based on what I know about him and what I've seen of his work. One assumes he notices these incongruities, and decides to focus the film on these conversations anyway. This, the film is not intended as an educational primer, but as sort of a sociological examination of how "common people" justify their world-views and grapple with thought experiments in the 21st century. Which makes things more interesting.
The problem is that it is really, really repetitive. I almost always finish films I start, yet 36 minutes into this I just couldn't bear it anymore. I'd already gone through at least 10 essentially identical scenes - each discussing a different philosophical/scientific concept, but presented in the same ways, argued in the same ways, and carrying about as much weight (which is to say, very little). Maybe if I was in a more patient mood, or was watching this with other people, I'd have finished it - but moving at a snail's pace, with no interconnecting plot or characters or anything to keep me interested, I just didn't have anything driving me to continue.
Hopefully Eternal Sunshine will have a solid enough grounding to support its pretensions, though I have my fears. Regardless, I'm gonna have to do work now. Sigh.
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12:05 pm
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How To Get A Lazy Man to Exercise
So I went off to get some DVDs from the library, as (due to my weird mood today and the fact that I have way too much free time) I decided to take a break BEFORE I started working on my film paper. Browsed through the film racks, looking for films that were A. on the shorter side, and B. ones that most everyone had seen and thefore would not be great for movie night. I ended up with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which I have long avoided out of a reticence to see yet another amnesia-based film) and Waking Life.
Anyway, as I was about to leave the library I noticed that it was raining. Hard. Like, really hard. Like, Hollywood-rain-machine torrent. So I exit the doors and immediatly start running.
As my luck would have it, I'm running exactly counter to blustery winds, meaning that A. my thick pants soak through in a matter of seconds (seriously, I'm not sure I've ever seen this much water in the air) and B. fatass raindrops are flying at high speed into my eyeballs - the the point where both my eyeballs get a bit bruised - so I'm forced to run most of the way half-blind.
Anyway I run and run until I get back, my lungs burning for many minutes thereafter. I change my sweatshirt and pants, go into the kitchen for some water...and notice that the rain has dropped to a steady fall. Which, if I had used my brain, I would have realized would happen - that kind of rainfall is simply unsustainable in this climate. Sigh.
On the upside, it fixed my Cowlick from Hell (more pictures of that later).
P.S. Now my scalp burns. Acid rain?
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07:35 pm
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Hollywood and Writing
Currently in the middle of watching Barton Fink (my attention span is pathetic today, hence me taking a short blogging break despite liking the movies) and I realized: there are almost no films about writing. There are some films (though still not a lot) about writers, but in my experience they tend to focus more on their personal lives than their craft.
This is unusual to me because, by definition, every screenplay is written by a writer, and people usually spend a lot of time writing about they areas they know best. Is it because writing is non-visual, and therefore a story that examines the process of writing does not belong in a visual medium? I dunno. Mind you, I'm not saying there should be a plethora of films on the subject; just that I find it odd that there aren't more than there are.
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04:25 pm
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MOVIE NIGHT
Finally dragged myself through Ladri di Biciclette again. Crappy copy didn't subtitle have the dialog but fortunately the library had a copy of the (fully translated) script, so I can use that to quote in my paper. Trying to decide if I'm doing Ladri di Saponette today or tomorrow.
But most importantly I checked out a copy of Barton Fink! Gonna watch that! Woo!
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02:25 pm
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Revenge of the Hampshire Ego
Found this posted on the Hampshire intranet:
"Do you love to hate Twilight?
Think Edward should have just nommed Bella's whiny ass first chance he had? Wanna barf every time Bella says...well, anything? Totally psyched to go see New Moon and make it into a snarky interactive movie a la Rocky Horror?
As a self proclaimed lolfan, I'm insanely delighted to go see the recent film adaptation of what is probably the most disturbing/terribly written/hilarious series in quite a while. Wanna come with me and add our own voiceovers?
