Roman Numeral J

As yet unused pun names for hair salons

2011-11-20T09:33:00.002-06:00

Please feel free to make use of the names below for your own future endeavors for a small, one-time fee*:

Hair Brains
Hairstory
Ken Sideburns': Haircut
Locks, be a Lady Tonight!
The Mane Idea

* Please deposit $8.35 into the Paypal account associated with this blog for use of any of the above names. Fees are to be paid only one time and you will then own all rights associated with the name of your particular shop. Note, if your shop goes out of business and you open another shop by the same name, you will need to pay the fee again, but if you relocate your business without dissolving the business, you may use the same name at the second shop. Also, you may add "II" or "Too" to any of the above names when opening a second location for no additional charge.

On the Dangers of Nostalgia (and Apocalyptic Thinking)

2011-11-13T10:21:00.044-06:00

Last night I attended my annual foray into reminiscing musicality and general old time-i-ness at the Badger Chordhawk's annual Barbershop Show in lovely Janesville, Wisconsin. This year's theme was "remember the good old days" (which is it's theme every year), but this time, on the radio. Live Radio - See it with your Ears! was a collection of classic Americana tunes interspersed with schlocky vignettes inspired by early radio programs.

This morning, reading Michael Chabon's Maps & Legends, it occurred to me that this mode of nostalgic thinking is the candy-colored cousin of the dystopian fiction of science fiction films, novels and graphic novels. Chabon examines Howard Chaykin's American Flagg!, which is set in a post-apocalyptic, corporate-ruled world, where anyone who can afford to has relocated to the suburbs, as it were, on the new Mars colony.

His next chapter (about Cormac McCarthy's The Road) and two chapters after that (about Ben Katchor's Julius Knipl: Real Estate Photographer) further explicate Chabon's theories of dystopic and nostalgic thinking. He never says so (and may not realize), but these two modes of thinking are the

Source: ComicsAlliance.com

same. The nostalgia packed into the Chordhawk's erstwhility is an effort to ignore the present by idealizing the past. The "good old songs" (some of which are great songs and others that are best forgotten) essentialize and simplify the era they come from just like songs today do. The function of this nostalgic thinking is to focus attention on the non-existent past rather than the all-too-real present.

So too, post-apocalyptic stories (stories about how the future is so bleak and we are so doomed that we may as well just accept the present as is and distract ourselves while we wait for the inevitable collapse) are arguments for stasis, for inaction. On the surface, dystopian stories (zombie narratives, say) might be read as warnings of what might come to pass if we do not take some course of action or do take another, but on further examination they are typically peopled with future nostalgialytes, pining for what's been lost. In these narratives, characters re-enact the pre-apocalyptic traits and activities responsible for the blindness that causes the fall in the first place: empty bourgeois sentimentality (as in Terra Nova), rampant (also empty) consumerism (as in Dawn of the Dead), misplaced loyalty to institutions that lose their meaning once the world changes (as in The Postman or Jericho).

Nostalgia is a mode of remembering as we want to, with little attention paid to actualities. There's a comfort in the past because it is untouchable. The now (jetzt-Zeit) is hard, because of its potentiality and the future daunting because of its uncertainty and fluidity. Then is easy because it can't come back and contradict you. Apocalyptic thinking also negates the present by forsaking it, giving up on it. If the future is certain (not necessarily defined, but certainly lost) then the now is drained of its revolutionary potential. It is jetzt without jetzt-Zeit.

When in, of course, the human events...

2011-10-26T17:50:00.000-05:00

, being "necessarily" dissolved by some people (if, indeed, corporations are people), we assume it among the powers of the earth. That is to say, natural - "that's life" - sort of stuff.

I was reading Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" this morning and it occurred to me that it occurred to him how arbitrary our form of government is (or forms of government are). In his tracing of the formation of governments out of the state of nature*, Paine sets out a natural progression from absolute, direct democracy to a representative form of government once the number of people makes everyone attending the meetings untenable.

This got me thinking, though, how a truer form of democratic republicanism might be found in the form of a selected government, rather than an elected form. If all representatives were randomly selected during each (s)election cycle I wonder if we would do no worse (and possibly a great deal better) than where we find ourselves right now. Rather than a nation of the people (if corporations are people), by the people (if corporations are people), and for the people (if corporations are people) we would guide ourselves with a random sampling of our peers making decisions for a predetermined length of time (six, four or two year terms). We would be guided by polling data in a much more real and meaningful way - that is, the "deciders" would themselves be that polling data, a random, statistically significant set of data, each with their own individual motivations (but without the motivation of fundraising, pandering or party loyalty.)

7/31/11 - Jefferson Memorial

If memory serves, this idea has been posited before (I'm thinking perhaps of Plato's Republic or Sir Thomas More's Utopia - anyone remember?) and I'm quite sure of it myself, but in the spirit of Jeffersonian renewal of government, I put it out for discussion. I was reminded this summer of just how selective our collective memory has become when I saw again for the first time the Jefferson Memorial in DC. I was there with JP and George Etwire who we met on the bus into the city. George is from Ghana and was travelling to Utah on business. Like us, he had several hours to kill in DC before his next flight so we saw some sites.

Jefferson (and I would argue the rest of them, too) never intended for this to be The Constitution, in perpetuity. It must be a living document, both in how we read it and amend it, but also in the sense that it might (must?) grow, give birth to new ideas and eventually even die. The real Tea Party (the one before it was co-opted by corporate interests) might have known this, but the idea was lost in the ideological fervor of originalism. The Occupy Movement may also know it, but not admit to knowing it because of its efforts to appeal to the "middle of the roaders." (Calling the Occupy Movement extremist makes about as much sense as calling Barack Obama a Left Winger - while, as with anything, there is some fringe there, the majority line is fairly tame.)

What surprises me, though, is that it's been right in front of us since at least 1943 - 8th Graders have been carted past it for years - this is not a historical "argument", it's history.

* Very interesting is Paine's formulation of the state of nature as a "group of emigrants" come together (presumably as a displacing force of whatever happened to live there before) in a new, untouched land. This of course presumes a certain modern (or at least enlightened) sensibility in the people of the hypothetical age, whereas Rousseau's "state of nature" hearkens back to an earlier, more innocent humanity. Paine's Founders are always already colonizers (and therefore need governments to reign in their baser nature).

Occupied

2011-10-23T09:16:00.004-05:00

I think what might be most revealing in the “Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Everywhere” Movements is the extent to which we begin to understand that these young people, here there and everywhere protesting “get it”. They’ve seen through the façade that is work-a-day life and are opting out.

That is, I’m sure, making several assumptions on their behalf, but what I have earlier diagnosed as a certain flakiness amongst young people today (and I use that phrase with full knowledge of the codgi-ness that it seems to assign to me) is in fact nothing more than a state of recognition and scorn. Throughout our lives we are presented with a series of hoops through which we must jump – Do well in school; Get into College; Get a Job; Get a Wife; Get a “Life” (which might be translated “loan”); Have some Babies; Wait to Die.

These arbitrary hoops are not enough of an account for the Occupiers. For generations the fact that “this is what you do” has been enough for folks, but this lot now says, not necessarily “No”, rather “Really?”

Too Far Airfield

2011-08-16T17:00:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I completed what has been one of my most anticipated odd social experiments. I walked to the airport (and it wasn't that bad). Since moving to Milwaukee's alleged Garden District, I have frequently wondered what the experience would be like, walking to or from MKE, and last Friday I had the opportunity to test it. My hypothesis was that it would be difficult, dangerous or nearly impossible to accomplish what I had set out to do. Every time I had driven to or from the airport I had tried to make a mental note of various courses I would have to traverse,* without finding much of a hopeful way forward (or backward). To my chagrin, however, I found that the process of walking, at least to this one American airport, was really not much of a challenge.

On first approach, while leaving my immediate neighborhood and approaching the mega-block that is Mitchell International Airport, I was pleased to see my sidewalk end and some un-inviting looking fences and trenches seemingly blocking my path. Of course, I could have crossed over Howell Ave. and had an unimpeded walk, but this is clearly not the story I'm trying to tell here, so I trekked.

Presently, I came upon a side-road, upon which I assumed my pedestrations would be noted and carefully watched by Homeland Security and the TSA. There was some traffic on the road, though not a lot. I encountered exactly one fellow walker, who was wearing what looked like an airport badge, marking him as not the bourgeois-traveller class, but of the low-wage, service economy class we staff our airports (baristas, bartenders and security personnel alike) with. This, too, fit my narrative, so I duly scoffed again at my circumstances.

As I continued on my walk, however, I encountered a well-maintained and marked pedestrian walk (not pictured), which led me past the International Terminal. I was terribly disappointed to find that it is, in fact, quite easy to walk to the Milwaukee Airport.

Well done, you, Milwaukee. My outrage is quelled, once more, for one more day.

* Of course, the state of heightened emotion we generally enter when arriving or departing an
airport (or while actually at an airport) tends to distract from even the best-intentioned observer's stance.

Kafka-ish

2011-07-18T16:24:00.000-05:00

Kafka's "Auf der Galerie" is, all told, two sentences long.

It is theoretically possible to have a never-ending sentence in German.

Were you to write that sentence, it would, by definition, need to cover everything. "But then again, no", I guess we would need to add to this definition that the sentence would need to be an 'irrational' sentence (in the sense in which a number is irrational) - never ending and non-repeating.

This sentence would, in the end, I think, be Borgesian and the task of writing it, Sisyphean.

When I was wandering the library stacks last week (the Golda Meir library, that is, not Borges' or Babel's) I came upon the diaries of Franz Kafka. I opened to the entries, first randomly, then closest that day's date (July 14th, though I ended up reading the entries from May and September as Kafka seemed to have taken that summer off from writing). It occurred to me that Kafka was a bit of a whiner and his journals had no real academic or artistic merit, but I'm quite sure, if I were so inclined, I could find a bevy of dissertations on the subject.

"What am I doing hanging round?"

Progressive Voting Guide for Wisconsin - April 2011 Election

2011-03-28T18:15:00.003-05:00

Voting day is just in front of us and this year's election is of vital importance. As such, I am trying to collect together a Voting Guide to inform people of their options. As I've said before (brilliant idea #2), there needs to be a site that collects all elections and gives good information on EVERY race, from President to School Board to Coroner (what is a "republican" way of coroning?).

Find your polling place!

This is in no way meant to be an unbiased, non-partisan guide. Rather, I will try to inform you of the candidate that will make Wisconsin a better place. I am open to discuss (in comments here, when I see you next, or any other way) and will update this post with changes when I get better information, but I want to post this as soon as I can. Please let me know if you know of other races and any info you have on candidates.

Wisconsin State Supreme Court
JoAnne Kloppenburg is the clear choice here. She's running against incumbent David Prosser, a former Wisconsin State legislator who has refused to recuse himself from the Collective Bargaining case despite the fact of having served with Walker and others in the state legislature and virtually assured to vote in favor of the bill.

Kloppenburg will restore some badly needed balance to the State Supreme Court, which is currently weighted toward republican perspectives (Note: I do not mean conservative perspective, I mean republican).

Milwaukee County Executive
Though I'm not convinced that either candidate is ideal, Chris Abele seems to be the less bad (and perhaps actually good, I just don't know for sure). His opponent, Jeff Stone is a republican legislator who voted for Walker's Budget and the collective bargaining sham of a bill, so he is clearly a bad choice (and, incidentally, probably a bad person in general).

Milwaukee School Board
District 8
Again, I'm not 100% about this race. It seems like both candidates aren't ideal, but until we are fully committed to running quality progressive candidates at every level I guess I would lean slightly toward Meagan Holman, who at least seems smart. I hope someone sets me straight here if they know any better, but the only information I can find is onmilwaukee.com's coverage of the primary in February and their answers weren't necessarily substantively different, but very much stylistically different (or intellectually different).

Milwaukee County Circuit Court - Branch 18

Vote to retain Judge Pedro Colón, who I really know nothing about, but I like his smile. Oh, and he seems like a reasonable guy.

Workers Unite!

2011-02-18T15:39:00.001-06:00

For those in Milwaukee today, there's a rally against union

busting @ 4pm on the Corner of Water and Wisconsin.

Please show up in support of worker's rights.

It's a wonderful time and a terrible (in the original sense) time in Wisconsin. We're heading to Madison this afternoon. I think it's time to wake up in the United States. I'm as culpable as anyone I'm talking to - I see the systematic dismantling of lower and middle class rights in favor of corporate consolidation of power, but I'm not an activist.

I am always fully in support activism, I nod at protesters as I see them, but I'm an unskilled chanter and I never work very hard to re-arrange my schedule, nor do I ever have the audacity to walk away from my daily life, which is why what state workers (and their supporters) are doing across Wisconsin is so impressive.

By now you should know enough about the bill Governor Scott Walker is proposing. It's dangerous, for all of us, not just state workers. It's radical. It needs to be stopped (though it very well may not be).

What's more important, though, is that whatever the outcome of this particular battle the "Sleeping Giant that's been awakened" (to re-use Lane Hall's imagery from an email) not go back to sleep. Thanks to everyone who's been fighting the good fight for days, weeks, months, and years. I hear you, I'm awake and I will try not to go back to sleep.

A Renewal of Vows

2010-12-29T01:53:00.000-06:00

It's been nearly five months since my last published entry. Since that time I've become a "dissertator", seen a few of my best friends in the world who I'd lost track of, come to understand the nature of the universe, and adjusted my Netflix membership plan.

As such, I feel a renewed responsibility to account for the world around us (that's right, I can explain it to you... just keep reading). So it is, I will re-purpose Roman Numeral J as an outlet for not only (though still) an anachronistic chronology of my own life, but also a regular, reliable commentary on the culture and society which impacts said chronology. Therefore, it is my intention to write substantive, complex, confusing, and constructive criticism and commentary on any (random) collections of cultural artifacts.

My goal, then, is to write on a variety of topics (unfinished entries over the last five months include "Did The Secret cause the Recession?" and "Bitter Salt" {an article about Angelina Jolie's summer blockbuster}. I'll do this at least once a week for as long as this blog continues. Which means, the purpose and regularity of this blog will be changing. I'm never quite sure what it will be about, but it will now be about something (again?).

I think what is most compelling me to this change is something I've noticed during my last year and a half of academic work, namely the idea of the proprietarianship of academic ideas. At my preliminary exam defense, it was suggested to me that I'd naively misunderstood the thinking of an intellectual hero of mine. I disagreed, but more so, I was offended by the proprietary way a thinker was being talked about. Furthermore, in discussing various projects I've been working on over the last couple years I've been told alternately that what I was doing had already been done (or was being done) or that someone else wished they'd done what I was planning to do... it gets me to questioning what the point of all this work is exactly. So, Roman Numeral J will serve, henceforth as a sort of open source theory. I welcome all contributors, comments, dialogue. Let's get to work.

The Other Guys might be the second most interesting Will Ferrell movie EVER!

2010-08-06T16:44:00.048-05:00

I went to a showing of The Other Guys today, which I was actually quite looking forward to. I'm generally in favor of Will Ferrell and Mark Walberg is hilarious. I liked the premise and was hoping (though not expecting) something in the neighborhood of Hot Fuzz. What I found, though, which was entirely unexpected was a coyly intelligent critique both of corporate criminals and of Hollywood (or American mass media more generally) selling us a very specific propaganda which often goes unremarked.

Source: rottentomatoes.com

As the closing credits roll, The Other Guys serves up a bevy of Michael-Moore-y statistics about the recent history of corporate excesses. This was an embarrassment of under-estimating an audience, but the rest of the film provides a smart critique of bureaucracy, machismo and Hollywood cultural imagining. This happens blatantly in the "real live" reactions to explosions and (hilariously) in Mark Walberg's ballet expertise, which he mastered to make fun of a neighborhood kid who'd been taking ballet ("You learned ballet, ironically?") The strongest critique, though, is the parallel to The Untouchables and the history of Al Capone. For all the big-action excitement, first in the opening sequence with the Rock and Sam Jackson, and later in Mark Walberg's incessant desire for "some action" or constant suspicion of drugs being involved...in everything.

The real quality of a movie like The Other Guys, or any good comedy, really, is in its realism. The best jokes are funny because they state real, important truths. The best comedy is good because it says things that need saying. This movie is not just good because it satirizes action films, nor because it rightfully critiques corporate criminals. The movie questions our very enjoyment of the films it pokes fun of not because it thinks they are bad products (they are and they aren't, but that is irrelevant). Rather, it is the complex relationship that any major motion picture has to the underlying rampant capitalism that is being critiqued that makes this movie worth another look, a closer look.

No Thing Theory

2010-07-31T13:07:00.002-05:00

This morning I abandoned my bike next to a gas station. I also threw the old sheet i've been sleeping on the last week down a garbage chute. I'm planning to leave a dying pair of sandals and the toaster I bought when i got here too. Temporary status is an odd experience... one that I quite like, but i'm not sure i fully understand yet. To live in a situation which is definitely fleeting is, in some ways, a contradiction. It doesn't seem like it should be, i mean, we all do things temporarily - take a vacation, go to school, rent an apartmant, i mean even your whole life, right, is a temporary arrangement. Depending on your persuasion, it might brief layover, one of a sequence of repeating scenes, or the whole shebang, but it's temporal limitations are unavoidable (at least so far).

But to be stably fleeting in this already fleeting existence has been an odd experience over the last several weeks. I've always been a person who likes things - ephemera - objects, but since arriving in Miami none of my stuff (except my books, always always my books) matters much because it's 'miami stuff'. Stuff I will leave behind, or even if i don't, it's stuff I could leave behind.

I'm not sure what this adds up to necessarily, but it seems to me there's some sum worth discovering. Of course there's the cringe-worthy cliché about not letting your things own you or caring more about the people around you than the things around you, but ideas like these are clichés precisely because they are so wildly uninteresting. I'm also not the first to come to this less-than-brilliant conclusion. In the introduction of his recent bookThe Art of Life, Zygmunt Bauman discusses the same phenomenon as it relates to living arrangement and happiness. I've not read it all yet, but his thinking about the state of happiness seems somewhat in line with my own.

I've lost all track of what originally inspired this post, but i know it's something that means a lot to me. And i'm sure it's terribly important.

2010-06-10T00:34:00.001-05:00

On this date in history...

it seems I was feeling it might be all over. maybe I was right.

The Bird Contract

2010-04-14T12:31:00.000-05:00

Odd Side-Note: This post was actually written (but evidently not published) in April 2010, but when I went to post it it changed to yesterday's date. Not sure why this is as typically when I've done this, it posts on the date the post was originally written. Just an FYI if blogger has changed something and there start appearing oddly timed posts... [Solution Solved!]

Yesterday as i was walking from my parking spot to campus, i watched two male cardinals having a mid-air fight. They were frolicking, swooping, diving - seemed to be having an all-round good spring time together (or at least as much fun as I assume any wild animals have on a given day in an urban environment).

Then, as I watched, the one cardinal (who I've come to think of as 'evil cardinal') chased the other (innocent cardinal) toward the road and he was summarily hit by the windshield of a Toyota Camry. The erstwhile bird came to rest not 10 feet in front of me. A few of you may recall that this is not even my first run in with a bird dying at my feet. Needless to say i was taken aback and the rest of the day had a heavy quality to it, but nothing else really took place, but I am on notice. One bird tragedy is nothing to get worked up about and a second may just be a coincidence, but were i to find myself present at a third bird massacre I would feel compelled to take action.

—Right?

2010-02-10T08:15:00.004-06:00

When did everybody start saying "—right?" as a response to everything?

Has anyone else noticed this? There came a time (i think) when everyone decided that "right" was the appropriate response to just about anything.

I'm not sure exactly what it is, but suddenly everyone can say "right" after anyone says anything... and it's not just saying "right" it's asking, sort of, "right.

Anyone else noticed this? I thought it'd started just with a couple I'd met (Val & Sean - seriously, where did you get this), but now suddenly i found everyone saying "right?" after most everything i'd said...

Is this new, or just new to me?

"Building a New Country"

2010-01-17T10:52:00.007-06:00

*Note: Obviously, first and foremost, when talking about Haiti today, we need to think first about what we can do to help. Please go to www.clintonbushhaitifund.org or the American Red Cross to help...

In an interview this morning on Meet the Press, Bill Clinton (alongside W.) stated that what our project (or perhaps 'their project') in Haiti really is, is not so much "rebuilding their nation" after this most recent disaster, but more about "building a new nation". This distinction gets washed out in parsing out the term 'nation-building'. Given Haiti's unique history, from its founding, its early isolation, the crippling "debt" it incurred for revolting against French Slavery the idea of the United States imposing on Haiti any kind of political plan for moving forward is at best problematic. I'm not sure Haiti can fit into traditional models of 'development', 'democratizing', or 'nation-building' and attempts to apply cookie-cutter methods have resulted in (and will continue to result in) an undermining (an erosion, I suppose) of what is essentially Haitian.

It seems what's troubling, perhaps moreso in Haiti than elsewhere, is the familiar post-colonial critique of developing determinism, that is, the idea of a developed nation helping a less developed nation become more like the developed nation. With critiques of Haiti's very culture (from both the certifiably insane & purportedly credible) coming swiftly on the heels of unimaginable devastation,

During the interview, Bush was smiling way too much. And he used the word "Scheister"... He said that the advice that he'd pass on to the Obama is to not be discouraged by the fact that you can't always get aid moving quickly.

Meet the Press' historical setup of the U.S.' relationship with Haiti started in 1934, at the end of the U.S. occupation. It then goes on to 1994 when Clinton sent troops in to Haiti to re-instate Jean Bertrand-Aristide to power, skipping over 60 years of intentional ignorance - most of which involved the Pop & Jr. Duvalier regimes, which the US allowed to exist because it generally allowed us to institute our contemporary agricultural bill, which created favorable tariffs (for us, not them, natch) and convinced Haiti that its future was in 1) tourism 2) sugar cane (i.e. rum) 3) coffee or cotton or some crop that the US doesn't want to grow and sell you and heavily inflated prices (i.e. rice).

Untold Richness: A Knee-Jerk Review of Alan Lomax in Haiti

2010-01-06T09:52:00.004-06:00

Even on picking up this 10-disc, 2-book boxed set of the music of Haiti recorded in 1936-7 by folklorist Alan Lomax you are impressed by its weight (both literally and figuratively). The front cover sports the statement "Recordings for the Library of Congress". On the back, a sticker on the shrink wrap is the promise of the box' contents, books, music discs, a map with Lomax' original travel notes, and film footage of their visit.

But as with all good boxed sets, it is in the actual opening and exploring that you get most of your value. The first thing you notice opening the over-sized cigar box is the smell. There is a scent of sweet tobacco (already, unfortunately fading in mine) as if the box had been found and repurposed by Lomax himself and sent straight to you from 1937. The Notebook: Haiti 1936-1937 is attached to the cover, in a separate sleeve. The title is handwritten and the book looks like a bound notebook. It is a collection of letters, notes, and commentaries written by (and to) Lomax during his travels.

The second book contains the liner notes, written by Gage Averill and consists of lyrics (translated and in the original Creole), notes and pictures. A foreword is written by Lomax' daughter (?), Anna Lomax Wood and the entire project is impressively intricate and rigorous. The map (as well as two mini-photos, which seem tossed in as an afterthought) provide an oddly exciting tactility to the experience of listening to the lo-fi recordings.

On the whole, the set is an invitation to a lost time, just a few years after the U.S. Occupation ended (1934), and in being transported, you're also given the opportunity to understand that world thanks to the copious notes and commentaries.

The Choc-a-lonic

2009-11-28T23:14:00.005-06:00

Here's a superb after-dinner cocktail. After you've had a lovely dinner out (or in, i suppose), and are looking to wind down and taste something sweet (actually, this seems a bit TOO sweet, but it's really not, if you want a seriously boozy dessert cocktail) this is just about the perfect cocktail:

The Choc-a-Lonic

2 oz. vodka (chocolate vodka may be substituted {or partially substituted})
1 oz. Kahlua
1/2 oz. Frangelico
1/2 oz. heavy cream
1/4 oz. Cointreau
some chocolate sauce

Mix the first five ingredients (or reasonable substitutes) and shake them together vigorously in a cocktail shaker over ice. Line your martini glass with chocolate sauce (as much as you want). Pour into glass & get ready to enjoy. Seriously.

Grape Nuts & De Certeau

2009-11-14T12:26:00.002-06:00

everyday life, indeed...

a pretty nice little saturday

2009-10-25T22:27:00.003-05:00

On Saturday i went - with brooke, eric, bethany, shane, & grant - to the quaint (don't look up etymologies, as a general rule) little town of Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin. It was my first visit to Mt. Horeb, though i'd known it by reputation and street sign for more than a dozen or so years.

The drive there is the same drive (at least at the start - US Hwy 18) as the road to Decorah, so even en route, i am calm and content... On entering Mt. Horeb you pass through a series of roundabouts. The great thing about roundabouts is that you never quite have to stop & wait at them as you would a stoplight. The lousy thing about roundabouts is that Americans don't really quite get them... or trust them.

On arrival, after Rex Grossman walked around and screamed at people downtown, we made a brief stop at the Mustard Museum. There was quite a lot of mustard there.

After this visit, we moved on to the main stop, The Grumpy Troll, a well-run, really pleasant brew pub & pizzeria at 2nd St. & Main St. We sat downstairs, at the bar (the best way to get to know any place is to sit at the bar) and sampled some of the beers. The Troll's beers tend not to fall victim to the great failing of many micro (or home)-brews. Often a small brewing operation tends to rely too much on flavor, forgetting that beer-drinkers, in fact, enjoy beer. A chocolate stout tastes a bit much like chocolate, an ale with a hint of citrus too often gets drowned out by that citrus, but, for the most part, the Grumpy Troll avoids this pitfall. Their jalepeño beer (Slow Eddie) has just a touch of spice, on the finish, and adds a lovely compliment to a pizza (more on that in just a sec). Their only beer that does tend to fall victim to over-flavoration is the Maggie Imperial IPA and, in fact, the way it's over-flavored isn't offensive, rather, pushy. The Maggie measures 100 IBU's (International Bittering Units?), and is, in some ways, an IPA drinker's dream beer, but the bitter almost (but not quite) overpowers all else. In the end, the Maggie is good for a pint, but i'm not sure i'd want much more than that. The champion beer for me, though, was the CCCP Spetsnaz Stout, a lovely, dark stout with chocolate & coffee undertones.

Finally, at 4pm, the pizzeria upstairs opened. The pizza was some of the best i've found anywhere. I think maybe even better than (and certainly distinct from) Mamma Lilla's in Clinton, which is my favorite (comfort food) pizza. The crust was really quite good and they had several well-designed specialty pies. Also adding to the place's charm were the sort of retro video games, including a Sunset Riders knock-off in which we (Shane & I, natch) played some sort of mutant bulls...

After leaving the wonderful company of the Grumpy Troll, we headed back into Madison & hit the Great Dane Pub & Brewery at the Hilldale Mall in Madison. A diverting stop, though, no beer for me...

Finally, on the drive home we made a stop at Tyranena Brewery in Lake Mills, having some pints of their Pumpkin Spice Ale and Chocolate Porter as well as picking up a Growler of the Stone Tepee Pale Ale. And, with a gassy belly & a really quite mild beer buzz, we returned home to Milwaukee.

2009-10-23T14:56:00.001-05:00

on this date in history:

joel was awash in consumer electronics (and actually being read)

Lo-Fi Authenticity: a review of Paranormal Activity & Capitalism: A Love Story

2009-10-20T15:50:00.005-05:00

*Note: This entry went unfinished for a long time (currently writing most of it 13 January 2010), so it isn't very well thought through or specific... but that shouldn't do much to the credibility of RNJ as it is already in question (see rest of blog).

The fairly simple premise of both these films gets carried through to their structure and feel. What you've got here is a couple movies about terror (as opposed to horror) and an amateurish, 'thrown-together' feel, which makes the terror feel real.

Perhaps the best scene that tells this story is when Micah leaves a Ouija Board on the coffee table and (SPOILER ALERT!) the 'cursor' moves a little bit, it starts spelling something out, then starts on fire. This is a cliché more often than not, but it works because it looks like it HAS to be real, because there's no 'special effects' in this movie (because it looks like a home video, see).

What, you may be asking, is the distinction between terror and horror. Well, Ann Radcliffe thought that terror is the sensation of feeling immanent horror. Horror is actually experiencing the event.

***

I remember when I first conceived of this post and it was going to be so good... so interesting.
Sorry about that.

Oh, and there was a great parallel to Capitalism, but by this time it's pretty well gone, so... yeah, the economy is horrific... so that's that.

Zombie Day!

2009-10-09T15:21:00.005-05:00

For reasons inexplicable to me, Monday, October 12th will be zombie day at the UW-M Student Union. Max Brooks will be speaking at 7pm (unfortunately, it seems to be a "zombie preparedness presentation", but i'm holding out for a good Q&A).

Additionally, the UW-M cinema is showing Dead Snow, a Norwegian zombie, Nazi comedy. I haven't seen it, nor have I read a lot about it, but what I have heard has been generally positive. I'm looking for it to be a hilarious update on the French non-classic, J'Accuse.

But, in addition to both of these events (each exciting and worthy of note in its own right), there is also a lecture being given by Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, a professor of Africology called "Do Zombies Exist?"

Overall, Monday promises an array of zombie thinking, satirical zombie preparedness conversation, zombie comedy (zombedy?), & (hopefully) rigorous academic attention. Hope to see you all there.

***Updated: 19 October 2009***

Although I had the pleasure of meeting Professor Bellegarde-Smith after his talk (and he seems like he's a fascinating guy), I very much regret the extent to which he gave up the floor both to a documentary created for Canadian TV & to an open "discussion" of the question. While the documentary did make a fair number of claims, Professor Bellegarde-Smith, an (ordained?) Voodoo Priest merely talked around the issue - he seemed most interested (and this I got mostly from our conversation after the lecture) in the fact that Voodoo, unlike other mystical religions (Sufi, Zen, Kabbalah, even Native American religions) has never had any sort of modern renaissance. No young folks, looking for answers turned to Voodoo en masse as they seemed to many of the other mystical religions. This was accounted for because of race, but these claims didn't go much further, nothing more interesting was said, really.

Now, with Dead Snow, there really was absolutely no disappointment. The movie was quite funny, quite gory (the demise of movie geek Erlend is particularly gruesome {and simultaneously hilarious}). The premise of the movie is a lot like Evil Dead, except in Norway, with Nazis, in the snow...

Finally, Max Brooks' (evidently, son of Mel Brooks) talk was entertaining (and very well attended). Because the premise was a zombie-preparedness lecture, I wasn't too disappointed, but I did feel like his responses to the Q&A was overly glib. Something akin to Stephen Colbert appearing on other shows, still fully in character.

A Nigh Sci-Fi Guy

2009-10-07T16:10:00.007-05:00

For most of my life, i've generally tried to avoid being (or being perceived as) a total sci-fi (or SyFy, as the pre-eminent nerd station would have it) geek with a generally complete success.

1. The Stargate canonical viewing order -

- from a website called "Hixie's Natural Log" - The link seems a bit flickery (I find I can't often find it), so I quote it here. Hope you don't mind, Hixie (let me know if you do) & your work is much appreciated.

Stargate movie
Stargate SG-1, episodes 1.1 to 8.2
Stargate Atlantis, episodes 1.1 to 1.15
Stargate SG-1, episodes 8.3 to 8.20
Stargate Atlantis, episodes 1.16 to 2.1
Stargate SG-1, episodes 9.1 to 10.2
Stargate Atlantis, episodes 2.2 to 3.4
Stargate SG-1, episodes 10.3 to 10.12
Stargate Atlantis, episodes 3.5 to 3.19
Stargate SG-1, episodes 10.13 to 10.20
Stargate: The Ark of Truth
Stargate Atlantis, episodes 3.20 to 5.1
Stargate: Continuum
Stargate Atlantis, episodes 5.2 onwards.

2. Online Role Playing (via message board) - setherick & his friends are playing an old school dungeon crawl at the moment.

3. SyFy Network's original shows, I've actually gotten into a couple of them (and more to come from what I've seen)... Warehouse 13 wasn't a great show, but it was something to keep up with. There were characters you could sort of care about, and a lot of actors that looked like other actors... And Roger Rees (of my so called life fame - as the substitute teacher), who I just love. What was most fun about Warehouse 13, though, was the artifacts, the blending of literature with the literal - in many ways, this is my favorite type of text, that which blends what we all think, in fact, is with that which we assume is "fiction".

I've also gotten into another new SyFy show, Stargate: Universe. For (somewhat) overly-frequent readers, this isn't too much of an admission... I have in fact watched 6 seasons of the Stargate TV series, but the new series has the lovely benefit of the 'Lost Wanderer' premise that so many sci-fi shows have tried before (Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek: Voyager, ___(fill in the blank here)___).

On Soap

2009-08-11T18:34:00.004-05:00

I have now firmly decided that I prefer bars of soap to body wash. Not necessarily a new bar of soap (a song, by the way, written by a brief girlfriend of mine, Chrissy {sorry Chrissy}), but a mostly new bar of soap is far superior in a showering situation to me than body wash.

Despite the fact that body wash is much easier to transport (though not so by air), I would still prefer to tote it along because of the payoff. The experience of concave/convex on my body’s own concavities/convexities is really quite enjoyable (I notice that I seem to have several more convex parts than I once did). The ability to palm the soap and move it around easily and to never run short (until you do) instead of scrambling to get all the faraway parts. Bars of soap, you’re back in my life. Toiletries bag, get ready to accommodate the travel soap dish again, because I am back to being a bar of soap guy.

Sometime after college, I succumbed to the seduction of the loofa. Body washes came in such enticing smells (recently, in fact, i've showered with scents such as thin mint cookie, gingerbread, and eucalyptus) and the idea that while washing myself, i was also "exfoliating" was very exciting to me, but this evening, i was taking a shower and realized just what it was that i most love about a bar of soap... I love the way a bar of soap feels after I rub it two or three times over a three-day growth of stubble. It's like some kind of bizarre moon rock, or something, for the moments immediately following washing your face and that, in and of itself, is enough to make my day.

Other household/personal hygiene preferences:

1) I love cologne now, particularly old, possibly spoiled cologne. Not a cologne that makes me smell bad, but one that makes me smell odd, i just love. I mean, i also love good cologne, smelling sexy, or nice, or boisterous, but the cologne i have on just now is between 15 and 50 years old. It's a bottle of Montage found at the house discussed in this footnote. I also have my first bottle of cologne still, a bottle of Drakkar Noir... i haven't had the nerve to put it on since rediscovering it since I got it in high school, from... um... __(insert name here?)__

2) to be continued...

Oh Fwuck...

2009-07-27T00:00:00.004-05:00

Sorry... i am now a part of Twitter... and by tweetLaw (a subordinate of generally accepted law), i cannot keep this a secret.

I tweet. I guess i'm tweeting at my twitter site.. I can't promise much, i Can't promise anything, really... (if you ever read this blog, you can clearly understand what i'm de-promising here), but the forum is interesting to me (not just because of the fweakin' Iranian elections...) so we'll see how it goes.

Follow me...

Does this make me a 'commish'?

2009-07-21T21:54:00.005-05:00

Tonight, as i was watching Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire in an effort to prepare my wife & me for seeing 'the new one', i was switching back and forth between the movie & the Brewers game (Mike Cameron is my hero... today)... After we got through with the movie, i looked about the baseball world & found that i could actually EXPERIENCE the baseball world...

Just now, i'm watching Delmon Young battle Dallas Braden (?) with Joe Crede at 2nd. I actually get to watch the Twins set up a come back against the A's (which they had something of the exact opposite of yesterday)...precisely the opposite, actually...

I'm not exactly sure what I want to suggest here, but today, i found, i am allowed to watch just about any Major League Baseball game i want to...

Other than the fact that Shane will likely be at my house from now on to the end of the summer, i'm confused as to how the DirectTV world works. I've certainly never subscribed to MLB's network, but by randomly switching networks in order to not have to pay extra for Brewer's games, i've somehow come into extensive coverage of all sorts of baseball (as well as complete - 6-matches-at-a-6-time Wimbledon coverage)...

I guess what i'm suggesting is that i have suddenly become a much bigger baseball fan than i would have been and i'm not sure i'm ok with that. My only fear is that i won't see how much worse the Brewers are than i've thought them to be... As far as i understand, the Brewers are the best team in the NL Central by far... but they're just 'underachieving'...

It's an odd place to be in... I'm wondering (idly, obviously, or i'd look into it) if this is a mid-summer situation so that i might get suckered into buying this package or if it's just mine... for nothing (in which case i will plan to become a crazy-ass baseball guy)...

Getting to watch the bottom of the 7th of the A's - Twins matchup is really something... to me, at least... What it means is that i can really try to understand more of how baseball really works... I can watch another team i would like to support try to battle their way back into a pennant run and it's really, quite, exciting... don't you think so, shane?

I was shot with a nail-gun, and it wasn't that bad

2009-06-22T23:07:00.013-05:00

Today, as i was continuing to assist in the clintonSeeger's basement project, i was unexpectedly shot in the back. It had little to do with my aces over eights, Russ (my Jedi-Master-Contractor) assured me it was an accident. It hurt for a moment, didn't break the skin (it hit me flat - i was 5 yards away, or so). After being shot, verifying that the nail, in fact, didn't go in, and deciding i was alright, i started reflecting on my summer a bit.

During the past four weeks I have forgone (for the most part, sorry Lane, sorry Peter) my life of the mind in favor of a life of the hand... of the back. Familial obligation has dictated my summer, thus far, in a direction of hard labor... After flooding for the first time in 25 years, my parents' basement is going through a fundamental remodel. After installing a couple of sump pumps and a tile drainage system, the whole space is being re-created and I've been allowed to play along. I've framed walls (almost shooting a nail through my finger in the process), built soffits, and installed wiring. The day Rick shot a nail through Russ' finger (i know, it seems like a theme) i stood amazed as we neglected to call an ambulance or bring someone to the Emergency Room, and instead watched Russ tape paper towels around his finger with electrical tape and "call it good" (that night, he hit 4 home runs in his softball league).

This series of events got me to thinking about relative genetic makeups... (which might have brought me to a reminiscence of a certain trip to Alabama {not to mention a certain day of SeegerOlympic Events, which inexplicably occurred}, but that's the story for another day). I am, decidedly, not of 'tough breeding', but i think there is something to me that makes me a good sufferer (historically, some of the best sufferers i can think of {people who really don't seem to take it too bad when things go wrong} are Dave Wake, Walter Benjamin, and, well, i dunno, someone else.)

Clearly, my breed are not good sufferers, but somehow, i feel myself to be an adequate sufferer... not only in terms of actual suck-i-ness endured, but also the idea of physical pain... I'm not sure, but somehow, i feel myself 'greater than the sum of my parts.' I don't want it to seem arrogant, and i'm sure there are 'pain-factors' that will equalize this thinking, but just generally, when i picture myself in a time of true calling (any time other than now, other than a time of true reclination is a time of 'calling')...

I guess what i'm seeing is a lack of 'now' in anyone's time. Before now... there was always a possibility of something else... something that meant something... Nazis or Racists or... well... Communists... Now there are Terrorists... but they look like anyone (except they don't, right), but no longer are there real terrorists... as we know...

Confessions of a Closet Utopian

2009-05-13T01:56:00.006-05:00

Spoiler Alert! This post will undoubtedly give away plot points of J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek movie, so if you haven’t seen it, & you’re affected by ‘giving away the ending’ read no further.

Nerd Alert! Though I will endeavor to remain analytical, intellectual, and generally charming, I can not be held entirely responsible if I occasionally fall into bouts of gleeful gushing, obscure referencing, or utopic dreaming during the course of this post, as I am, admittedly, a Trekkie

J.J. Abrams’ reboot of Star Trek was, at least to this fairly hard-core Trekkie, superb. The new movie not only opens up the possibility for new fans to get their feet wet in the Star Trek mythos without feeling overwhelmed or mildly embarrassed, it also significantly ‘cools up’ a franchise that has been in desperate need of a make-over. (Nerd translation: Think Vampire: The Masquerade for role playing)…

While both earlier movie Enterprises had moments (say, Wrath of Khan and First Contact) of thrilling, adventure sci-fi, I’m sorry to say that what has most held Star Trek back over the past 15 years or so are its ties to Gene Roddenberry’s original vision (I know, I know – sacrilege). I don’t mean by this that that vision isn’t central to what makes Star Trek great (I’ll do whatever I can, short of wearing a uniform around town, to help foster the creation of our first warp engine sometime in the next 50 or so years), but it’s impossible to look at Trek’s more recent forays (Voyager & the later Next Gen movies particularly) as being overly tied to the somewhat false mission of Gene Roddenberry’s of creating not only a utopian world, but a utopic lesson-book of sorts. (Though the most recent Star Trek series, Enterprise, certainly had its share of fable-ous episodes, I think it might have been able to redeem itself with a full run of 7 or 9 seasons – the larger, more complicated story arcs of the Temporal Cold War and the Xindi were an attempt, I think, to keep the show driving toward something {namely the Star Trek timeline}). These longer narrative arcs also tend to give writers something better to do than moralize, the utopianism is embedded rather than being explicitly taught every week (or 5 years)…

To my mind, Abrams’ solution to the ‘problem’ of dealing with the canonized history of Star Trek was truly inspired. Of course there will be purists out there who will mourn the loss of certainty of things to come, but not knowing just how much of the future history of our galaxy has been altered makes for a much more interesting work of utopian fiction. Though critics may be right to point out that Star Trek’s time travel based plot might be a bit pieced together (likely just for an excuse to plop Leonard Nimoy in), it also brilliantly allowed Abrams (& Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman) to blur the Star Trek historical record. This Kirk (well played by Chris Pine) need not necessarily be our Kirk – hell, this Kirk wasn’t even born in Riverside, Iowa. This allows the movie some breathing room. We know Spock & Kirk & Bones will eventually become the very best of friends, but there’s a new pleasure in the unfolding.

And, speaking of pleasure in meeting old friends, Uhura (Zoe Saldana) is not only wonderfully sexy, but also slides perfectly into her pre-future-historical role. If you look back over the original series, all those sidelong glances and quiet smiles from Uhura make much more sense in lieu of what we learn from this new Uhura. And Scotty (Simon Pegg), oh my god, Scotty. When I first heard Scotty would be played by Pegg I was simultaneously ecstatic and flummoxed. I love Pegg from his work on Shaun of the Dead & Hot Fuzz (& anywhere, really), but I didn’t see the peppy Brit fitting the role of Scotty very well. But what Pegg gives us is a fuller understanding of the character of Scotty. Sure, we know Scotty’s a fun-lovin’ drinker, an engineering miracle worker, and a chronic nay-sayer, but Pegg wields all of those previously caricature-istics simultaneously, effortlessly. It’s the Scotty we see in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, when he’s playing around with a 1980s PC, but rarely see anywhere else in the entire run (at least not that fully). And Zachary Quinto as Spock, enough has been said about how perfect a choice this was, but to watch Spock’s emotions deep below the surface occasionally bubble up in a facial tick or a glance, really quite remarkable.