Opening night is sold out, but I figure sometime during the day on Friday we'll still be able to giggle/gag at the Twihards."
Now, I have no intention of seeing anything related to Twilight, but this is lame beyond words. Basically, you don't like something and enjoy making fun of it, great. Going to a packed theatre and ruining the movie-going experience of 100 others for the kicks of yourself and one or two friends is such a violation of the utilitarian calculus that it hurts my brain. Honestly, I think* that such actions would fall under the "fighting words" doctrine and therefore I could feel free** to sock them.
*I' don't actually this this but I wish it were true
**This is not what Fighting Words actually means
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12:09 pm
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Stiff Upper Lip
So to counterbalance all my bitching about Goldsmiths etc. (which even I’VE become tired of) I am going to have a HAPPY POSITIVE THINKING entry. Things I Like in London, Part 2 1. Tea! I haven’t bought a ton, mind you, but at the beginning of the year I bought a very cheap “green tea and fruit” variety mix of Twinings tea, and it’s REALLY GOOD. The price-to-quality ratio in tea here is so much better. No suprise, of course. Maybe Americans have better coffee? Probably not outside of Seattle, though. 2. Digestive Biscuits. Again, despite being really really cheap, all varieties of McVittie’s Digestive Biscuits are oh-so-addictive. I am ashamed at how many I have been consuming lately – to the point where I likely won’t buy them again for the rest of my trip, because I just can’t control myself. 3. Chocolate. I don’t normally like chocolate, but Cadbury’s is yummy. You’ll be noticing a pattern here in regards to calories. I imagine I’ve gained a good bit of weight in London and lost what little muscle mass I built up over the summer. Gonna have to exercise when I get back to Hampshire. 4. …..okay, so food is the only thing I’ve got here. Hmm. Happy Plans for the Future I am an anxious person. This is not fun. The upside of my anxiety is that it drives me to get to work on things a lot earlier than my peers. This means that, as of Tuesday, I have only one essay left (and possibly a re-write of the race paper). While I have absolutely no idea what I am going to say in my film essay, I am confident that upon re-watching the repesctive films I’ll be able to fill space. Research is the most time-consuming process of these sorts of things, but if I understand it I’m not really required to do lots of outside reading – applying critical analysis to the films should be good enough. Which means I’m going to have lots of free time before I go here. My gameplan is that, as my departure date looms, I will feel more guilty for not using my London experience, meaning I will get myself to go out to museums and events and stuff because I know I’ll hate myself if I don’t and the last thing I need in my life is more self-loathing. So – difficulties in a possible rewrite of my race essay aside – it should be smooth sailing from here on out. Hooray! Tonight I am going to go to a release party. At a bar. that starts at 10:00. Probably with lots of annoying electronica that I hate. I am making no promises about actually staying around if I hate it, but I am going to get off my butt and at least give it a shot.
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10:56 pm
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Quite Possibly The Best Youtube Video Ever
Doc Louis tells it like it is.
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08:37 pm
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I Whine Like Granola
Pringles has a new, video-game-inspired ad. Check it out before reading on.
( Read more... )
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01:51 pm
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damn me
So apparently I've been too efficient (even though I haven't been *that* efficient). I'm done with the first draft of my race essay, and now have to wait to see if it needs to be revised, and I don't want to move onto my (awful, no good) European Cinema essay till after then. So I have nothing to do. I'd wander around the city, but
A. We're finally hitting real blusterry winter weather, making aimless wandering somewhat unpleasant, and
B. I can't really buy anything given that what little extra room I had in my suitcase has now been more than taken up with new books, so shopping is out (not that I really like to do that).
So basically, it's find a nice museum or movie or something. I'll think of something.
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10:54 am
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Sarah Palin - Cannibal?
Excerpt from Going Rogue:
"If any vegans came over for dinner, I could whip them up a salad, then explain my philosophy on being a carnivore: If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?"
The problem with this argument is that it justifies eating people.
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