But all this, the casting, the characters, the plot (was anybody else concerned about starships flying around the galaxy opening up black holes everywhere? Jess Peterson told me it was ok, that black holes in fact have no more gravitational force than a normal star, but I’m not convinced… It seems like some sort of set up for a future galacto-eco-crisis in Abrams’ Star Trek 7: This Place Sucks) is really secondary to the fundamental vision, the fundamental voice of Star Trek. The stories are, at heart, truly utopian. It’s imagining something that might unfold tomorrow that’s a little better than today. It’s figuring a way that we make it, but what’s so great about Abrams’ take on it, is that his movie need not hit you over the head with these ideals. Instead, it hits you over the head with a good, crazy villain – awesome new/old beaming technology – Slusho – great fights… but through it all, that hope that makes Star Trek great is still there.

Score: 3 Shots

Reformed, Refragmentalized, Referential

2009-05-04T23:55:00.007-05:00

Note: Loyal RNJ readers will, i'm sure, quickly note that i already posted these ideas earlier, but i think i see them a bit more clearly now, and i'd like to offer them up for comment, ridicule, or questions before i submit them to my (as yet not fully formed) committee.

My prelim areas will focus on the postmodern concept of the fragment, but i'd like to tie this idea of, which i've referred to as 'supermodern' elsewhere, to the 'pre-postmodern' formulation of the fragment as well, which comes through especially for me in the work of Walter Benjamin in the form of the aphorism and short essays. Mostly, though, 'the fragment' or 'fragmentation' is being used as a way to connect seemingly disparate areas of interest for me, namely:

1. Fragmented Bodies - This section, which starts at my interest in zombies - and so, extends itself to ideas about corpses, death, funerary tradition, and display - might more aptly be called "Fragmented Bodies, Fragmented Lives". I want to consider not only the unfortunate case of the zombie, of the undead, of we might term 'bare life', but also the parallel bare life that is stripped bare by human forces, namely that of refugees, of die Flüchtlinge. This section will also consider other implications of zombie theory, such as theories of revolution, consumption, and ressentiment (thanks Patrick). Fragmented Bodies is also the place in which i will explore representations of bodies (mostly dead, but also alive) in film (The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes), fiction, and exhibitions (from Body Worlds to funeral homes). Finally, this representation theory will bring me to the representation of non-human bodies (animals & Cyborgs, for instance).

2. Fragmented Cities - Again, i come to this section through a specific project, namely my interest in urban exploration, but my formulation of urban exploration as an alternative form of tourism gives me a larger body of work in which to place this section. Starting from 'theory of tourism' (Dean MacCannell, for one), i want to explore the concept of redefining and remaking place both from the perspective of the tourist and from the perspective of urban planning (think Milwaukee's Third Ward as one example of this). In a post-industrial economy, former warehouses, factories, and mills are being transformed into places of leisure, luxury, and amusement. A very different kind of rebranding occurs when places and events of atrocity become memorialized. The resulting Museum Kult, the draw of seeking out 'authentic experiences' of history, is a kind of 're-placing', a re-creation of space. The tourist's experience of an actual space of 'historical meaning' alters that meaning. I want to examine this process of alteration.

3. Fragmented Narratives - Finally, i want to look at places where 'pure narrative' breaks down: in postmodern narratives (Think House of Leaves), in frame narratives (and more interestingly broken frame narratives like Frankenstein and Transit), and, finally, in non-narrative forms such as avant-garde cinema. Traditional narrative theory (Noel Carroll? Lewis Carroll?) tells us that narrative is a construction of suspense. A sequence of readers asking 'whatnextwhatnext-whatnext?', but i will also investigate (through Ricouer at the outset, then others) what happens when the reader doesn't necessarily ask this question, or asks it out of fear or desperation (think of a Kafkian-bureaucratic nightmare). Alternately, in a novel of boredom (sorry, Ron), nothing seems to happen next, causing the reader instead to ask something more like 'so what?' (sorry, Professor Veeder).

How's this sound? Can i really go to school for this?

the Jay Cutler Era

2009-04-02T23:55:00.004-05:00

This evening marks the dawning of a new era for the Chicago Bears. Today, the Bears made what may be their most audacious move in team history, trading their first round picks this year & next year, plus a third round pick (this year) & Kyle Orton (all round nice guy, but not a great dog name) for Jay Cutler & a fifth round pick.
Jay Cutler's addition to the Bears will mean that fans in Chicago (not to mention Bears management) will finally have to take a sharp, critical look at the rest of the team they're fielding.

For years now (how many years since Sid Luckman {hell, i'd take a Jim McMahon} was in town?) Bears fans have been able to look at the quarterback position as the source of all of our woes. While i was a long-standing supporter of Rex Grossman (going so far as to even name my dog after him), i always had the sense that he wasn't a real answer to our problems, but the Bears management had put so much into him, wagered on him, that i wanted to believe.

Now they've got a bona-fide, honest-to-goodness quarterback in Jay Cutler. Tomorrow, the Bears will have to start to realize that they haven't had a viable Wide Receiver since, what, Willie Gault? Their line seems a bit shored up this season, assuming Chris Williams pans out, but it's still cobbled-together & kinda old. On a bright note, they do have pretty good Tight Ends. Hooray, we've got good tight ends (note, several, not just one, so whenever we're in a 2 TE set, look out world).

Their defense, the erstwhile strength of the team, is all but gone. Tommie Harris may never be Tommie Harris again. The rest of the D-Line is on something of a precipice, they could work out, but didn't get it done last year. Linebackers, well, Brian Urlacher... John Madden loves him. He's good, isn't he? And Lance Briggs (is he still with us? did he successfully escape? {NOTE: this blog is quite possibly the worst informed blog on the planet, i literally know nothing of which i speak}). Once you get back to the D-backfield, we're fairly lost. A lot of players who've proven they are players, but not recently.

Finally, Devin. Oh Devin. I can only assume you were a real thing. That you, indeed, are...ridiculous. There were all sorts of reasons that we gave for you not returning half a dozen kicks for TDs, but i've still got faith (Bears fans need a good deal of this).

Ultimately, i think if Devin (or some combination of Devin & Manning) can pose the scary-ass danger they did up until this season, and the Bears can start most drives between the 40s & Jay Cutler doesn't arrive in Chicago and realize just how low the bar is set here, and the defense behaves as a Bears defense is meant to behave and if the coaching staff doesn't coward their way toward a long sequence of losses... we might actually be okay this year. I am feeling fairly optimistic, but, then again, i've had this same feeling each of the last 20 or so seasons, so don't trust me on this...

unBecoming Animals

2009-04-01T09:45:00.005-05:00

I'm interested in a distinction that i don't actually see Steve Baker making very often in his book, The Postmodern Animal, namely between representations of animals and actual animals used in representations of animals (what i might call representative animals). My initial interest in this question stems from looking at Gunther von Hagens' Bodyworlds exhibition and wondering to what extent the bodies (animal and human) presented there in fact are 'real', that is, are we seeing dead bodies when we look at the pieces or representations of bodies (the assumption of the question being, of course, that the answer matters).

It seems to me that the lack of this distinction in Baker's book might be the very definition of 'the postmodern animal'. Baker lays out the progression of animality from the 19th Century 'symbolic animal' to the 'modern animal' (which for him doesn't exist, but i would like to think of as the industrialized animal), through to the postmodern animal (p. 20), where the distinction between representative animals and representations of animals breaks down to some extent. For Baker, this eroded distinction gets most interestingly questioned in works like Olly and Susi's in which representations of animals are placed 'on the border' where they will (hopefully) be interacted with by the animals depicted. Sharks bite pictures of sharks and deer urinate on their own image… which reminds me of this one time… in Copenhagen…

But in a case like Olly and Susi's (or Mark Dion's Library for the Birds of Antwerp as another example) the answer to the distinction seems obvious, at least until you start thinking about zoo theory in which even the living animals become representative (and perhaps representations). Far more challenging, I think, are works like Damien Hirst's This Little Piggy and The Physical Impossibility of Death in which actual dead animals are preserved in formaldehyde and presented in glass casing. And this is where the connection to von Hagens' work comes into play. The most common question asked by critics of the Bodyworlds exhibit is 'why not just use platic molding to recreate the human interior'. In other words, if we, as good little postmodernists, are going to dissolve the barrier between actual animals and representations of animals (see zoo theory as a starting place for this), why then does Damien Hirst need to cut an actual pig in half for his artwork, when a realistic molding would accomplish the same thing (and essentially, be the same thing). (Plus, such a rendering by Hirst would demonstrate much more 'artistic expertise' than cutting an animal in half and dunking it in preservatives - and therein lies the answer to my own question, methinks).

against My better Judgement...

2009-03-02T23:52:00.004-06:00

i'm watching Jimmy Fallon's premiere episode as the new Late Night host. I gotta say, it's not terrible. Ever since David Demarco helped me realize that Jimmy Fallon sucks as a Saturday Night Live player because he cracks up & laughs during almost every skit he's in, i've assumed i hated the guy (Fallon, not Demarco) himself.

But i'm beginning to suspect that late night talk show host may be the perfect setting for Fallon's sputtery, clodding style. Assuming that his guests are entirely uninteresting, at least his awkward-ness might be somewhat distracting. Sure he's no Craig Ferguson, or David Letterman, or Conan O'Brien, or Jimmy Kimmel really & hey, that's a second Jimmy. That seems, perhaps, overkill.

Like any premiere episode, the lineup is very good. Robert DeNiro - funny, but made less so by Jimmy Fallon. Justin Timberlake - i'm waiting to see if there will be any nipple jokes. My guess is yes. And, possibly the only possible more interesting musical guest than Letterman had tonight (U2), Van Morrison.

Also, the 'lick for 10' bit was sort of funny. Not great, but fairly Letterman derivative (which is a place to start). So, as you might have guessed, tonight has been a 'late nite' night. Just thought i'd get an early review out there... Overall, the final word on Fallon's Late Night, not bad, but really, why aren't you watching Craig Ferguson.

Damn it, I need to yell sooner

2009-02-25T22:32:00.005-06:00

After watching Obama's 'not-a-state-of-the-union-speech', i stuck around for Bobby Jindal's "Republican Response" and had a thought, as The Daily Show suggested, Jindal sounded like he thought he was addressing a class of 1st Graders, rather than the general American public.

Now, i've never been one not to talk about the American pubic as if they were pre-pubescent spoiledRotten children, but, seriously, when he followed up Obama's speech, the first serious (if a bit pie-in-the-sky) speech coming from the white House in at least a decade, Jindal just sounded embarrassing.

It's hard work, though, being the arbitor of all that is prescient & cool. The Daily Show takes at least a full day for news to filter down and while i'm sure there are blogs and other 'significant thinkers' satirically stating the state of the state for us, they aren't, i think, quite as sweet-ass-cool as i am.

In other news...
I've got a sense of what my 'prelim areas' will be... Finally. So, evidently, people in my "situation" need to choose 3 'areas' that define their areas of knowledge so that they can then, in turn, sell those areas to future employing universities...

Anyway, i've 'recently' becomed obsessed with the idea of "the fragment" and until today i wasn't quite sure what i meant by that. I mean, i know that i want to think about ideas of the archive and the aphorism and 'the fragment', but so far i wasn't sure how to fit that into a (sort of) system of thought. But i think i've got it... (Prelim 'areas' consist of 3 categories of thought that overlap in your area).

The Fragment
the two areas i've had pretty well sorted out until now are:

1. Fragmented Bodies - This is an area i've been interested in for some time. As a fundamental area, this is related to zombies, as well as 're-constructed bodies' (like Frankenstein stories & cyborgs) and dead, dying, and decomposing bodies (i'm thinking here of things like Brakhage's Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes, or similar {ha})

2. Fragmented Cities - Looking, similarly, at decomposing cities, first and foremost through the lens of Urban Exploration, the practice of exploring (and to some extent explaining) industrial spaces that have been abandoned or remodeled. Additionally, the idea of 'fragmented spaces' comes into play (though i'm not sure what those spaces might be)... Places that are, essentially, altered (or 'othered'?) in their experience. Places like tourists sites might be a good place to start

finally, i've figured out a 3rd area that actually makes sense to these other areas and i connect it to particularly the Urban Explorers in area 2, through the idea of 'supermodernity' - which i've discussed before.

3. Fragmented Narratives - Looking at an updated 'narrative theory' that follow's up on Robert Bird's ideas of 'all is narrative' by looking at abstract art and postModern narrative, exploring the way 'time & narrative' is explored in things that might consider themselves 'non-narrative'.

Now, for something completely different...

Can Zombies Eat the Recession?

2009-02-10T13:51:00.005-06:00

So, i've done a good bit of writing 'outside the blog' today (this is the problem with telling people your goals, btw, you suddenly find you have people you have to justify yourself to {at least if you're a neurotic quiffler like me} and you sound less convincing than if you just assert things willy-nilly), but i felt this post was... prescient, today.

Yesterday (which we'll call Monday for the sake of argument), in a class about sovereignty & the distinction of man vs. animal vs. 'savage' Professor Peter Paik posed a question about the possibility of the end (or at least the beginning of the end) of the American economy, which is to say, and end to infinite growth of an economy based on the creation and purchase of endless amounts of stuff (i think of George Carlin whenever such a conversation arises).

Today, our United States Senate passed a Stimulus Package amounting to over $800Billion of new spending and tax cuts. And the question naturally arises, "whabuwhey?" In talking to friends and others about 'the Recession' (by which i mean talking to my TV whenever Anderson Cooper comes on), they (he) often assures me that the Economy need only get 'back on track' and then everything will go back to normal. This is troubling to me, not only because, to me, everything kind of seems normal now, and the 'track' people seem to refer to as something to shoot for is undeniably unsustainable. It seems fundamentally logical to me that an economy cannot just continue to produce more shit for people to buy, even if, for a really long time, people continue to buy it, thereby securing their own jobs at companies and organizations that are producing different shit.

It simply makes no sense. And so, i would submit, a solution that is already really quite underway. Our economy (and really the global economy) is moving toward a 'service economy'. Now unlike things, the limitation on services you can buy is only limited by time (and so, somewhere down the road, this to must fail). But i think there is some importance here in basing most of our economy on selling ephemera. Watching Movies, Seeing Tourist Attractions, Drinking Whisky (i guess, technically, a thing, but it's really the effects i think most of us purchase)

Do you see where i'm going with this? I did, but the, umm, ephemera is making me want to sleep. Mostly, i wanted to wonder aloud why it's in the interests of media corporations to report recession so uniformly. Badbadbad financial news, 'Stay-Cations', 'here's how to best get the jobs that nobody is hiring for any longer, you Sad Sack'. On the most basic level, you keep tuning in to hear the latest worst news, (and really, what else are you doing at 2 in the afternoon?) but looking one corporate level up kind of unhinges that argument. News organizations are not in the business of increasing viewership... they're in the business of helping their parentOrg make money, and telling people there isn't going to be any money left come next Tuesday every Wednesday (the 'slow' news day) kind of inhibits folks from spending money on whatever it is they're selling, no?

Anyway, "i can't figure it all out tonight, sir. I'm just gonna hang with your daughter..."

Oh, and speaking of fiscal matters. If anyone dropped some money on the floor of Curtin Hall (1st Floor, by the Central Stairwell) today (Tuesday, around noon), let me know...

7 Days of 1000 Words

2009-02-09T22:40:00.006-06:00

During an AA meeting in 8th Grade, Dan Wallace (ahem, i mean "Mr.") told us that the best thing to do with your goals is to write them down & tell them to people. Well, my on again/off again goal over the last few years is to read 100 pages a day and write 1000 words (though, because i'm a total pussy, i make little deals with myself like 'today i'll write 1750 words and just read 25' or 'if i read 200 pages of comic books, that'll count for today)...

Today, Roman Numeral J reader(s), i invite you to join in a mini-verbal revolution & take on the 1000-4-7 challenge. You needn't start today (in case your today is tomorrow), but start. Write 1000 words, post it to the internet, stuff it away in your sock drawer, or send it off in a letter to yourself (or someone else), just write. My sense is (and i'm not sure i'm write) that the world can't be hurt by more people writing & expressing themselves and might very well be helped enormously by it.

For my own part, though i have a vague notion of writing more often on RNJ generally, i will publish the majority of each day's fodder here online over the course of the next week as an example. Some days it won't be pretty, as i'll be wanting to go to sleep and won't yet have written my daily quota, or 'won't have anything to say', but i think too often (and here, maybe, i'm preaching to my ENG 102 students as much as i am to myself) we look at writing as an end-result of "inspiration" or 'muse', but really, what it amounts to, is a habit.

A couple of personal ground rules, i guess, might be in order. First off, the "per day" limits run (for me only) from the time i wake up in the morning to when i fall asleep at night, so reading (my personal goal also includes the previously mentioned 100 pages of reading/day - which, really, wouldn't be a bad idea for you either, would it?) and writing done after midnight surely count if i'm still up. Any reading or writing done after first falling asleep, but having awakened in the middle of the night can go toward either day (though, assuming i succeed in my goal will generally be counted toward the next day, to get a head start). Also, no 'working ahead' or 'behind' is allowed, as in promising yourself on Tuesday that you'll catch up with the missing words tomorrow... If you miss a day, ok, just start over with the 7.

Let's see, new to the site is a link to Robert L. Gard's whisky endeavor. Rob is a friend of the blog & true expert in the field of all things of the brown booze (though, as far as i know, Rob has never been to the Dundee Dell, a shortcoming in the scotch field that, i think, maybe even living in Scotland, working at a distillery can't entirely overcome).

Ok, well, i started off with a bit of a head start for the day, so i will sign off here from my call to ball-points. Just a couple of final tips, don't word count too often lest you get bogged down in counting words, rather than writing. And, the biggest best piece of advice i can give is avoid worries about 'not having anything to write' just now. Even if you just write the same word 1000 days (i can almost guarantee you won't do this more than 1 time), some really famous poems have been comprised of just 1 word repeated over & over and in the act of such writing, you draw attention to the act of writing itself (think Michael Snow's Wavelength, but on paper)

Hail Hail, the gangs all here

2009-01-30T11:25:00.004-06:00

Note: all page references refer to MAPH reader Fall 2005.

In “Ideology and the State” Louis Althusser uses the terms “interpellation” and “hailing” to refer to the everyday reproduction of subjects as individuals. Althusser uses the example of a police officer calling out, “Hey, you there!” to illustrate hailing as one aspect of interpellation. Franz Fanon, in “The Fact of Blackness,” uses a child’s hailing to begin an attempt to create a Hegelian scene of mutual recognition with white culture through various mediums (such as an exploration of Negro culture) which ultimately fails, but in his examination of Negro cultural texts he comes to a moment of interpellation and does find a moment of subjectivity within the boundaries of his own Negro culture.

Interpellation and hailing both refer to the act of becoming a subject, not temporally or as a causal relationship, but as “always-already” subjects. While Althusser frequently uses both terms together, without any distinction between them, hailing refers to a specific aspect of interpellation involving two unmediated subjects, one calling to the other, thereby making obvious the other’s subjectivity. There is no movement toward becoming a subject because “you and I are always already subjects, and as such constantly practice the rituals of ideological recognition” (Althusser 172). Both the hailer and the individual being hailed are already on equal footing as subjects and the interpellation serves simply to reaffirm that obviousness.

When Franz Fanon attempts to stage a similar scene of mutual recognition in “The Fact of Blackness” he uses a Hegelian-style dialectic to try to become an equal subject in the eyes of whiteness. Hegel’s “self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is it exists only in being acknowledged” (Hegel 111). Fanon goes through the steps of mutual recognition, using several different tools to try and achieve it, but at the beginning of the chapter he says “every ontology is made unattainable in a colonized and civilized society…the black man has no ontological resistance in the eyes of the white man” (Fanon 109-110). Fanon is ultimately unable to find subjectivity through the Hegelian dialectic because he cannot attain acknowledgement, as a black man. There can be no mutual recognition when his person constantly has to be qualified as a “black friend” or “the Negro doctor.” In order for either Hegel’s or Althusser’s version of attaining mutual recognition to work both of the individuals involved must be able to see themselves as alternate versions of the other, each as an equal subject, and Fanon’s encounter cannot come to that conclusion.

The very first line of Fanon’s chapter can be looked at as an instance of hailing. When the child says “Look, a Negro!” (109) there is no doubt who is being addressed, so according to Althusser he now “becomes a subject…because it was really him who was hailed (and not someone else)” (Althusser 174). And of course Fanon is a subject and always already was, but the instance of Fanon’s “hailing” is also vastly different from the way Althusser describes it. The content of the hailing is very different from Althusser’s “Hey, you” or “It’s me” and while there is no mention of hailing needing to take a specific form, the disparaging nature of the child’s hail makes the two subjects dissimilar. Furthermore, the hail comes from a child rather than a policeman or friend and the child is white, which further complicates the encounter. Because the two subjects involved are so different, each unable to view the other as an independent subject, no mutual recognition is possible.

When Fanon turns to Negro culture as a possible medium of mutual recognition he has already tried and discarded, among other things, reason as a mode of recognition. Fanon says he chooses this “method of regression” out of necessity and challenges “the white man to be more irrational than I” (Fanon 123). He previously had tried to gain recognition by working within the confines of white culture, appealing to science for justification for his equal status, but now admits to regressing and desires to meet as equals on this new plane. Fanon explores poetry, music and tribal practices as rich emotive rather than rational experiences in Negro culture and this attempt momentarily looks like it may work: “At last I had been recognized, I was no longer a zero” (129). But in the end this medium, too, failed. The inherent inequality shows itself when Negro culture is dismissed as “a stage of development” for white culture. The dominant culture then adapts Negro culture for its own claiming origins of “earth mystics” that are far superior to what they have and taking “a little human sustenance” from Negro culture when they “become too mechanized” (129). In the end mutual recognition is again impossible because Fanon has seen white culture co-opt the aspects of Negro culture that he had tried to use.

Both Althusser’s interpellation or hailing and Hegel’s mutual recognition have at the core the necessity for a subject to gain recognition from another subject. While Fanon was explicitly working, in “The Fact of Blackness” at producing a Hegelian scene of mutual recognition, his chapter also works to illustrate Althusser’s ideas. His reading through Negro cultural texts serves as a perfect example of interpellation. Each response to the various texts—“Yes, all those are my brothers…Eyah! The tom-tom chatters…Blood! Blood!” (123-125)—can be seen as a moment of Althusserian obviousness. In this way Fanon, while ultimately failing in his goal to find mutual recognition among white culture and coming to the conclusion of “Nothingness and Infinity,” does achieve mutual subjectivity with the texts of his own Negro culture.

superModernity

2009-01-09T11:27:00.003-06:00

*Note: The following is taken (and only slightly adapted) from a seminar paper of mine for Fall 2008. It examines the idea of 'super-modernity' and fragmentary history...

...as Marc Augé points out in his book, Non-Places: introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, this collecting of fragmentary histories into ‘history proper’ is what anthropological history (which he seems to equate with history generally) consists of. A modern historian, working within the confines of the social sciences, takes a collection (a sample) of personal histories and constructs a narrative from them. This narrative, then, becomes ‘recorded history’. Augé’s concept of ‘supermodernity’ (which operates as something like a ‘happier’ alternative to postmodernity), however, problematizes this ‘final narrative’ due to the fact that the time between history and the present becomes ever smaller. That is, ‘historical events’ need no longer be from 50, 25, or even 5 years ago, instead, the personal event can, in some sense, be aware of itself as historical event. Supermodernity, then, is the coming together of unfathomable numbers of historical events, so that, like in postmodernity, there can exist no over-arching historical narratives. Unlike this postmodern history, however, supermodern history does not dismiss the possibility of the existence of these narratives, these ‘truths’, but only acknowledges the impossibility (or perhaps merely extreme unlikeliness) of knowing them.

Whine Country

2008-12-30T00:30:00.004-06:00

Yesterday afternoon, we drove out of San Francisco and into "wine country". That's in California.

Anyway, brooke shot a pretty cool (slightly nauseating) video of the Golden Gate Bridge that i thought i'd share... For more, check out my faceBook photos.

Exploring Masculinity

2008-12-11T12:27:00.004-06:00

This morning i went to Menards to purchase a snow blower (the one i got is in fact called a 'snow thrower'). I'd been there yesterday as well (i'm becoming a regular regular) without much luck, but the associate assured me a shipment would be coming today. I hadn't fully decided whether to get the slightly less expensive wimpy looking blower or the really tough-ass gigantic blower that was only somewhat more expensive.

After 'talking shop' a bit with the sales associate, he assured me that i would be a complete fool to buy the little one. So, complete fool that i am, i bought the giant one, and attempted to put it in my car (which of course completely failed - i'm convinced that most of the R&D done for the Ford Taurus goes toward creating the appearance of as much space as possible, while absolutely minimizing the room through which to access said space).

So, i went back in and rented a pickup. Another associate & i loaded up the fairly heavy implement into the pickup bed, and i was driving around town in a truck, with a snowblower sliding around the back. On the ride home i realized i would be unloading the snowblower myself and i pictured myself alternately pulling it down and being crushed by it (in this scenario, i always imagined it somehow turning on by itself and slicing & dicing as it fell on top of me), or i saw myself standing in the truck bed, lowering the machine down with a great feat of strength (do i need to make a roll for that?), while throwing out my back.

I backed into the drive, still with no working plan and opened the garage. There was the answer, the extra door that i wasn't quite sure why i hadn't thrown away yet. I constructed a crude ramp (that's right, man use simple machine) and got the snowblower down & into the garage. I drove home, exceedingly happy with myself, but couldn't tell the story to anyone. I present it here as a chapter in my exploration of masculinity...

Question of the Day* (Category: Marxism)

2008-12-10T11:38:00.005-06:00

Which came first, the chicken or the Egg McMuffin?

Sub-question #1 - Why is it that so often the first to bemoan the redistribution of wealth are so often the best at the redistribution of snow?

*Note: 'Question of the Day' is an occasional, tri-annual event here at Roman Numeral J, and may be canceled in future, without notice.

a direct transcription

2008-12-04T22:09:00.004-06:00

of Comedy Central on 4 December 2008 (at least all that i could catch, there may be some holes) - 10:10pm CST-10:12pm CST

"the remarkable clean coal technology changes everything, take a look, this is america's clean coal technology.
I am green today, i chirp today, get verizon wireless america's most reliable 3G network. Yours is here.
Agent... hey... Got it. The ridiculously long lasting gum, stride sweet barry.
Douggy... Dougy i just bought you for a buck 99. Now i'm gonna do your wife, now i'm gonna do your mother now.
Why have you come to our planet...from us, it has begun, he is the only one who can save us. you can stop this. the day the earth stood still, rated PG-13. We live in troubling times, not just on the financial"

So, that's what going on these days... Does anyone else think we've had quite enough Punisher movies?

on this date in history...

2008-11-20T23:34:00.001-06:00

i had had a pretty good weekend...

Game

2008-11-17T22:46:00.006-06:00

**what follows is an extensive definition of the word game, written by me for my 'Theories of Media' class (taught by Professor Tom Mitchell & Professor Mark Hansen), which was not accepted into their elite definition collection (we should come up for a name for that), but was, i think, worth looking at...

“. . . Games are popular art, collective, social reactions to the main drive or action of any culture. Games, like institutions, are extensions of social man and of the body politic, as technologies are extensions of the animal organism. Both games and technologies are counter-irritants or ways of adjusting to the stress of the specialized actions that occur in any social group. As extensions of the popular response to the workaday stress, games become faithful models of a culture. They incorporate both the action and the reaction of whole populations in a single dynamic image.”(McLuhan, 235)

The modern English word ‘game’ comes from the Old English (and Middle High German) word gamen meaning ‘joy, glee’ and from the Old Norse word gaman which means ‘game, sport, merriment.’ The word may also derive from the Gothic term gaman which means ‘participation, communion.’ The common prefix for all these sources is ga- which means ‘together.’

The Oxford English Dictionary has as its definition of the word game, “1.Amusement, delight, fun, mirth, sport” and “3.a.an Amusement, diversion, pastime” (OED). While these definitions account for the enjoyment and pleasure generally associated with games, it fails to recognize the fundamental connection that games have with rules. Marshall McLuhan says games are “contrived and controlled situations, extensions of group awareness that permit a respite from customary patters” (McLuhan, 243). This definition encompasses both the diverting nature of games and the imposition of the structure of rules on the players. McLuhan also calls games ‘contrived,’ emphasizing the artificiality of the structure of rules. When the OED does address the subject of rules in the fourth definition it describes a game as “4. a. A diversion of the nature of a contest, played according to rules, and displaying in the result the superiority either in skill, strength, or good fortune of the winner or winners” (OED), connecting the rules of the game with competition. Of course, competition is as much a part of games as their diverting, amusing nature, though non-competitive games (cooperative or solitary games, for instance) exist just as surely as games that aren’t enjoyable do. What is essential to a game is an agreement by the players to abide by the artificially imposed rules and structure of the game, to play by the rules.

The verb ‘to play’ is fundamentally entwined with games. This connection serves both to keep the game in the realm of the amusement and to associate the playing of games with the act of a child’s play. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Sigmund Freud describes a very young child’s invention of a game. The child would throw his toys out of sight and say ‘gone’ which Freud “eventually realized…was a game and that the only use he made of any of his toys was to play ‘gone’ with them” (Freud, 599). The difference between the child simply engaged in the act of playing with his toys and playing a game with them is the imposition of a set of rules for playing. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ‘language-games’ provide another useful example of a non-traditional way to think about what a game is. Wittgenstein imagines the naming of objects, without providing a context for the use of that object (for example, telling a non-chess player that the king is called ‘king,’ but not what that piece does on the board) as a kind of language game. He then extends the idea of this primitive language as a game to “also call the whole, consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven, a ‘language-game’” (Wittgenstein, 4). Language itself is a collection of arbitrary rules, a code, that speakers of common languages must agree to abide by for communication to be possible.

A player must follow all of the rules of that particular instance of the game (‘house rules’ may apply, but these, too, must be determined before the game) or they are not, strictly speaking, playing that game. “There is, then, a sort of passion that binds the players to the rule that ties them together—without which the game would not be possible” (Baudrillard, 131). Baudrillard argues that it is a passion for the rules themselves that draw people to play games. He goes on to draw a distinction between the rules of the game and the law of the land. While laws are based on a supposed moral consensus, rules are arbitrary and have no meaning outside the confines of the game. “Because the Law establishes a line, it can and must be transgressed. By contrast, it makes no sense to “transgress” a game’s rules; within a cycle’s recurrence, there is no line one can jump (instead, one simply leaves the game)” (Baudrillard, 131-2). Laws can be broken or bent and they change through the course of history. While the rules of games may evolve over time, they do not change for the players during any one occurrence of a game.

In pointing out that in transgressing the rules a player ‘simply leaves the game,’ Baudrillard also reveals another limitation of games. “All board-games are limited as to time and space” (Murray, 5). In fact all games are temporally and spatially limited. Another fundamental feature of games is an object or goal at the end of them. A game ends upon completion (or failure to complete) the pre-determined goal. A game also takes place within a certain area, on a board or field or within certain boundaries. A single game cannot take place everywhere at once, but must be confined. In discussing why war is not a game, even though it shares many of the features of games, Marshall McLuhan says that “what disqualifies war from being a true game is probably what also disqualifies the stock market and business—the rules are not fully known or accepted by all the players. Furthermore, the audience is too fully [a] participant” (McLuhan, 240). The audience is in danger of becoming part of war, because unlike a game, it has no respect for its boundaries. Gilles Deleuze calls chess a “game of state…each [piece] is like a subject…of enunciation, that is, the chess player or the game’s form of interiority” (Deleuze, 352). Chess is a game-form of war, though Deleuze argues that the game Go may be a better game of war, because the board (just as the field of battle) grows as the game goes along.

There are virtually endless varieties of games, including: board games, card games, sports, video games, role-playing games, word games (puzzles), online games and gambling. Each of these groups also has its own sub-sets and variations. Archeologists have discovered Sumerian board games dating back to as early as 2600 B.C. and images of ancient Greeks and Egyptians playing earlier versions of games still played today (Avedon, 21). Marshall McLuhan, in his chapter on games in Understanding Media, discusses the differences in the perception of gambling in tribal and individualist cultures. What is deemed a vice by many Western cultures is seen as “mocking the individualist social structure” (McLuhan, 234) because the competition is brought to the extreme. “This further motive is the desire of the anticipated winner, or the partisan of the anticipated winning side, to heighten his side’s ascendancy at the cost of the loser” (Veblen, 277). Whether money is at stake or not, competitiveness is often at the center of games.

McLuhan claims that games are extensions of social man and as such, the competitive nature in games is a logical extension of individualist social structures. But there are also cooperative games, such as role-playing games and their digital offspring multi-player worlds online. Role-playing games are essentially storytelling games, where one player creates a world for the other players to explore, narrating as the game progresses. Multi-player online worlds are similar, where each player plays the part of some character in a larger narrative, but the world is made up entirely of computer code. While there is some competing and fighting within these games, because players can simply narrate their actions and do what they want, the games are generally structured in such a way as to make it necessary to form a group of players to complete the assigned tasks.

One way that games have extended beyond their basic existence is in the creation of game theory. Perhaps most famously exemplified by the Prisoner’s Dilemma, “game theory is concerned with the actions of decision makers who are conscious that their actions affect each other” (Rasmusen, 9). Game theory is a branch of economics that studies the affects that competitors who are aware of each other have on each other. Game theory takes as its ‘rules,’ players, actions, payoffs and information. These four elements go in to determining possible outcomes for real-world economic situations.

Works Cited

Avendon, Elliot M & Brian Sutton-Smith. The Study of Games. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1971.

Baudrillard, Jean. Seduction. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1990.

Deleuze, Gilles. A Thousand Plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.

Freud, Sigmund. The Freud Reader. Ed. Peter Gay. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1964.

Murray, H.J.R. A History of Board Games Other Than Chess. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951.

The Oxford English Dictionary. (http://www.oed.com/)

Rasmusen, Eric. Games and Information: An Introduction To Game Theory. Blackwell, 2001.

Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class: an economic study of institutions. New York: Macmillan, 1899.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations: The German Text, with a revised English translation. Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe. Malden: Blackwell, 2001.

The Milwaukee Admirals

2008-10-29T12:12:00.009-05:00

or, the least indie indie site in the room.

Last Saturday (October 25) i attended a Milwaukee Admirals hockey game in response to an assignment for my Indie Culture Seminar which asked me to write about a ‘site of indie culture’. I selected an Admiral’s game primarily because it was the least ‘indie’ indie site I could come up with. That is, the Admirals (and independent sports teams or leagues in general) perform many of the same tasks & fulfill the same roles as we might assign to indie culture: resisting (or at least defining itself against) 'mainstream' culture, providing a more 'authentic' experience than the overly commercialized mainstream product, and locating itself (often geographically or spatially, but not always) somewhere outside the 'mainstream'. I want, in some sense, to frustrate this working definition of indie culture by looking at an area of culture that we likely can mostly agree is decidedly not ‘indie’. I see independent sports leagues in as in some way defining themselves against the mainstream (major league sports) by paying players substantially lower salaries and often arguing (at least implicitly) for a more ‘authentic’ competition because of the lower, more equitable payrolls. The Admirals also operate with little to no media coverage (they get minimal coverage on local sports talk radio and newspaper coverage, but nationally get absolutely no attention). On the other hand, hockey games (and sports events in general) seem to be exactly contrary to what we might define as ‘indie’ in that the way they are marketed (corporate sponsorships abound both on the website and at the game), the commodification of all aspects of the game (souvenir shops at the Bradley Center are almost entirely filled with Admirals goods), and even the sport itself (which we might call a ‘mainstream’ sport as opposed to more ‘indie’ sports like Roller Derby or Frisbee golf).

* * *

Walking toward the ticket booth of the Bradley Center it becomes fairly obvious fairly quickly that this ‘site’ and the people walking into the site are anything but ‘indie’. Groups of 30-40something adults and families seem most prevalent. At the ticket booth, 20 minutes before game time the best cheapest tickets available were 3 rows off the ice. Walking around the stadium on our way to our section, a group of high school kids played “Brown Eyed Girl” on a stage set up on the lower level. We bought a couple beers (Pilsner Urquells, a beer of ‘distinction’), some popcorn, and found are seats as the zambonis were finishing up their circuits. (At Admirals games you can, evidently, buy a ride on the zamboni before the game and between periods. On one zamboni a young boy of maybe 7 or 8 was having the time of his life, while on the other one, a middle-aged man in a Packers sweatshirt waved awkwardly and I wondered who he was and why he might have decided to ride the zamboni, which seemed like such a kid-centered novelty).

The game got under way and I was immediately struck by the way fans seemed to be watching the game. Not being an expert on hockey (or really even much of a hockey fan) I can’t say for sure, but compared to the way I’ve seen professional sports fans watch games in the past, these fans seemed to attend to the game much more constantly than I had expected. I’ve been to one NHL game and a UND hockey game before, but both times my seats were much farther away from the ice, so the attention being paid to the game might have had something to do with the proximity (and given the low attendance and closed off upper deck everyone was close to the ice, relatively speaking). The crowd was generally quiet and when they yelled anything, it was generally specific instructions or critiques (“put a body on them!” “Play it in”) rather than the more general yells I am accustomed to (“C’mon!”s or “Boo”s). While on the subject of specific quotes, I noted that throughout the game, whenever a player would come out of the penalty box the announcer would say “And the teams are at equal strength” to which the crowd would reply “That’s Debatable!” This surprised me the first time it happened, but was a comforting ritual that instantly made you feel like a part of the crowd. The game itself was fairly exciting, a number of lead changes and ultimately the Admirals lost. A full account can be found on the Admiral’s website if you’re interested.

The Admirals play in the AHL (American Hockey League), which currently serves as a feeder system for NHL teams, with teams generally having exclusive or joint contracts with NHL teams, but operating as an independent league. I was surprised by the number of people wearing Admirals gear as well as how many people had come up from Chicago and were wearing Chicago Wolves jerseys (particularly because Chicago has the NHL Blackhawks in their home market). In fact this segment of the crowd might be the most useful when talking about indie vs. mainstream sports. Why, when AHL hockey is an inferior sport at least from the perspective of the individual athlete’s ability, would someone choose to be a Wolves fan? Is there some extra cultural capital from enjoying this ‘more authentic’ experience, a less commercialized, less ‘sell out’ game? Or, perhaps they see their viewership ironically, some sort of ‘lo-fi’ hockey. Or, it might just be that there seems to be a lot more fighting and checking into the wall at this level. My clearest memory from the game is of the aftermath of an Admirals forward getting smashed into the glass just in front of us. The crowd around me was laughing and cheering and saying things like “Dude, did you see his face just before his face hit.”

Then & Now, Voyager

2008-10-28T19:22:00.009-05:00

So, i've now watched what might have been my first 'woman's film', or at least the first one i tried to 'take seriously'. Last fall when David Halperin came to talk about melodrama i was skeptical, at best. "Really" i thought, "melodrama is something we're considering now", but now that i've seen one (Now, Voyager), i'm totally an expert.

We might, in some sense, think of melodrama as a sort of an über-Genre for Hollywood (this is a stolen idea, though i'm not entirely sure from whom). Everything that Hollywood makes aspires to melodrama in some sense... I'm starting to become truly convinced by Patrice Petro's (via Linda Williams {or vice versa}) idea of 'Body Genres', which are films that hit us viscerally, that force us to react bodily.

So, Tuesday we watched Now, Voyager in class and i was surprised not only by how much i enjoyed it, but by how much it paralleled the very real horrors of the American family i got to dig into in September*. Charlotte (Bette Davis) begins the film as a repressed daughter, an unwanted late child whose charge is to take care of her widowed, really quite scary, mother (mostly because she clearly won't ever find a man for herself, so she may as well be useful to someone). At one point Mother even points to this idea, finding comfort in a 'late child' by knowing that that child will care for you in your later years (the 'pre-late years', that is). This system only works, of course, if said child doesn't go off on their own path, make their own life (which in the world of melodrama {but perhaps more generally in contemporary American culture, too} means pairing off and starting a family of your own). So Mother stalls the child's development employing guilt, classist proclamations of 'proper' behavior, and constant reminders of the child's weaknesses (& sickliness) in order to assure her remaining at home.

What interests me in particular, is not necessarily the plot of Now, Voyager, or family melodramas like it. Rather, i find the underlying notion of the family structure itself an interesting (and often frightening) object of inquiry. My brother Tim has reflected on how 'the Family' operates for him, and i don't mean to present some personal sob story about my own family (i'm hugely fortunate in this regard), but i'm interested in the institution (notice the word, an odd word) of the family structure itself...

There's a model of the family (originally presented by Antonio Gramsci, i think), which operates as a sort of Social Taylorism, in which the worker's life is organized and managed to such an extent that not only is their work-day set up in assembly-line fashion, but through familial obligations and constructed consumerist needs, the worker's life outside of work (their leisure in other words) is similarly orchestrated (even to the extent of their 'entertainments' are constructed both through television & bar life {maybe even bowling}. Though bars and pubs might formerly have been been a place for radical organization {three cheers for the real Sam Adams}, but now they operate as places to lose yourself, to obliterate yourself. The music, the setup, and the way we no longer speak to strangers discourage any kind of organization in the modern bar).

Ok, this is just a start to this thinking, but it's where i'm going...

*This September a local matriarch passed away and it fell to brooke's family to do much of the sifting through the house. Along with a life-time's worth of stuff, we uncovered box-fulls of old letters, photos, and journals that painted a less-than-idyllic picture of this upstanding family.

the Global Village

2008-10-19T10:15:00.003-05:00

I remember when i was younger, i drove, with my brother & dad (can't remember if andy was there or not), to the middle of illinois, grabbded hands with piles of strangers...

I have no recollection what this blog post initially may have been intended for, but man... Hands Across America... what an idea. Line up hundreds of thousands of people... then hold hands with them. and eventually make a big line of people. for Africa?

Now, i'm all for Africa. But lining up piles of white people does not seem a solution for anyone... How did this thing make money? Was it a sort of pledging thing? ("betcha can't get 1,000, i'll give you 10 dollars...")...

Anyway, it must have been quite a success...

on this date in history

2008-10-17T17:55:00.002-05:00

joel was finding himself...

watch out...

2008-10-06T18:52:00.005-05:00

Source: The Prelinger Archive, a great archive of Historical, public-domain footage. - "When You are a Pedestrian", Progressive Pictures

oh there's always time for mail on this show...

2008-09-30T22:12:00.004-05:00

So this is a bit of my thinking on letters and mail and Briefwechsel generally. I know i have previously made a motion toward this thinking previously, but i want to lay out a bit more in depth what i'm thinking and would appreciate any feedback.

First off, there's something in the physicality of the letter that i'm interested in.

Letters are both boring and interesting... They are ephemeral, but when looking at them from a distance in time, they lose immediacy and meaning. Reading an old letter can still hold an emotional bite, but there is no narrative in it (the 'what next?' is gone).

Which makes a story like Frankenstein incredibly interesting (or Dracula)... and modern variations on them might become even more interesting... Nothing much to say here, though...

Sincerely,

RNJ

is good will hunting the prequel to Mad Max?

2008-09-18T23:57:00.005-05:00

I was watching Good Will Hunting tonight on TNT, and considering a conversation i'd had earlier in the week with friendINthePROGRAM, Ron, about how we both seemed fairly sure that we hoped for (or at least weren't against) fundamental, global economic collapse... At least then things wouldn't be boring (which, at least according to Effi Briest, is the worst thing you can encounter).

I think i've come to a point in my life where i'm comfortable admitting, Good Will Hunting is my favorite movie... without all the hemming & hawwing of depending on situations or crowds... It is, quite simply, my favorite movie...

But mostly, i'm wondering... are we ok with complete economic (& therefore social) breakdown? We're taught (if we are taught) that we should set up delayed gratifications, in the form of "retirement", a program where we are taught to NOT live the live we want to or are able to live, and instead, give away a portion of that money to (theoretically) inherit later.

Having no research or information in this area, but being interested in it from afar, i will now claim that large portions of the folks who put their money away for this 'systematic delayed gratification' never get to experience it, or, if they do, they're old... so it's not as fun enjoying it, as it might have been when they were younger...

Ok, that's the basic argument... discuss... (soon, you'll have an opportunity to talk about letters...)

some thoughts on genre...

2008-09-10T22:57:00.006-05:00

In the opening chapter of Film/Genre (a fundamental texts on genre films), Rick Altman tracks the history of genre theory from Aristotle through to contemporary accounts. Fundamental to this history for Altman is the distinction between historical genres (genre established by tradition) and genre theory (development of genres through criticism). In large part, this distinction turns on who defines genre, the producer, the viewer, or the critic.

Deciding how to define genre (or a genre) hinges upon what genre is for, what its purpose is, or what function it serves. If defined by (or for) the viewer, we might thing of genre as a sorting system, a way to categorize films in terms of content. For critics, genres might be thought of as a way to organize meaning and providing a system for talking about film. What Altman (as well as Linda Williams & Thomas Schatz) seem to ignore (at least early in their books) is the idea of defining genre in terms of the production of the films.

Looking at genre from this perspective makes the idea of genre primarily about profit, about money. Generic conventions provide a basic structure for filmmakers to construct a film off of. For filmmakers, genre provides market predictability, an established audience to consume the films. Of course, discriminating fans want variation and reinvention in their genres of choice, but genres make for a quick, easy formula for profitable movies.

Another aspect of genre theory that goes mostly unremarked in Williams and Altman is the assumption that determining or defining genre relies mostly on content. When Williams proposes pornography as a genre her early attempts to define all focus on the content of the films in searching for a definition.

I’m not entirely sure what these slight oversights amount to as of yet and am interested in seeing Williams and Altman hopefully explore them, these strike me as possibly underexplored lines of inquiry in genre theory.

2008-09-07T22:58:00.005-05:00

I've decided to begin a new project on Roman Numeral J, in which, i try to get my site as the top google search (or at least on the top page) for various phrases/ideas/words/questions that come to my mind.

Just moments ago, i searched the terms 'is money real' (not in quotes) and was directed to a site called the street, the American Patriot Friends (or fax) Network, and the Liberty Dollar...

So, here's the deal... what if we just decide money doesn't exist? Some doof asked Michael Moore (via Larry King on Friday) why young voters aren't more moved by the fact that their generation is being sold out by the current political generation... Moore answered it in the only way he could, serving as a political activist, that of course the youth should be pissed at how their 'future money' is being spent, and how they'll have to pay for it, but that, like most youngins, they don't think it'll really matter...

But more importantly, what if we just decide we no longer recognize money as a realistic trade mechanism... Sure our nation owes $9.6 trillion to... somebody.

But, the reason a young generation & my moderately middle-aged generation shouldn't care is that we could decide to just stop keeping score... I'm not the first to suggest that modern bank accounts & finances are just new ways of keeping score...

*** Update 1/15/2011 ***

Unfortunately I have no idea what my plan was. But some of this sounds marginally interesting, so I'll publish this in the interest of the start of some good thinking.

Is Money Real?

2008-09-05T23:54:00.004-05:00

moderate 3rd quarter growth...

2008-08-27T09:08:00.005-05:00

According to Reuters, today, scientists will soon begin an experiment to re-create a mini Big Bang in a large underground facility.

Does anybody else think this might be a bad idea? Even if it's a "miniature Big Bang" (let's clean that up a bit, shall we?), a "Moderate Bang", we'll have an entirely new universe in some basement in Geneva, Switzerland. What these so-called scientists seem to have forgotten is the primary lesson we learned from the big bang, that universes created in such a way EXPAND.

So, when the world is being squeezed out of existence (or at least life as we know it is being shoved off the surface of the earth {hey, my wish comes true}) don't say i didn't warn you...

on this date in history...

2008-08-27T09:06:00.002-05:00

i was feeling crowded, yet empty.

Happy Happy, Joy Joy

2008-08-25T10:52:00.009-05:00

My most recent favorite blogger, jd, wrote today about the Psychology of Happiness and asks some interesting questions about the relationship between money and happiness (as well as suggesting, in the blog's self-help-ian way, 13 Steps to being happier).

His excellent post gets me thinking about my own, academic take on happiness, and in particular about whether happiness is necessarily a good thing, or a desired outcome. The answer to this seems obvious at first glance...yes. Justin Wolfers wrote recently on the Freakonomics blog about how Happiness Inequality is on the decline, while 'overall happiness' remains unchanged since the 70s & 80s, despite rampant economic growth. While i am loathe to buy into much of what such social science studies give us, the "hm, that's interesting value" is worth the read.

I also don't entirely believe the conclusions that jd, like so many others, reach that money can't buy happiness & meaningful relationships is the end-all be-all of getting happy (this is not to say that i DON'T believe those things, just that i don't take them for granted simply because it's what we've been told). I'm curious where the 'common knowledge' of money can't buy happiness comes from (and how much the person who first said it had in the bank at the time).

I certainly don't intend in this post to suggest how to get happy. Others have given plenty of advice on how to be more fulfilled or get less depressed after a huge disappointment (i highly recommend Rebecca Traister's article from just after the 2004 presidential election on the subject).

Instead, i'm most interested in whether getting happy should be a goal. Wikipedia says (for now, at least) that Happiness is "an emotion associated with feelings ranging from contentment and satisfaction to bliss and intense joy", which is well and good, but it seems to me that 'contentment' and 'satisfaction' imply inactive states. Being content or satisfied with the state of things means you likely don't want them to change, which to me seems to be the opposite of how we should hope to feel. Of course, working to enact change begs the question, "which way should we head?" or "what is the right direction for progress?", but let's set that aside for the time being.

What really interests me is the assumption, not that happiness is a good thing, it probably is, but that it should be a main goal. There's even a test you can take to find out how happy you are (followed by a course in happiness building), but it seems to me that to score happy on that particular test doesn't demonstrate happiness, rather stupidity (which are often lumped together).

"Ignorance is bliss" is the conventional wisdom that we all want to push back against... Nay, say we, we'd be happier knowing what we have or what we're striving for... Countless examples construct this argument that we don't need to be simple and innocent to be happy (most recently, in my re-watching the original Star Trek series i came to the episode where they encounter Apollo, "Who Mourns for Adonais?", a classic episode where the crew is captured by a powerful being who'd been to earth 5000 years ago and had waited for them to begin exploring space so they could live in Olympus with him, worshipping him and herding goats. Needless to say, Kirk is against the idea, fights back, and eventually wins their continued freedom.)

The real question, for me, is how do we define happiness?

Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a phenomenal and accessible book about it called Dancing in the Streets, but instead of individual happiness, her book explores collective joy. Happiness as defined as a collective feeling is something rarely, if ever, explored in modern definitions. 'How can I be happier' is what we want to know. At most, the question of 'how can we be happier' is answered in terms of a very small unit, a couple or a family, thus isolating us from our community/society/civilization by defining happiness as an individual endeavor.

So much of our current efforts focus on improving your own, personal happiness (take a stroll through any bookstore's self-help or personal finance section, or take a read through jd's site, which really is quite good), thoughts of communal or societal happiness is almost alien to us. Sure, we have collective feel-good times (look at last nights speeches by Teddy Kennedy & Michelle Obama) where we imagine ourselves to be working toward a 'common good', but politics hasn't been about a true common good for a long time, maybe it never was. Instead, talking heads on CNN & PBS talk about how the candidate (and those speaking on his behalf) needs to demonstrate to voters how electing them will improve their lives (meaning individual lives).

If everybody's happy & content with what they have, as jd (and others) suggest is a real goal, then we have no motivation for change or impetus for collective action. And so i would suggest, dear reader, that Bobby McFerrin had it half right...

Don't Worry, and Don't Be Happy...

... you think that was something

2008-08-23T14:30:00.002-05:00

Okay, so nobody was terribly excited by my HUGE scoop last week...

Well, Roman Numeral J has another one... Something big is brewing this week, for Obama's campaign. My source was unwilling to spill too much, but i have a feeling it's going to be HUGE. Somewhere out west, a big little city, my hunch tells me Denver... Stay tuned.

Anyway,

in other news, i spent Saturday playing tourist in my own town yesterday. Seeing the Milwaukee River Walk, including Milwaukee's newest tourist attraction... the Fonz!

It's really short. I think it's actually life-sized (Henry Winkler was evidently a little guy). The whole cast of Happy Days was on hand last Tuesday to unveil the statue.

It's a bit overly smily & the teal pants are, well teal. But now, finally, milwaukee will be a major tourist draw... As much as i hate the term "Stay-cation" (i throw up a little in my mouth each time i hear it), i think exploring your own environs as an outsider (buy a map, tool around the streets, look up at the buildings, drink in the early afternoon, and hit up those museums you always drive by the signs for... wear shorts & tennis shoes!)

Post-Poli Poli-post

2008-08-19T18:38:00.012-05:00

Roman Numeral J has learned some MAJOR BREAKING NEWS regarding the presidential campaign...

But first, i'd like to voice my own response to the 'Rick Warren' charade. At first i was taken aback late Sunday night as i watched the forum re-air on CNN. I understood why the candidates felt the need to appear with Rick Warren (though i shouldn't be able to understand it), and Rick Warren's interview was, for the most part, laughable (as pointed out succinctly by David Waters). And so i watched in a stupor of disbelief as Obama continued to treat Warren's questions seriously and McCain provided applause-fodder. But the substance of the interviews isn't necessarily what interests me...

It occurs to me that, despite whatever personal distaste i have for the fact that candidates need to (or believe they need to) pander to people who literally believe that an omnipotent being genuinely cares and interacts with them on a daily basis, i think i am actually in support of what Rick Warren has done here.

Think about it, before the CPD hijacked the debate procedure and allowed campaigns to eliminate any debate from debates we had a somewhat fairer presidential debate system. While i am entirely in support of Open Debates' project, i think something even more democratic is called for, something not entirely like what McCain proposed early on in the campaign, a series of small, collective events where the candidates discuss issues together in a variety of formats (not just the townhall meeting).

If both Obama & McCain truly want to re-invent the political climate, they need to start by re-inventing the Election Game. This isn't a new idea to me, in fact David Brooks points to McCain's realization that he can't play the game the way he had wanted to, but i think he can, if he can convince Obama to agree to the same thing... which is why i'd like to announce:

The First Quadrennial Roman Numeral J Presidential Debate

Friday, October 3rd at 6pm

in my back yard.

All presidential candidates polling at 3% in or higher in mid-September are welcome to participate. Press passes will be distributed when schedules are confirmed. This forum will represent an opportunity for candidates to demonstrate a desire to be post-politicians and refuse to be forced into running the exact same campaign that's been run by every other major party candidate for the last 30 years.

And, finally, the news you've all been waiting for... Finally, i can stand up to Big Blog with the scoopiest of scoops. I have it on good authority who Barak Obama will name as his vice presidential running mate. His VP pick, to be announced Saturday (we'll see if he sticks to that timetable) is Joe Biden. You heard it here first. My source, understandably, wants to remain anonymous, but s/he's trustworthy. So, go print it...

Tell you What... TellUride

2008-08-14T21:36:00.009-05:00

South Milwaukee has a "new" bar... Finally a bar, for south milwaukee.

But seriously, Telluride, at 2155 S. Kinnickinnic is a great new find on the south side... For a neighborhood where you can find a small-time, local watering hole at every... well everywhere... Telluride provides an (evidently) eco-friendly, inviting experience. Modeled after a Coloradian resort bar (though any theme-i-ness is very understated) the bar has been in operation a couple of months according to co-owner Luke Grant, who was tending bar.

I am hugely in awe of anyone who starts a business, particularly one so close to my heart, and my liver. At first sight, the bar was clean & somewhat spartan in its decorating... and sparse in its patronage, though it was a Thursday afternoon... it was also southSide Milwaukee.

But they had good beers on tap (including Pilsner Urquell & some Colorado beers like Flying Dog Pale Ale) & poured some decent cocktails (no Rehorst on hand, despite the fact they're moving into the neighborhood). But the real highlight of this place was the outdoor seating/gaming area. They've got a great patio, some attractive landscaping & fencing & LADDERBALL!

In fact, you can choose from two types of ladder-ball, traditional (though with golf-balls) or 'football themed, with yellow goal-post style targets & overly bouncy football Bolas. They've also got two different types of Bags targets... Maybe I should introduce them to hippie horseshoes as well...

The other two great features of Telluride are that it's smoke-free (without needing a city ordinance to tell them to) & you can bring your dog & hang out in the patio... Finally Rex Grossman won't have to sneak drinks while we're at work...

Located at the north tip of Bayview on Kinnickinnic, Telluride also has the added bonus of getting a lot of drive by traffic each day. In fact, that's the only reason we ended up checking it out, was because we'd seen the outside seating area when i drove by for work each day.

On a side-note, this looks to be the first in a series of Milwaukee Southside entries coming up soon, as another new joint is opening right near us TONIGHT! (The Sahara Cafe) & i've heard a recent rumor that Rehorst is going to start selling Bourbon (as soon as sits long enough in the barrels)

FICFs

2008-08-12T13:02:00.009-05:00

Last Wednesday afternoon i attended my first ever Cubs game at Wrigley Field. Having recently developed a keen hatred for the Cubs & Cubs fans (where before there was a deep, abulic indifference), i thought the event might be uncomfortable, awkward, or even dangerous (though, less so once i decided not to wear my shiny new Prince Fielder t-shirt).

They were playing the Houston Astros, in a rubber game on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon. We got to the stadium just before first pitch & grabbed snacks & beers on the way to our seats. I'd heard the food at Wrigley was simply abysmal and the "brat" i was served definitely backed that up. On the upside, they had Old Style available at about half of the concession stands.

We got to our seats, which were the cheapest we'd found on stubHub & were impressed to find we were very close to the field along the left field line (near the foul pole). Alfonso Soriano (literally "big jerk") was close by when the Cubs were in the field and he joked back & forth with the Bleacher Bums (at one point after Fonzo had misplayed a fly ball, they pointed to Right Fielder Fukudome's snazzy catch as an example of something he might try).

Our seat-neighbors were cordial for the most part, decidedly un-Chicagoan. Then the 3rd inning started. The Astros took a 4-1 lead, scoring the last 3 on a home run by Carlos Lee (el Caballo, literally "Carlos Lee"). Actually you can find the entire game, obsessively blogged by some guy listening to the radio broadcast. Down 4-1 the fans starting turning. They became the cynical, slightly jerky (but still harmless) Cub fans i've come to know...

At that point, Nathan & i decided to get out of the sun, stretch our legs, and see the stadium sites. We wandered back around the stadium and walked through some better infield sections. It's amazing how close to the action you feel at any of the lower deck sections at Wrigley. It's also astounding to think how long people have been walking these same sections - Wrigley is a really old (at least relatively) feeling place to see a sporting event (i suppose the Colosseum in Rome might put this into perspective, but still).

As we were headed back we were accosted by a guy trying to get us to sign up for credit cards (or checking accounts) in order to get a free t-shirt. Nathan quizzed the guy about damaging his credit score by running a credit check, but the guy assured us that as long as you don't do it all the time you had nothing to worry about... We (surprisingly) declined the offer, but as we were finishing up a conversation with him the Cubs hit a grand slam.

We continued back toward our seats, but it suddenly came to us that the reason our food might have sucked was due to the wrong type of food... In Milwaukee, you order a brat at the game, in Chicago, a Chicago style dog. We grabbed dogs & more beer (loading up with hot peppers & a frighteningly green relish) and headed back to our seats. While we were in our respective lines, the Cubs scored 4 more runs for an 8-run bottom of the 3rd. We got back in time to watch Theriot ground out to end the inning.

The fans in our section were in high spirits by the time we came back.

"Did we miss anything?" we asked.

"Nooo. Nothing, you didn't miss anything. Though, if the Astros start scoring again, you're going to have to leave again," They replied.

In fact, somehow, the fans, not just the game, were extremely enjoyable. At the end of the game, winning soundly, fans were in good spirits. DoucheBag Cubs fans & Drunk Bleacher Girls were cultivating meaningful relationships in the last couple of innings... Singing "Take Me Out To the Ballgame" at Wrigley was something special, even if it was Ron Santo singing... Then they sing some "go cubs go" song when they win...

Overall, i was actually somewhat disappointed by how accommodating & not-overly-douchey the Cubs fans were... And while everyone was laughinghavingagoodtime and singing their songs, i actually saw what might drive someone to being a Cubs fan. There's a good-timie-ness to it that is almost unavoidable. By the end of the game, i was even cheering for the Cubs and i'm a fucking Brewers fan.

I mean, i still hate the Cubs & hate Cubs fans when they come to Milwaukee, for sure, but Wrigley... actually kinda cool.
thanks, gilk, for getting me to wrigley, finally.

The hottest, newest, internetiest sites

2008-08-08T14:05:00.005-05:00

Welcome to the internet¹, or my most recent exploration of it (and by exploration, i mean when people email me to tell me to go to specific websites & provide links & i'm terribly bored so i click on them).

Over the past few weeks, Roman Numeral J has added some 'features' to the right side links, which you should explore & i thought i'd draw some specific attention to a few of them:

First off, the exquisite Jackie Willey has fanangled her way to Japan, the country. She is teaching through the JET program and is chronicling the entire experience at Jackie Hits the Road.

My brother, tim, also recently came onto the blogging scene with his occasional blog A Dad's Reflections.

In addition to the new blogger friends i've added a few "Frequented Sites":

First off, miron's friend 'jd' is a real blogger, who, like, writes blog entries at Get Rich Slowly about getting rich over a slightly long period of time... JD's a good writer & a fine blogger (you may remember jd from such fame as giving me an earlier start at his erstwhile comics blog, which i should have written harder at...)

JD pointed me to (via his wildly successful blog) a site called fuelly (which isn't permanently linked on my site), with which you can track your mpg & see similar (or other) cars' mpg real ratings. The catalog of cars is still small, but growing, and it's an easy way to have someone else do the figuring for you...

Fuelly is similar to my summer favorite, golflink.com, with which you can enter all of your rounds of golf and eventually figure out your handicap automatically.

Perhaps the most exciting new addition to Roman Numeral J, (not necessarily due to content, but more because of the source) is famouslocations.com, which is a website cataloging where movies were filmed... I'm not entirely convinced, but it marks Roman Numeral J's first official "reciprocal link"... not that i don't have previous reciprocal links (w/ Toads in the Hole, rssl, & Sara & Josh), but here is the first instance of a complete stranger requesting a reciprocal link with me...
Though, actually, i haven't found my site linked to from their website yet, so maybe i'll tell you not to go there tomorrow...

I've also added the 'got a brilliant idea' link, which has been here for a while... The idea is the sharing of brilliant ideas that you don't/can't implement yourself. All proceeds (see note) will be funneled into the franchise commune.
And finally, the ArFives, which is also a link that's been on the side for a while, but i'd like to draw some attention to... as it's a trace of, sadly literally, what i've been up to lately.

1. Lundeberg, Shane. Facebook. (comment on wall of Brooke Sahlstrom). 2008.

A Comparative Review of The Midnight Meat Train and Charlotte's Web

2008-08-03T09:15:00.009-05:00

I'm guessing this will be the only one.

Yesterday i had one of those rare days where i watch two movies in one day. While i love these days, i don't often get the opportunity to have them as it blocks off a significant portion of waking hours. I also find that the two movies become, in some way, permanently conjoined in my mind and as a recovering English major, i find myself trying to find connections, comparing themes, finding a mutual story in two separate films.

So it was, when i found myself watching the newer take on Charlotte's Web, i was looking back at Ryuhei Kitamura's latest offering, The Midnight Meat Train. I've never seen any of Kitamura's work (though my office mate Allan has suggested him to me on numerous occasions) and had very few expectations going in. Similarly, i somehow missed a fundamental portion of my childhood and have never, to my memory, read or seen Charlotte's Web. I knew it had to do with a spider & a pig (just as i knew Kitamura's film would have to do with a train and a butt-ton of blood)

At first glance these two films probably don't seem to have a lot to do with one another, but that's probably just because not a lot of people see both in close proximity (or see them both, period) to one another. Both films are clearly pro-vegetarian, and present the case thoughtfully and, more interestingly, visually. Shots of sizzling meat are presented as subtle reminders and foreshadowing in both films, but both films resist using the images simplistically. In Charlotte's Web, the family eats a hearty farm breakfast of bacon & eggs each morning, all the while marvelling at the "terrific & radiant" pig across the street. Decreasingly vegetarian photographer Leon Kauffmann (Alias' Bradley Cooper) assumes the 'non-judgemental vegetarian' role, bringing his own tofu to his local diner in Meat Train and having it cooked for him on the same grill as the steaks & burgers being cooked for other patrons. The films present a two-pronged attack on ~~cannibalism~~ carnivorism, with Meat Train making a case based on sanitation in the meat-production industry, while Charlotte gives us the cute-fuzzy (& intelligent)-pig argument.

In both films the place of meat production is a horrific focal point for characters to discover/avoid. The smoke house is for Wilbur & Charlotte, a constant reminder of what's at stake, though we never see the inside of it, we know we don't want to. Kitamura brings us into the butcher house where visual echoes of the hanging corpses of Kauffmann's imagination/memory hang in the form of cow carcasses. The place is clearly one of danger, but also profit. Kauffmann photographs his surroundings and lands himself a high-profile art show thanks to one shot in particular, which captures serial killer Mahogany (Vinnie Jones) at work, but turning to catch Kauffmann in the act of snapping the photo.

What is most interesting in The Midnight Meat Train, i think, is the way the film explores the photograph and the camera while following the trail of a fairly familiar (until the last 6 minutes, that is) psycho-thriller. Kitamura is clearly interested in framing (see movie poster) and we often get murder scenes reminiscent of almost anime-styled violence. Roland Barthes' notion of 'posing' for a photograph also gets complicated when characters realize they share a frame with the murderous Mahogany. They pause/pose in front of the murderer, who pauses in kind (presumably to heighten suspense), but both are also 'posing' for the film's camera, as if for a single frame of a comic.

Barthes' idea of 'posing' complicates the documentary or evidentiary idea of the photograph. The poser's awareness of being in a photograph creates a doubling of meaning in the photograph, the actuality of the 'what-has-been' alongside the altering of the moment with the presence of the camera. What has changed because of the presence of the camera? Kauffmann seems to save model Erika Sakaki (Nora) by photographing and pointing out the surveillance camera to would-be assailants, but when she catches her train because of his intervention, we are no longer so sure. Mahogany is clearly an evil psychopath. That's at least clear until we experience the Lovecraftian (or Clive Barkian, if you prefer) final 6 minutes of the film. A shift in perspective makes us question not just who's good & who's evil, but who are we to judge.

Similarly, Charlotte's Web is also a film all about perspective. One the surface, of course, it's about rethinking preconceptions. Charlotte is a spider, and therefore ugly & evil...but she makes such beautiful, prescient webs. Wilbur is a pig, and therefore lesser & tasty, but his ability to bring the barn's occupants together truly makes him "some pig". On closer examination, though, the story is also about the perspective of what is sad (what is tragedy) and what is not. Charlotte dies, at least in part, because she saves Wilbur. But her offspring live. While Wilbur lives a long life, surely it's not as long a life as Dakota Fanning will live, but this, too, can't be read as a tragedy at the end of the story, both because we don't see it in the narrative arc and because Wilbur lives a long life from the perspective of a pig (just as Charlotte likely has from the perspective of a spider).

But this perspective can again be turned on its head by thinking about the one-at-a-timin' principle of heroes. We are led to believe that Wilbur is special, and that Charlotte is special, and that even Templeton is special, but do we extend this to all of their kind? Is the long-life-d-ness of these creatures only a 'good thing' for them, or does the fact that all this effort is expended to rescue 'just one pig' a waste, because, while we don't see it, there's still surely bacon on the family's table across the street. And as to Charlotte, ask a geriatric fly how he feels about the continued existence of every spider. The questions that both Charlotte's Web and The Midnight Meat Train are asking are ones about whether surviving, on an individual basis, is really the ultimate goal. Some pigs have to die, in order to have enough food for all the humans, right? Or, if not, wouldn't all the surviving pigs constitute an undue strain on human food supplies... And what makes us assume that we are the ultimate end of the decision-making. Clive Barker has a possible answer, but i'm not sure you're going to like it...

oh-oh-oh Laughing By Myse-elf

2008-07-31T14:27:00.002-05:00

Reading David Sedaris in a public place is never a very good idea...

This i discovered today, first as i was eating lunch in the cafeteria and later, more conclusively, when i was in the CyberCafe/Lobby area. I'm reading Sedaris' newest book of essays, When you are Engulfed in Flames, and it's good, though not as laughOUTloud funny as his previous offerings. I've been alternating back and forth between it & The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman the last few weeks at lunch. I generally eat alone here at Northwestern Mutual and, having learned my lesson from miron, i place a napkin on my lap before eating & reading...

Today i was eating a salmon cake

*** 6 December 2009 ***

Unfortunately, I don't recall what happened with the salmon cake. I'm sure it was really important and rife with significance, but alas, it's lost to obscurity...

Happy 50th NASA!

2008-07-29T19:15:00.004-05:00

Today marks the 50th Anniversary of Dwight D. (Dwight) Eisenhower's signing NASA into existence, and it's a good thing, too.

I've been a big fan of space since i've had the cognitive ability to be a fan of much of anything... which perhaps hasn't actually been that long. Nonetheless, i love it. Space, the final frontier & all...
Of course Kelly has already commented & blogged & explained the day, but i really think this is something special.

Space and the possibility of space exploration has always been a sort of guilty fascination of mine. I like the fiction of space (Star Trek & Firefly and all the rest), but i also really like the reality of space exploration/travel. I was truly giddy when i heard the report of Richard Branson's new Virgin Galactic space tourism, which won't even possibly be ready till next year, and probably later than that, and it will cost $200,000 so i will never be able to go.

But there i sat, watching an awkward television interview with some fool reporter and the "rebel billionaire" and i was excited, truly excited in that kidd-ish way you don't often experience.

Which is kind of my point here. I really like space in an unsophisticated way. I like to stare up at the stars and learn about what makes them tick & all, (Astronomy was one of my favorite classes in all my time at Luther, and not just because the professor was cute...) but mostly i like space in the sense that i'd like to ride around checking out a host of new planets & solar systems... I want to cruise around boldly going where no one has gone before... i want to be a space explorer.

In fact, the potential of future space exploration (i mean the walking around on artifically grav-plated decks, not the squeezing tang into the air and catching the droplets while floating upside down variety) is one of the main reasons i'm exploring ways to become immortal. Whether it be downloading my consciousness into an android, cryogenically freezing myself for 2500 years, or going the undead route & coming back as a vampire (it's always dark in space, right?) i want to live forever... or at least a really long time... or at least later than now. And the primary reason for this is because i want to cruise around in space.

2008-07-29T15:50:00.002-05:00

The Pareto Principle states: “Most businesses know that 80 percent of their revenue comes
from 20 percent of their clientele.”

"Learn and capitalize on people's issues -- whether it be their children, health or career desires." (Wall Street ** Update 14 November 2009 **, I honestly don't know {and am too lazy to look up} whether this is from Wall Street the movie, or if I just hadn't typed "Wall Street Journal" yet, or what...

I have no clue what I wanted to write about here... but i'll leave these two quotes from "business types" to speak for themselves. And see what we might do with them.

Assume a Position

2008-07-28T10:02:00.002-05:00

As part of my “academic review” at the end of last semester, Andrew Kincaid suggested to me that I write up a series of “position papers” that might function as 30 second – 10 minute summations of my areas of interest. The idea being that I needed to be able to define myself and an area of study, particularly with regards to the job market, but more generally as an academic, and so I present the first, perhaps most general of my position papers for your review. This is a sort of never-ending work in progress, so (as always) comments and questions are more than welcome, they’re absolutely fundamental…

*** *** ***

Why study death?

Death is an essential and fundamental part of all of our lives (one Walter Benjamin calls “exemplary”), but it is an aspect of modern life that we avoid talking about or even thinking about if possible. The modern need to overfill one’s life with events & stuff & people (the modern hyper-busy) is the need to distract one’s attention from death. Entire industries, such as life insurance and legacy investment planning create institutional denial of death by recreating a new, modern afterlife, namely the bank account – the trust fund.

The simultaneous wane of absolute religious authority and development of the ‘self’ in the modern era have created a situation where the game of life (& death) has become unwinnable. Previously, an individual who was dying was secure in the comfort of some version of an afterlife, or continuance, either a religious heaven, the promise of reincarnation or a more ecological dispersal of the body. Additionally, before the advent of the modern ‘self’ a dying person could trust in the continuation of the line through children and the tribe, or even the civilization. This isn’t to say that pre-modern man didn’t see any distinction of the self, but that modernity’s (and especially late modernity’s) emphasis on individual destiny and its insistence on splintering society, separating people from one another makes a collective immortality (or at least survival) less appealing.

There was an earlier time when death wasn’t seen this way. It wasn’t a horror in and of itself. It was scary, perhaps, but it was joked with, laughed at, and most importantly considered. I am interested in tracking these changes, both temporally and geographically and understanding first, whether some fundamental change has taken place and if so, what the implications might be.

Evidently not everyone has brewer fever...

2008-07-24T11:15:00.005-05:00

Last night as I was listening to the end of CC Sabathia’s dominant 3-hit shutout in my backyard, a strange voice kept cutting into the broadcast. Bob Uecker was announcing just the 3rd (& final) hit given up by CC when this nameless trucker (I would come to know it was one side of a CB conversation) says “you gotta be really screwed up to have your dad take off […] then yer’ mom to take off you gotta be screwed up.”

This was actually the second or third thing I’d heard the guy say & I’m not sure if he was breaking into just my broadcast or that of the entire AM620 listening audience, but I ran into the house to grab a pad of paper & a pencil. It’s times like those that I wish I’d taken a secretarial shorthand course back in the 60s (or had a Truman Capote-type memory), because I couldn’t keep up with the conversation & missed a lot of it, but what I did catch, I present here, for your…amusement(?).

***Note: Breaks between lines vary from a matter of seconds to as much as a minute. Any lines that are incomplete contain […] to indicate missed dialogue, again ranging from a few words to several sentences.

Trucker: “One day […] we’ll see a shrink”

T: “How many times we can see a shrink, Tom, eh?”

T: “[…] Sorry if I messed up your Christmas […]Heh-heh-heh heh”.
Something unintelligible about “whitewash”

T: “…almost 40 years old and you’re paying for his doctor and all that […] probably hold the door open for her and touch her […] but we’re all paying for it.”

T: “Well, you guys shouldn’t come up here then, you should stay in the south. Nobody gives a crap.”
An MGD commercial runs in what has now become the background.

Bob Uecker: “…Hard fought series here in St. Louis…”
Ryan Braun hits a solo homerun (25) in the top of the 9th.

BU: “Ryan Braun adds a Badger Mutual Insurance Run […] Prince Fielder with a walk, Hit By a Pitch and 2 Strikeouts […] 0-2 pitch…”

T: “Can’t know what any of these _______ are sayin’ right now.”

T: “What he got—let me guess. […] You got who’s hitting your […]”

T: “This guy is taking your money and you’re pissing and moaning about who’s taking your money […] you should be busting his door down if not, put in for new work.”

T: “More ambition than Tommy had in his entire life.”

T: “Yeah, he’s a fudge packer.”
Corey Hart hits into a fielder’s choice and Billy Hall comes up.

BU: “There’s a runner out there for Billy Hall […] 41,415 at St. Louis tonight […] 2-2, had a good cut […] Corey Hart almost got picked off. Corey’s got a couple of hits tonight and a run scored.”
Bill Hall strikes out.

T: “That SOB, it does not work. […] Hey, I’ll give you a perfect example. My son was 16, he’s ________ to work on the farm, worked the extra summer […] Tommy Sehry out there _________ a donkey or a goat. […] kid worked like a bugger today […] work ethic, ________ and health insurance that we are not paying for today.”
Pujols bats.

T: “Tommy got up there, Caballo’s up there. […] Yeah, I’m sorry for ______ you. You are in cahoots with Tommy. Well not cahoots, but whatever you two are in.”

So, that’s the whole of what I jotted down. It provided an interesting counterpart to Uecker & Jim Powell. All in all, it was a good game and a surreal broadcast.

a theory...

2008-07-23T09:17:00.006-05:00

In 1988 Gore Vidal was supporting Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign.

At some point during the election year Vidal made a comment that amounted to something like this (apologies, i don't recall where i heard this and i'm too lazy to look it up... it might be a national press club event, maybe the 16th of March, 1988):

After 8 years of horrific governmental mismanagement, overstepping countless international laws and accepted practices, and borderline insane economic irresponsibility the NEXT 4 years might be quite ugly indeed.

as such... the BEST thing Republicans, who might be reticent to elect an African American as President, might do is to elect an undesirable

** Updated 14 November 2009 **

That is, of course, undesirable to the hypothetical evil conservative... I still sort of stand by this post, more than a year later, but perhaps it's not the case... My sense is that anyone who the corporate hates, things look bad for, anyone who the corporate loves gets a pass (eh?)...

Doe!

2008-07-22T08:27:00.005-05:00

Last night i went golfing by myself, which is as rewarding an experience as going to movies by myself or sitting in coffee shops by myself. I played Grant Park Golf Course, which is close to (but out of eyeshot of) Lake Michigan on Milwaukee's southSide - after 7pm, they have "sunset" rates, which is $7 for as many of the 18 holes as you can get in. I got through the front nine, just barely (because of a couple larger groups that wouldn't let me play through).

I stepped up to the 9th tee, it was getting darker faster than it should have been due to the cloud cover and there was a light rain (better than the last 2 holes' middling rain) falling. I hit my tee shot once the foursome turned the left dogleg and it felt good. No idea where it went, didn't see it at all, but it felt like a nice shot.

I decided to play a 2nd ball, an orange ball, a "Noodle 2" in fact in case i didn't stumble upon my first ball. It was a line-drive right, into some trees, i saw it bounce, then saw somebody move toward my ball, "Shit!", i thought, "i almost hit that dude", but i quickly realized there wasn't anybody in the woods, rather two deer. I almost hit one of them with my orange ball, though they didn't seem to mind.

I walked in their direction, slowly, pulled my cell phone out of my bag and tried to shoot a few quick photos (nothing doing, it was too dark to get much of a shot). I didn't end up finding that orange ball, but the two deer ran to the middle of the fairway & i followed, figuring i might just skip the 9th, but their path took me over my original ball, the Nike Swoosh looking up at me.

I hit possibly the best 5-iron shot of my life then, just short of the green and looked once more at the deer, who were headed back toward the 9th tee now. I watched them go, then got to my ball, realized all the lights in the clubhouse were out and mine was the only car in the lot & proceeded to chip poorly & three-putt to end my round. Naja, it was worth it, though, and i played an ok round... Not great, but ok.

2 shots!

2008-07-21T08:34:00.005-05:00

I, along with ferry boatloads of other people, saw The Dark Knight over the weekend and was surprised to find my expectations (which were high going in) exceeded by Christopher Nolan's latest film. The film is dark and smart and scary (not in the 'boo' slasher sense, rather in the afraid of yourself because you're laughing at that sense) and funny. The film also rounds out (though likely doesn't finish) one of the oddest series of films ever to be scored by the joel & joel shot system of movie ratings with this latest installment scoring 2 shots & an earlier rendition (Batman & Robin) scoring a record 17 shots.*

By way of warning, this post may contain some minor spoilers...

Because there are clearly better & earlier reviews of The Dark Knight out there, i won't go into too much detail about the film and its high & low points, instead i want to think about its themes & implications. By far, Heath Ledger is the best part of this movie. He's scary & hilarious and while the makeup surely helps (Oscar nod & win is already in the bag for that make-up job, methinks), the Oscar talk for Ledger himself is actually not that far off. But the character of the Joker is much more than he's ever been in earlier film versions, because he wants nothing but chaos. The writing somewhat clumsily equates anarchy & chaos (and terrorism), but what seems to be missing (or contradicted) in a lot of conversations about this theme in the film is that The Dark Knight ultimately comes to a very conservative & statist conclusion. The film sets up an unfair binary (the only variety there is) of the Joker's variety of disordered violence & the institutional order of the police (& the corporation - Wayne Enterprises) as the only two alternatives. Clearly, no sane person would prefer the mob warlords world where everyone's life is constantly threatened by those who are stronger (or have the most guns).

The ferryboat scene offers a possible 'third way', and delivers (afterwards, i couldn't quite decide how i wanted that scene to turn out, i think it would have spoken volumes had any of the possible outcomes happened), but ultimately they are all rescued by the established institutional forces. While you can point out that Batman is a vigilante, on the run from the law (at least officially) during and at the end of the movie, this serves as a fine critique of corporate power & its abuses as well as an illustration of any government's willingness to look the other way when corporations break laws if it helps maintain the established power structure. All in all, The Dark Knight is a strong critique, a good movie, a fun ride, and a useful jumping off point... Go enjoy it.

*To purists who will immediately object, yes, of course i understand there is no connection between earlier Batman movies and these latest two, but just as i will consider J.J. Abram's upcoming Star Trek (which, OMG, i am SO excited for) a part of the franchise, i see these films as perpetually linked

See, see!

2008-07-07T23:21:00.003-05:00

So, with CC Sabathia added to the Brewer's roster and starting tomorrow night (i'll be there, likely getting booted out of the slightly more expensive seats...again), i think it's time to take a look at the sporting world of sportJoel.

** Updated 14 November 2009 **

I'm not sure what I was going to write about, but there is a vast text base from which to work... Email me for a copy* of "Sport Joel" & "Probe-Film", both of which offer up fantastic insight into the early sport-i-ness days of joel.

*Please specify format you'd like the footage delivered in. Pricing will start at the basic "VHS tape - $15.00, DVD - $30.00". These prices are subject to change (after I've figured out how to make the first copy, future copies may get much cheaper...

some things i'm thinking...

2008-06-25T14:39:00.004-05:00

First of all, i've decided today that google is scary. Perhaps not scary in the dark, evil Giant way that Microsoft is scary, but when i logged into gmail today google asked me:

Would you like to...
Add to calendar
dinner""Betsy" and "Je...
Thu Jun 26, 2008

Now this may night seem frightening in and of itself, but all they had to go on was an email i'd written to 'the boys' about playing some golf. A sampling of that email reveals that there doesn't seem to be enough info for a computer to realize i've got something scheduled:

"We will likely be in town Thursday early-ish (i'm thinking around 4-5), but i think we're having "dinner" with "Betsy" and "Jeff", which likely takes thursday off the table (unless somewhere has glowBall golfing or i can sneak out of the commitment)..."

That's all there was, but it was enough for google to ask me if i'd like to pencil betsy and jeff in. What does this mean, you may be asking yourself. Well, it means google is now a sentient being and will soon be taking all of us over... hopefully for the better.

***

In other news, Turkey just lost the first Euro 2008 semi-final and they played a hell of a match. Outplaying Germany early on, taking an early lead, appearing to come back AGAIN. They had an amazing tournament, man what a fun final that would have been, but UEFA & the German national team had other storylines in mind. Surely there's better coverage elsewhere, but let me be the 3rd to say, bravo Turkey... i'll wear my soccerJacket with pride... when it's not so hot out.

***

And then some kudos to ABC... for their lineup last night. Wipeout was everything i dreamed it could be. Brooke rightly pointed out that the final round wasn't funny anymore, but adding in a small amount of skill to this 'MonkeyBall but for Real' game was a fair price to pay. Then I Survived a Japanese Gameshow was a bit to drama-y and 'you're-fired-y' for my taste, but still a fairly enjoyable experience. Well done with the cheap summer fill ins. I think they were mostly leftover from when the network was afraid of a neverending Writer's strike, but still... ABC gets a dribbling single that probably should have been an error.

missing links

2008-06-23T13:36:00.004-05:00

Saturday morning at 6:45 am i found myself for the first time in far too long a time pulling into the gravel parking lot of Turtle Green's Golf Course just west of Clinton with my brother tim. It'd been almost a year since the last time i'd golfed, also with tim, at an Omaha course, but this was something different, entirely. It was the course i "learned" to play on, and it was not yet 7 in the morning (a couple of guys were finishing up the 9th hole as we pulled in).

The clubhouse was still closed & locked up, so we headed for the first tee-off, then realized we didn't have a scoreCard. There were none outside, but tim checked the carts and found this one clipped to the steering wheel of one. I took on the "Ace" line, naturally. Tim played as Floyd and we were ready.

The last time i'd teed off at Turtle Greens was during our rehearsal dinner, and i'd played just the first hole, but hit what was & is the best tee shot i've ever had. It was lofty & long and ended up just over the lip of the small hill before the first green (my second shot, a 9-iron, went perpendicular to me and straight into the treeline). This time around i was a bit nervous at having overachieved so much my last attempt, but my first shot was strong & true, pretty much the same shot, just shorter.

Now, let me just say straight out that i am not a good golfer. As my scorecard above can attest to, i lack consistency, focus, and a good scanner. That being said, though, i think i'm starting to realize that i really love golf. If only i did it more than, say, once or twice a summer. Already, after just one time out i've got a shortlist of Must Have Clubs (a 7 or 8 wood & a pitching wedge - in my own bag i have a "loft wedge" which is occasionally useful, but when the next club up is my 9-iron, i have a lot of holes in my short game {mostly having to do with the fact that i'm a terrible golfer}). I hit 9 pretty decent tee shots (only #6 & #9 were out of the fairway and those because i actually went over the green).

Overall, it was a pretty lousy round of golf (though i did beat my goal-score from when i was 12 years old), but it felt great. Who knew you could get up at 6:30 and feel so good... i should do it all the time. In fact, if only i didn't have to work all the time, i think i'd be golfing constantly. Yet another reason to retire immediately. So, everyone, dust off your clubs (if you haven't got clubs - Nathan Gilkerson, i'm looking at you - go buy a set at a garage sale), hit the municipal courses and let's start cracking some windshields... Golf-Ho (that'll be my code-name)

the era of the mini-pundit

2008-06-19T10:56:00.010-05:00

So, i know i don't often wax (wane?) politico on this blog, but with a bit of inspiration from my new e-stalkee & a quick 4-minute segment on CNN this morning i have something to get off my chest...

Just before i left the house this morning CNN's "American Morning" was interviewing the youngest superDelegate for the 2008 Democratic Primary & a slightly hot, exceedingly severe College Republican... They were talking, purportedly (which i think is the snider way to say supposedly), about the "youth" vote & the "issues important for young people today"...

What they really showed, though, were a couple of prematurely 50-year-old Talking Heads using strict partyline talking points to "debate" Obama's help kids pay for school plan. First of all, the idea that the driving issue for 'young people' (which i'm starting to realize no longer really includes me) is how to pay for college is belittling & an oversimplification. This, of course, is not surprising for cable news (it's remarkable how little insight or information you can pack into 1 hour of cable news coverage), but it speaks to a larger issue i've been thinking about lately, namely old people.

The impetus for my discussion of this rampant problem is the crotchety senior citizens hired at Miller Park to walk through sections harrassing young people during poorly attended midweek games. Brooke & i had $6 nosebleeds (sponsored by Miller High Life - which, miller high life, if you'd like to sponsor this blog i'd be more than happy to sing your praises as often as necessary) and being a dead Wednesday nite (this is a subltle Miller plug) game, we found some better seats available on the Loge level. We sat down alongside a large contingent of other seat jumpers and made the classic seat jumper blunder of sitting a few rows back from the filled in seats (for those wishing to get better seats, the secret is 1) enter a section that is not currently being watched by old people & 2) choose seats that are in the row directly behind (or even better in front of) established sitters... They likely won't check tickets for large numbers of folks, but this system can still fail if - you're young-ish looking.

That's right, agial profiling is going on at Brewer's Games. I personally observed crotchety old people check tickets of several groups of youngFolks, but bypass an older couple of men in windbreakers who obviously didn't have tickets for that section (they were seated several rows behind the end of the sold tickets, but weren't checked because they were old).

Most disturbingly was the way we were addressed when the old man confronted us. He said "Sir, do you have tickets for this section?"

"No," i said, which momentarily confused him. I suspect he was waiting for a 'i can't find my ticket ploy', but he recovered and said "Do you have tickets on the Terrace Level, sir." His insinuation was that we clearly did not belong here, among the over-priced seats, but we clearly belonged 'up there'. Add this to our experience of a few nights prior when our Beer Pen seats were otherwise occupied and when we told the usher this she said, "aw, go find some other seats." (Admittedly this was later in a blowout, but the section, while having some empty seats, was significantly fuller than the Loge level seats we were occupying). I really wonder, though, if we'd been doddering old folks would we have gotten our seats...

This all points to, i think, a larger issue we're really facing, that of a true cultural divide between young & old. Walter Benjamin talks about this a lot in his early writing, the idea that the youth must revolt & drive social agenda, but the problem we have with American culture is that the youth pretty much has to rally behind an old person... No matter where you draw the line of 'old guy' & youth the average age of national leaders is telling... I'm not necessarily calling for a Logan's Run style abolition of old folks (i'd be finished in both the film & book versions), but there's something here and i'm not sure what it is.

Obviously, youth grow up & become older. For a while they're an 'in-between' stage, where i think i find myself now. Not sure i want to buy in totally to the Programme of american commerce/democracy (commocracy?), but also pretty sure that if i don't soon i will "be in trouble later"... Get your pension in order, workworkwork while you still can, maintain your health benefits (by never quitting your job or making sure you always have another one waiting) so you can stay healthy...
But what i wonder is, is there a way to maintain youth when you grow older. To continue to believe in the things you believed in before. Old white guys on the radio (i'm looking at you AM 620 - WTMJ in Milwaukee) will tell you that when you get older & "wiser" you realized you were confused when you were younger, that you just didn't realize how things worked, but what it really is is that you get scared by the Programme and then have to start telling everyone else to 'get with it' so you feel ok for joining up... (it's a lot like the housing market & how i tell everyone that it's really starting to come back & look good now that i own a house).

If we look at the art historical tradition of (??? early 1800/victorian/1600s? Art Historians help me out here) painting children as if they were miniature adults alongside this morning's CNN "youth minute" and even our entire educational system, which trains children, adolescents, and young adults to fill out forms - to complete strictly defined tasks, essentially to be middle-management we see that this Programme (yeah, i've taken a liking to that term) isn't what we want, isn't useful, and is infectious (spreading both in strength & geography). Perhaps the only solution is to turn the world's keys over to it's new drivers as soon as possible. It's better than being stuck behind a Cadillac that's had its left turn signal on for 15 miles and going 42 in a 55.

Weekenders Return

2008-06-17T10:16:00.004-05:00

Having heard from jp now regarding his magic shoes that he left behind at our place, i can at least safely assume that one car made it back to minneapolis & will trust that all made it back home after the Colonel's Grand Opening.

Thanks everyone for making the trip down, up, or over. We'll try to do it again soon, often, and repeatedly. What with the Thursday, Saturday, & Sunday flood drives to & from minneapolis (as well as some somewhat associated trips to & from Omaha) the need for a fantastic weekend was high.

Tailgating went almost as perfectly as i could have imagined. Except for the lack of ladder-ball & the slightly embarrassing nature of Toss Across. But good times were had and PBR & vodka slushies were drunk... the newly acquired mini-grill assembled easily & the asian cole slaw was outstanding, seriously. Inside, the game was ugly, but the Beer Pen* was an interesting experience, with free t-shirts, anarchic seating situations, and not a little Twins fan harrassment (i was quite impressed by the number of homer-hanky-havers that made the trip down).

Saturday was looking to be a beautiful day... we put the guests to work (thanks guys) & got ready for the house-warming. The mpls kids wandered around milwaukee for the day, got to the Safe House & the marina then got back for a rain shower which moved everything into the house & the garage, though we got back outside later. Overall a fine party. I know grantykins had a good time. Sunday we went for brunch (with excellent crabcake Benedict in spite of incredibly bad waitering) at Barnacle Buds & most of the crew was off & back home. Seriously, thanks all for coming. We had a great time...

*geographic animosity never ceases to befuddle me. I mean, true fan animosity (like the way i hate most Cubs fans) is one thing... It's rational (or at least rationalizable) - the average Cubs fan doesn't understand nor want to understand the finer points of a baseball game. they just want to see homers & see the scoreboard click up for them... But a minnesotan's despise for a wisconsinite? the way Omahans talk about Iowans? Even, to some extent, the way coasters see the entire middle of the country as 'quaint' is difficult for me to process... Anyway - this Derrick guy had quite a different view of the Beer Pen than I had... anybody recognize him?

Sticks in my Cray...

2008-06-12T09:42:00.004-05:00

Crayfish or Crawfish...

Last night we went to Barnacle Buds for just the second time for their 1st annual Crawfish Boil. It was quite an experience, though not all that we'd hoped... It was cold & windy outside, so we ate inside...

I don't know if you've ever been to a Crayfish Boil (maybe i'm way behind here), but the setup was... unexpected. When it "boiled over" they dumped it all (a mix of Crawfish, Corn on the Cob, Red Potatoes, Carrots, Garlic Cloves, & Andouille Sausage) along a table covered in newspaper & sort of said 'have at it'. All they had were a few rolls of paper towels & we were a bit confused. One guy quickly went over how to eat (or access) a Crayfish, which i only partially got so it's very likely i was eating Crawfish brains & poop, but naja, new experiences and all...

I wished we'd had an expert (i'm looking at you, dave yost) to help us along with the eating & the entire process... & if it had been nicer out i think part of the point is that you all just stand around the table eating and chucking shells away. We were angesprochen several times by a guy (who i think may have been Barnacle Bud) who looked like a cross between Santa Claus & the Gorton's Fish Stick Fisherman Guy (who i'm convinced may be the same person, just in different seasons)

**Note: Loyal reader(s) may have noted the increased usage of full names the last couple of posts... This is a throwback to an earlier idea i'd had about an occasional Membership Drive segment for Roman Numeral J, but just a lazier version... in hopes that people still google themselves (do they? I know i do from time to time...) Anyway, if you've found your name here and would like it removed let me know and i will give you a codename like Kojak or Kojak2

Oh Yeah, Eu-Ro

2008-06-11T09:45:00.006-05:00

Who's got Euro 2008 fever. This guy (& andy, evidently who made multiple soccer-related phone calls on day 2 of the tourney). Generally i have a fairly moderate interest in the tournament and don't really pay attention until at best Round 2 & often just the semis & finals, but this year feels different.

Perhaps it's that the first (lame) SeegerOlympics point of the year is up for grabs, or that I have an extremely low key temp job with outstanding high speed internet so i can watch the games online, but whatever it is, i'm hooked. Not since i'm pretty sure i saw Chris Rogers in a bar in Bratislava watching the Euro 2000 semi-finals have i been this invested in the outcome...

Of course my rooting interest is conflicted by the SeegerOlympics pick... I always sort of want Germany to win, but my tourney pick was Portugal who won their first match soundly and are playing in a little under an hour.

In fact, i've made a couple picks against my better judgement (or against my rooting interest, perhaps in fact with my better judgement) these last few weeks... When we didn't go see the Tubes last week Andy & i made NBA finals picks. Now, i think i can safely say that i care less than almost anyone who would call themeselves a sports fan who wins the finals this year, but I thought it would be the Lakers, even though my very minor rooting interest would be for KG & therefore with the Celts... So, go Kobe, i guess... & go Portugal, really?

Fandom is a bit of a sticky thing for me... I mean, aside from the really obvious ones (Brewers to win the NL Central & da Bears) i have a lot of problems with finding fandom... Even this Friday, when we go to the Brewers/Twins game i feel like i'll want to wear my Brewers t-shirt & my Twins hat... Who am i cheering for? a 2-1 split? When i watch an MLS game i really can't figure out who i want to win... Having a local team helps, sure, but i can't say with any real sense that i was a Bucks fan when Chad Jorgensen gave me a ticket to a game, nor do i really care if the Omaha Royals were winning or losing (minor league baseball is an even more complicated fan situation, because when the players you root for get too good, they leave town)...

So, i guess go Portugal, go Germany (but boo Andy), go Sweden (because your fans throw their beers into the air every time you score) & go watch some Euro 2008...

epistiology

2008-06-05T09:16:00.003-05:00

Another look at the

2008-05-23T22:31:00.005-05:00

SPOILER ALERT! Warning: If you have not seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, first of all, welcome back & secondly, there may be some plot elements revealed here…

In preparation for yesterday's release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls I’ve been re-watching the Indy films and am coming around to the idea that I’ve never really given Temple of Doom enough credit.

During our quixotic endeavor to catalog and rank every film in my VHS collection in college, joel miron & I had a discussion regarding which Indy movie was the best of the (then) trilogy. We debated the relative merits of Raiders of the Lost Ark & The Last Crusade and pretty much assumed that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom wasn’t a part of that discussion. I remember miron even watching both ends of the trilogy & making a list of pros & cons for each to settle the issue (miron, if you can produce it, i would love to see that list... otherwise, get to work on another one).

While often read as the weakest, perhaps primarily because of it’s non-Christian centric story, in re-watching the film it stands up pretty well among the four. One of the differences that make the film stand out, i think, is that Indy isn’t ‘driven’ by dreams of fortune and glory as he is in the other films, rather he’s called. The film explores questions of fate even though its framed most explicitly as a story about seeking fortune & glory, but really its the least so. Take, for instance, the shot after revealing the children were stolen from the village, Indy is presented as ‘hero’, low angle shot, panning in. While this 'hero' shot is present in all the films, the narrative moment that this shot presents Indy as 'an only hope' rather than 'a hero'.

The film is, clearly, darker than the other Indy films, allowing Harrison Ford to play 'bad Indy' & exploring a variety of sadistic scenes, but it isn't this darkness that inherently makes the film superior (and i'm not ready to say that it's the best of the Indy films, though i'm no longer ready to say anymore that it's not the best of them, either)... The exploration of darkness & 'light' in the structuring of this film as one about fate & calling, rather than about treasure hunting and personal gain makes it more intriguing than at first glance. I think the film's setting & it's non Christian-centric center also make it interesting in the sense of questioning convention. Officially, Temple of Doom is a prequel, because the events happen 2 years before Raiders of the Lost Ark, and with the success of that first film, going to a previous time & to an unknown setting (India was at least an 'unconsidered locale in the mid 80's) was a huge gamble that actually didn't pay off... Relatively hated by critics & at the box office this makes the film, in some circles, even more worth a closer look...

how d'you like them apples...

2008-05-20T20:57:00.006-05:00

It occurred to me today as i was leaving work and polishing an apple on my shoulder that i look pretty damn good eating an apple. I came up with a theory when i was living in Münster that if nothing else, i look good eating apples, so i ate apples all the time. There's something to the way i bite with a bit of reckless abandon, but without the Roman-esque excesses of juices dripping down my chin...

When i'm not biting, i hold the apple well, slightly daintily at the ends of the core, but without seeming overly concerned with getting my hands a bit sticky... My arms swing freely, if a bit away from my body (think Brody Peed walking down the halls of Clinton High School, but without the muscles). I've gotten pretty good at walking while eating an apple, i can usually time finishing the apple pretty well with my arrival at a garbage can...

I can even, truly, finish an apple... not in the Teutonic sense, perhaps, where you eat ALL of the apple, stem, core & seeds, but all the way around, then to the top & bottom, getting almost of meat off of it...

So what i really want to know is, what is it that you look really good doing? Dancing in the club ( deine Bewegungen gefählen mir), doing shots, or smoking (i look a lot like John McClane when i smoke, taking entire cigarettes in in just a couple inhalations)... So tell me, in an effort of supporting and promoting self-confidence & positive self image (not in the blow smoke up their ass sense, but for real, quality things that don't generally get noticed).

iMemory

2008-04-08T11:48:00.003-05:00

The iPod undermines musical memory. If we think about Marshall McLuhan’s ideas that media are both extensions and amputations of humanity’s various faculties and apply it to the iPod, it speaks directly to the memory. I don’t use my iPod very often, and more often than not when I do, I’m listening to a book on tape or a podcast discussing some nerdy thing or another. But when I do listen to music, I mostly listen to music that I absolutely love, music that moves me. The world is my music video when I walk around listening to my iPod.

Occasionally, I’ll go through spells where I walk everywhere with my iPod listening to music. I listen to it on the bus (instead of reading) and I switch from playlist to playlist depending on my mood and occasionally dig through my library for ‘the perfect’ song for a particular moment (like the Counting Crows’ “Omaha” when I drive into ‘Omaha’). I feel like (though I haven’t tested this) during these times, I have somewhat lost my own ability to get a song stuck in my head when I take the iPod off. I can definitely still hum or sing a song that I’d just listened to, but the phenomenon of thinking of a song that you’ve not thought of or heard for a long time and suddenly having it in mind, wanting to hum or sing it, wanting to hear it, that seems lost. But, with a big enough playlist, I can always have the ‘right’ song at my fingertips.

This (possibly invented) phenomenon makes me wonder about the iPod’s possible effects on musical composition and invention. I’m thinking about 13-19 years down the road when a generation of young musicians that has grown up in an iPod inundated world and wondering what might be the effect on music creation. If it’s true that the ability to imagine music is interrupted by the ability to always be able to hear music, what then becomes of the musical imagination? Musical composition is always at least partly musical derivation. But by being constantly presented with the musical actuality, does the imagined music (and thereby its derivations) suffer? Is the prevalence of musical sampling as a new musical art form a result of the iPod (and earlier the Walkman) age? What might this mean for future musical creativity (if anything)?

Yesterday.

2008-03-25T20:43:00.004-05:00

Yesterday started like this:

...and ended like this:

it's good to be home... We got home from Orlando late Monday evening. Today wasn't actually that much colder here than it was at Cocoa Beach yesterday, but ... i had my feet in the ocean yesterday. And a seemingly endless supply of Rum Runners (and fine academic thinking, too, really). The paper went ok. Peter Straub said he wished i'd talked more about the funeral home and, frankly, so do i, but (Norton, looking for a good zombie theory book?) i'll do more in the rewrite.

The spectacle of Universal was a bit disappointing, as was the cultural promise of Kennedy Space Center, but the Hulk was worth the wait... Overall, it was a fine attempt at amateur tourist art...

terribly busy & important...

2008-03-17T17:42:00.003-05:00

taking a brief break away from my paper writing (in preparation for my imminent ICFA presentation) i'll share with you my latest "creative" work. A translated poem (from the original Word Verification) as well as an as yet untranslated flash fiction piece...

akrza yanoocy pzkkeh cdidj kzuja ecaoh omaoeax
hcqwk dktxq hjxtp chnubkf
gbhylb fhpts unuia mrked ydszc iwvygjp
ncnzfmu qohyq cyrjzg omgwpo elcugu myhyc nwecc
ylbwvwv stxro

thqrg chbuttg eyyxlx ofrryf qftlko
tpbdrpb xmbcig nfrvxyq eqium wyapce
uokpzfi nbzoqe kkyvh vnxfyf lvgnghp qmpwwma epvndpy urrvcj
ughhgd hfmun oswigaq bimjkx wlomtr ujqgbl
dtkokfa xlpfn jtzfm vfgaa hrqlnue rptxzm ygwlvvq
yvteyrh sguvv ltsdc hmvhwg ofgnudd
rlzbk tckkrk hmvkpkf qseik
equyyqc lwyrjkur
yhqfav lrgruss tqbvaa

ovkwz czypd gsfpk zqhouu qpqoof ctsne
zbwrg cudsuyj yjlrkgm
zbqghj cqjnoxp ypyyjf
qrhuavj swxclu yzwfcte xzema ewfgx
qviian kcocav uuhtes spvrinq awufvji

Grunting laughter cannot express a rape by moonlight.
It takes form slowly, imposingly,
but dies alone, unnoticed under the hot familiar breath
of furious confidence, “At least never again.”
My faith is broken,

let God provide for those who need. Surely
yet another conquest cannot the upset established order
of self-sure unnecessity. Wallowing in individual history
scoffs ancient riddles, loosely entwined with
immemorial power. But others come around
to solving their differences.
Underlying resentment wins out,
but can’t change the course of history [destiny].

Nature tempts us toward and away
with insignificant troubles aspiring
to surface. Obscured, they give
away the sick feeling that rejoined
the hope of completion, not solution.

... and the short short story

hojrph nlpnrx uzukkff vrwbr dzvxlql wpmswl wwsihgg qydpxr swuybu levjao pbqyq fwgrj ggdegzh uwwhd jqtdd ftvsed khcgwsy yspyalu tichmvg uwyygrm jwosa avyrj gxbxhf yhcrz segjb wzpia dyhpt nctwkyr nsnhaov wzzmp fnvtl yarqs lqoop pygbo vwbrufp lgncgl oushel eiwfc ofyjcaj tinmd zuzesdy twmcdpq wlylswi nostwhz, soimuz lreey pqmnrrl kcgcuqb qgdut vajuxk

oh, did i mention i was a crap poet? So, the context for all this is that i'm studying a lot of art centered on process & i post a lot of craigslist ads for my office gig and started collecting and translating those word verification checks as i was posting ads. I kept the original order and then tried to make some meaning out of the individual words i'd translated.

And now, you, too can play. Translate the short story & let me know where it goes... Just a word of warning. It is a bit more laborious than i originally thought it would be. Happy writing...

follow the white budgie

2008-03-13T14:16:00.006-05:00

I said this morning, as i was packing up to leave the house, that almost all of the pictures i've taken lately have been insurance/damage related (that's right, i can talk in slashes). Pictures of how the bed ripped into the hardwood floors, pictures of how the UPS guy bent our gate latch all to hell, and (just this morning) pictures of brigette's smashed up Accord...

So, i was looking up 'budgie' on Wikipedia and came across this image about conservation classification (how endangered the animals are) and i was thinking, since there is a classification on there of "extinct", shouldn't there be, perhaps, a nuisance-level on the other end of the spectrum, where you're actually encouraged to kill them. Say, for ants and cockroaches and Christian Fundamentalists (if they're serious, they ought to thank you for this).

I saw a sidewalk chalk activist today, he was drawing a big peace sign on the ground. I didn't really stop to pay attention what he was writing, but it struck me that i've never seen the people who leave messages in this way. But he looked pretty much like you would expect him to look.

Jim Carey has totally stolen my life...

2008-03-10T23:16:00.005-05:00

or at least much of my philosophy.

I'm flipping around as i read student papers ("the horror, the horror") after Colbert & Jim Carey was on Letterman...

but first, a bit of background. I totally had the idea for The Truman Show when i was, like 9, and then the movie came out... and nothing. Suddenly, he doesn't return my calls, it's like nobody's ever heard of me...

...anyway, tonight Jim Carey tells this story about knowing Frank Sinatra and asking him to come up to a table he's at with some beautiful woman to impress her... point is, it's a Don Rickles story... what this has to do with me, you may be asking, well, i have this dream... it's what i call continuing the oral tradition... here's how it works.
I love stories, good stories, person(al) stories, anecdotes, if you will... stories about something that's happened to you, well, in the interest of continuing the telling of great stories, i think we should be able to tell other people's stories as if they're our own... The reason being, is that nobody cares about a story of what happened to your college roommate's high school friend, so you turn that friend into your friend, suddenly (if it's a good story) that story lives on...

Anyway, just wanted to let you know who was stealing from me today...

this is worth the click...

2008-03-09T12:40:00.005-05:00

I generally don't center a blog entry on what i've just found that you, too, must discover, but this, as the title implies, is worth it.

This weeks issue of EW pointed me to Garfield Minus Garfield, a catalog of Garfield comic strips, minus the existence of Garfield. Now, i'm a fan of comics in general (though not Garfield specifically). Sure, i dabbled in fat-cat like everyone did... Holiday specials, bought some of the Garfield treasuries when i was a kid, but it's no Peanuts, not even a Calvin & Hobbes. But, as the site (EW explain), Garfield Minus Garfield gives us an insight into "the empty desperation of modern life" with "Jon Arbuckle in his own version of What About Bob".

See for yourself.

Dinn-Arr

2008-03-07T18:29:00.004-06:00

Last night we had dinner at the latest addition to the Tippecanoe neighborhood, Shiver Me Timbers, a new restaurant specializing in American-Pirate Fusion... That's right, a Pirate restaurant right here in Milwaukee (which clearly has a long, prestigious pirate history).

I think (it was hard to tell, because their stories seemed to keep changing) last night may have been the first night they were serving food... Our reactions were mixed. A lot of first week kinks still to work out... Only about a third of the menu was up and running, the bar was a bit sparse, and they hadn't fully figured out their feel...

First-off, this place needs to get some pirate drinks. I inquired after juices and the only ones they had were cranberry, orange, and pineapple, which is pretty standard for most bars, but a Pirate bar??? Don't you think you need something more exotic? I mean, a minute and a half of internet research produced a list of pirate drinks... Additionally, splash some Welch's passion fruit juice onto some white rum makes a tasty instant pirate cockt-arr-l.

This place didn't even have rum... I ordered a second-rate pirate drink, but they only had Malibu or Captain Morgan Spiced Rum... I mean, if you're opening a pirate restaurant (which is awesome, by the way, and we totally have to open one in Decorah) you better have a damn impressive rum list.

On the other hand, i ordered the Pecan Red Snapper, and it was hands down, the best red snapper i've had in my life. The chef came out to apologize for a slight delay in getting our meals and was concerned about the dish, but i think it was fantastic... Brooke's goat cheese/smoked salmon salad was adequate, but nothing special & brig's chicken was ok, but the fish, my god the fish...

As a self-proclaimed great orderer, my two rules are 1) order the special & 2) what does this place seem like they should know? order that. And pirates ought to know fish. And these pirates did..., though they didn't know rum... yet.

i ate a grapefruit today

2008-03-04T14:11:00.003-06:00

It'd seriously been like two years since i last had one. And man, i love them. I'll probably start eating them all the time now. I not only love the taste , i love the experience. The cutting in half, looking inside, figuring out the best way to scoop out the fruit bits. Should i put sugar on it (NAY!) or salt (wha?)? Should i eat just a half, or the whole thing? I love re-experiencing things i loved long ago (& wrote a terrible poem about the experience in "Intro to Creative Writing", which i might subject you to some day)...

So, i had an idea...

It's time for the first ever Roman Numeral J user poll... Perhaps in future user polls i'll figure out how to put a little image down there where people can vote and see the results (but that necessarily limits responses to whatever i thought of at the time), but for this poll just tell us in the comments section...

Poll Question #1

What is something that you really love to do (or loved to do) or just love... that you haven't done/had/experienced in years?

-sub question, go do/have/experience this thing again... and discuss the experience...

a brilliant idea...

2008-02-26T21:56:00.006-06:00

...that's what we need, a brilliant idea.

working a part-time job as a corporate sellout, part-time teaching English 101, being a full-time grad student, keeping/setting up a new house, and working on side projects, i don't have a lot of time.

(isn't it cute, when i think i'm busy)

So, in the interest of the betterment of humankind, will offer up some great ideas, nearly* free of charge here, for anyone who wants to take them and adapt them (p.s., if anyone knows where these ideas already exist and are in action, please point me to them):

1. ok... so the first idea is one my former roommate, nathan & i came up with during the death throes of the dot-com burst. He was working for wwwrrr, i for Padco and we came up with a pair of 'sister websites' called http://www.wheretogo.com/ & http://www.whoyouknow.com/. Both of these sites have since been co-opted, but back in the Gau Haus days these two sites were going to revolutionize the internet. Aside from the annoying classmates.com and the kevinBacon-y sixdegrees.com social network wasn't anything, yet and dexonline couldn't really find you what you wanted. The site was going to conjoin these services, in a way that frappr really didn't. The idea would be that people would submit there 'cool places' so you could find cool places anywhere, and write 'Let's Go' style reviews of them, but the sites included, first, an access level (so only those who you want to know can know the info you post about places, but also about your itinerary {see what follows}). There was also a calendar feature that would allow you to, say, submit that you were going to be in Orlando from, say, hypothetically, March 19-23, so that people you know, but don't really keep contact with will also know you're in town... I think google probably does (or can) already do this, but i can't figure out how to make it work...

2. My whole idea for this post came shortly after the primary election in Wisconsin last week. I was terribly disappointed in Nebraska's level of online election info, but somehow Wisconsin is almost worse. It doesn't seem too difficult to construct a website where we have every election and every race listed with at least the names (infinitely google-able) and maybe cursory descriptions. This is the bare bones of what should be a much more useful site. They may or may not be ideologically motivated, but at least one that has all of the candidates.

C. (2.5). The Utne Reader had an article several years back about putting the 'party' back into politics. Here's a study that suggests something similar, but the general idea was that we try and increase voter turnout by throwing parties on election day (hell, having a holiday), giving free drinks to folks with "I Voted" stickers, and having a million dollar lottery for everyone who voted...

3. somebody ought to buy the empty building that was Geneva Lakes Kennel Club (which may be some sort of simulcasting place now, but it ought to be empty). Anyway, i hate greyhound racing as much as all of you should, but since they have a big track there, here's what i think we should develop... Amateur Dog Racing. The place becomes a doggie day care/vacation getaway for dogs (and perhaps other animals, i'm just into dogs lately), and then they have the dogs race... if they want to. No training, no mistreatment, just good dog fun. You let the 8 dogs who are going to race against each other hang out for a while in a room (supervised) and let them get to know each other... then you bring them out to the track and send "Bucky" coasting around the track and have amateur dogs race... Maybe people come and bet, maybe they just come watch (sounds cool to me)... Mostly, i want to see this, because i totally think Rex Grossman will beat any of your dogs asses in a footrace...

4. Teleportation (please see footnote)

5. ...i think we should keep adding to this list. Whenever you have an idea that you want to "give" away (you can make .001% of any profits made off of your ideas added in the 'comments' section {idea submitters, please don't bother to read the footnote, it's not important}).

6. More people should stay up and watch Craig Ferguson. I think the world would be a better place if everyone watched Craig Ferguson. Seriously. How 'bout he host the Oscars next year?

7. Rent-a-lemon: I currently own a shitty car that I don't want to own much longer. This is my second such car that I've just come to the point where I no longer want to own it, but my thought is, we could (as the commune) all hold on to our old shitty cars and rent them, discount, to people coming to our town.

* any future profits made off of these ideas will hereby (that means it's legally binding) entitle me, joel seeger, to .003% of said profits. If individuals, corporations, or organizations adopt any of these ideas in the future and create a business or organization that gets in the habit of employing people in the implementation of these ideas, i, still joel seeger, am entitled to request a cushy, cool job from said individual, corporation, or organization.

and the award goes to...

2008-02-24T21:18:00.003-06:00

, seriously, Mike Huckabee. Did you see this cat on Saturday Night Live last night? Comedic brilliance. Great timing, great instincts. What more could you want in a president?

While watching the Oscars tonight (and having re-accrued much of my film & camera collection) i'm struck first, by how few movies i see anymore... (netflix, you're taking me for one this last year or so) I'm making my Oscar choices based on how much i wanted to see the movies this year, rather than any real sense of ... deservation...

Bravo Jon Stewart, on handing the gal from Once the chance to give her speech after the commercial break. And bravo Jon Stewart on not needing to go for a whole 'production' for the opening sequence. I think there's much value to getting an East-Coaster (read non-Californian for all intents & purposes) to host the Oscars... Conan, Ellen, Jon Stewart, hell, even Dave work this show in a way that Billy Crystal & Steve Martin were never able to...

Best this, best that... who really cares who we decide the best is today... It's hard for us to really keep much stock in what they decide today is the 'best' of anything... A best documentary award (which admittedly, i've seen none of the nominees) doesn't go to the film about Iraq (so cliche) or the film about healthcare in America (so Hillary), but the one about Afghanistan... the War we forgot we were in... lovely

And it's over... You know what i could really use. Is some after-Oscars commentary (i'm thinking Slavoj Zizek, Harriet Klausner & John Madden) sitting around a plastic table discussing who, in fact, won, who didn't... They could discuss how the filmmakers could have made the movies differently (better) if they wanted to win the award.

John Madden: Maybe if Sweeny Todd had gone with less singing, more serious themes, less Johnny Depp, they really might have had a shot this year.

Zizek: The problem a film work like Juno finds itself in, is the paradigm (pronounced pear-a-dig-m) of the violence and sex American-readWestern-culture finds itself drowning in is--

Harriet Klausner: I loved it. just loved it.

Madden: Which one?

Klausner: It was amazing, working on so many levels. Truly deep.

Zizek: Paradigm (pair-a-dig-em)

Klausner: Never have i seen a year of better Oscar contenders.

Madden: What happens, is the name of the film or actor that currently resides in the envelope these hosts, er presenters... these big stars are holding, the names in the envelopes, those guys will be the eventual winners... Once they've got that envelope, you know, barring a huge comeback of some kind, you've got your winner right there...

Klausner: Mr. Madden, please put your pants back on...

Zizek: (exit, pursued by a bear)

It seems like this'd make more sense to most people...

Voting Day!!!

2008-02-19T15:28:00.003-06:00

Hey all you fellow Wisconsinites. If you haven't gotten out there & voted yet, go do so now... Wisconsin Election Information is abysmally hard to come by, but i've stumbled on some nuggets that won't help me much, but for my Rock County friends... (If you're in districts 1 or 29, which i don't know where they are)

Janis Ringhand
WisconsinCandidate for Rock County Board - District 1 (Open Seat)
Janis has been a member of our farm team since 2005 and, in 2006, she was a Progressive Majority candidate for the State House in the 80th Assembly District. Despite hard work and a valiant effort on her part, she came up short by less than 200 votes. Now, Janis is running for an open seat on the Rock County Board. Janis is a former mayor of Evansville and, if elected, she will hold a progressive seat in one of the more conservative parts of the county.

Katie Kusnasik
WisconsinCandidate for Rock County Board - District 29 (Challenger)
Katie Kusnasik is challenging a conservative member of the Rock County Board as part of a strategy to create a progressive majority in the next two election cycles. She is currently a legislative assistant to progressive Assembly Representative Michael Sheridan and specializes in constituent relationships. Katie is supported by United Auto Workers and the local Labor Council. Katie has attended training by Progressive Majority and this is her first run for public office.

This info comes direct from ProgressiveMajority.org a useful, if incomplete website for finding progressive candidates. So, go Katie, go Jan... Go Vote, y'deadbeats... (i'm looking at you, shane)

this is not a pipe

2008-02-18T14:35:00.005-06:00

Yesterday i fixed a toilet. As a new homeowner i had my first minor freakout because the toilet was leaking... I started imagining the inevitable call to the plumber and the visit where he would find pipe after pipe that was suspect, eventually having to tear out and overhaul the entire system...

But, with a little encouragement from Brooke's dad, i took the project on myself, turned off the water to the entire house and removed a pipe from the wall & the toilet. I took said pipe to the hardware store where i found a piece that looked kind of similar, though not close enough to put my mind at ease, then reconnected the piece to the entire system. Very scary.

In the process of doing all this i purchased a pipe wrench (which it turned out i did not need) and a really big crescent wrench (which was much more expensive that i expected it to be). This is, in fact, the second DIY-y thing i've done to the house... Last weekend, again with Jim's help, i uninstalled & installed 2 light fixtures in the bedroom & bathroom. Touching electric wires, twisting them around each other, and screwing things into the ceiling. Very exciting.

After my repair project, i continued the ManDay theme by going outside and trying to move approximately 1000lbs of ice & water that had collected on my driveway. My efforts were barely enough to put a dent in the glacier that is the front walk, but it's a start and becoming a real man, man.

Toward a Poetic Culture

2008-02-17T10:42:00.003-06:00

David Halperin came to speak at UW-M on Friday about Gay Male Culture and it's struggle with finding authenticity in "real" hetero-normaitive emotions... to that i say... this?

Constructive Games

2008-02-15T12:58:00.003-06:00

I’m interested in the gamesmanship (game-iness) of the Oulipo movement and have come to questions about using this idea of games in a positive, constructive way. This is something that I’ve been working out over the last several months, and this seems like a useful place to try to get it down. First, I’d like to think a little about art-in-a-box or ‘gaming art’ and games in general, then see if we can’t find a way to apply it to theory.

One of the primary concerns of Oulipo is this idea of creating a set of arbitrary rules around your art. With If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler you’ve got a single sentence/poem that will make up the chapter titles and a host of other constrictions cataloged elsewhere. Stephen King says about writing fiction that a lot of great storytelling comes from the question, “What If?” and Oulipo must have anticipatorily plagiarized this idea, creating art that says, “what if we make a _________ that only _________?”

In my introductory creative writing class in college, an introduction of the textbook suggested that writing (and I would say just art generally) should be something akin to playing tennis, rather than solely the realm of ‘professionals.’ “I write” (or make art) wouldn’t mean you necessarily do so well (in the same way that “I play tennis” in no way gives me delusions that I could be a professional tennis player {though I’m sure I could have, had my high school had a team}). I wonder if this isn’t somewhat what Oulipo is after, democratizing art creation, making art creation possible for everyone (by doing creative writing exercises as a jumping off point). That being said, those in the actual Oulipo movement likely don’t want everyone to necessarily display all of their Oulipian art (just as my backhand slice should remain largely unseen).

What this notion of democratizing art might do, though, is create a lot of ‘potential art’. The more bad art being made out there and the more our culture becomes one that encourages participation in art creation, the more opportunity there is for great outside art to actually be discovered.

I feel as though I have strayed somewhat from my initial thought with this post… I was going to say something about the idea of the difference between rules and laws, rules being arbitrary and artificial, while laws theoretically come from moral or ethical considerations. Also the difference that you can’t actually break a rule (this notion is one of Baudrillard’s, I think), because once you do, you’re no longer playing the game, strictly speaking. Whereas a law can be broken (ethical and moral standards can change, which should force laws to change), and sometimes should be broken in order to line them up with the changing moral/ethical standards. You can change the rules of the game (say, you get to use doubles lines when we play tennis), but then you’re playing a slightly different game (so you still didn’t beat me at tennis, really).

2008-02-14T16:57:00.002-06:00

do you ever get the feeling... the sensation... the painful memory, where you're sitting at a table, standing against a wall, lying in bed, and you wonder... Where was i when i was picking my nose? Not the half-hearted scratch, but the FULL ASS, wrist deep pick. I'm pretty sure I was in a toilet stall, but suddenly i wonder was i in class? Was I sitting in my office? Alone? That sick sensation of embarrassing yourself everywhere you go...

Someone Who actually posts...

2008-02-07T15:18:00.001-06:00

Presenting the blog of my office-mate Sarah (also added to my list of friends). For those of you dying for more blog action... someone who actually regularly writes on her blog...

It's about sundry academic-y things...

enjoy

Sleeping Men Don't Sneeze

2008-01-26T07:56:00.003-06:00

For much of the last few weeks i've been agog and slightly in shock... appalled into silence, in fact. I saw I Am Legend, with Will Smith playing Robert Neville, a book that i truly love, and whose previous movie versions (The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston & The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price) i found pleasing, if a bit disappointing. And then i saw this newest version...

And... at first i was pleased. Re-locating the film to New York (because of course, New York is the center of the universe) was slightly problematic, but overall a useful and interesting choice. It did give us a break from possibly the most tiresome (but ultimately crucial) plot element of the original novel where the Vampires stand outside Neville's house each night trying to coax him out.

Ultimately the movie comes to precisely the opposite conclusion than that of Matheson's original novel, which is, i suppose, a useful mistake...

a response...

2008-01-24T20:28:00.002-06:00

I explored several of the various links in the “Chance, Reason and Dreams” section with varying degrees of frustration. I started with (before last class) the Wikipedia entries on Locus Solus and Raymond Roussel, which were both utterly new to me. And then dug around in the visual/interactive links for some time.

Starting with “Waxweb”, an online film by David Blair, which I watched only part of. The first section was an elongated title of the film called “Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees”. This got me started thinking along a line entirely separate from the rest of the film (which is why I abandoned it after 6 more snippets).

I’ve been reading and thinking a lot of Marshall McLuhan lately, and one of the ideas I kept coming back to was his classification of television as a cool medium, a participatory medium. His ‘evidence’ for this is the low quality of the image compared to film (a hot medium), so it seems reasonable that television is becoming less and less a cool medium as the image gets better and better and with the advent of HD television has become a fully ‘hot’ medium.

I think, though, that McLuhan maybe missed what was really ‘cool’ about television, namely its immediacy. The fact that it is shared, simultaneously by everyone who watches it, makes it ‘cooler’. As you sit and watch The Daily Show on your couch and laugh along with it there’s something simultaneously comforting and (maybe) engaging about the fact that it is being broadcast simultaneously to millions of others, that you are ‘getting it’ at the very same moment everyone else is ‘getting it’. There’s, I think, something like an implication of participation in this.

I then went on to check out some of the Flash projects in “Dreaming Methods”, interactive, game-like environments where you can move about, pick things up, read documents, and even add your own writing. While the concept feels more participatory than a medium like television, the limitations of the coding, what you can and can’t interact with end up making it feel like a Scott Adams game.

... and now for some cool stuff to check out...

Section 1: Chance, Reason and Dreams

DADA Online

The site is crudely designed, but has great links to lots of pictures, poems and manifestos!

Marcel Duchamp

Duchamp is one of the most significant artists and philosophers of our times. This is an elegant site with great content, though the interface gets a bit frustrating!

El Lissitzky

The Getty has a great collection of this amazing graphic designer's artifacts.

International DADA Archive

This is an excellent resource! The "Digital DADA Library" is particularly useful.

Brief History of Photomontage

DADA invented collage... read a bit of light background about it here.

Background on Wikipedia

Good background on this great Belgian Surrealist painter.

Dreaming Methods

Fantastic Flash-based projects centered upon dream states and dream narratives.

David Blair's "Waxweb"

Complex hypertextual structure using film snippets to create a narrative about bee keeping. Worth digging in to!

Locus Solus

Wikipedia entry on Locus Solus

Raymond Roussel

Wikipedia entry on Raymond Roussel.

Essay on Roussel

Excellent essay on Roussel's work and good general introduction to labyrinthine style.

It's A 2-Story Brick Colonial!

2007-12-28T22:42:00.001-06:00

Today, we successfully closed on a house... seriously. Somebody gave us a set of keys and all we had to do was bring a gigantic (or giant, depending on which Russian you ask) cashier's check and sign several pieces of paper.

We never laid eyes on the sellers (which struck me as a bit odd)... we were quarantined in a small 'signing room' as they were, then had papers delivered over. We did, however, meet the wholly dishonest and shifty Real Estate Agent, who played so many games that we thought we eventually wouldn't get this house.

Tonight we headed over to the house for snacks & champagne w/ Brigette, then struck out into the neighborhood & found Swayz'... A Mexican Restaurant in our 'neighborhood'. We hit the local liquor store (less than 3 blocks away) - good prices and an excellent selection... And met the neighbors across the way... Some of whom are really into their snowblowers... but, they were drinking along on the sidewalk, so they can't be all bad.

It was an evening of 1sts... Rex Grossman's 1st poo in the back yard - Brooke's 1st (and 2nd) spill in the kitchen - Joel's 1st pee - the 1st fly in the house (a late-season January giant) - and the 1st shovelin' (which wasn't up to stuff according to the neighbor, who snowblowed it after i left).

We were also left a series of fine manuals for all of our new appliances & installations... One that i read through was quite revelatory. Our doorbell switches tones. To most any song you can imagine (or at least type of song)... Sadly there's not Counting Crows on the playlist, but The Colonel is well greeted.
That's right, The Colonel, that's what the house on Austin Street will be known as. He's the colonel. 4131 Austin St. In the Tippecanoe neighborhood.

We hope to see you all down there real soon... A hint of a progressive party was broached for late January, but it now seems we might move out sooner to save on January rent, so our two-estate state won't last much longer...

Happy new years all...
Be Excellent to Each Other
&...

Party on, Dude

Post of (many) posts

2007-11-27T22:07:00.001-06:00

While operating this blog, i've run into a lot of 'ideas' for entries that never came to fruition. Most of these idly floated away into nothingness, but a few got started as new entries... and i'd like to collect those here -

Wiki-Wiki-Wa-Wa
(20 April 2006)
I am a wiki-maniac.

*this was obviously a brilliant idea for a post... it was going to be all about how i was (momentarily) obsessed with posting on wikipedia... which didn't end up being totally true...

review of "The Walking Dead"
(6 June 2006)

The Walking Dead (Vol. #1-4)
Image Comics
Reviewed by : Seeger
Reviewer’s Grade : C-

When my set of all four volumes (thus far) of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead first arrived from amazon.com I was positively giddy… I’d heard nothing but good things (from reviews that evidently were written by his mother) and was thinking I was coming into a world of Romero-level zombie thought in this exciting new series.

BUT, instead, what I found was a cliché-ridden work of zombie survivor fiction that’s been told too many times, and always in the same way. Kirkman does not help his cause in the introduction to Volume 1 when he writes:

“To me, the best zombie movies aren’t the splatter fests of gore and violence with goofy character and tongue in cheek antics. Good zombie movies show us how messed up we are, they make us question our station in society… and our society’s station in the world. They show us gore and violence and all that cool stuff too… but there’s always an undercurrent of social commentary and thoughtfulness.”[1]

Even casual fans of zombie films and literature see such societal critiques at work, but for Kirkman to explicitly make such a blatant statement in the introduction to his first volume bodes ill for the whole run and is a sign of what’s to come. Kirkman suffers from over-writing and an often painful lack of subtlety, a trait shared by artists Tony Moore (Vol 1.) and Charlie Adlard (Vols. 2-4).

The story traces police officer Rick Grimes who awakens from a coma in an empty hospital some days (28 perhaps?) after the zombie necropalypse has hit earth. We follow Grimes as he heads home, discovering his old neighborhood mostly abandoned and slowly discovering the new world order. Through contrived conversations with another survivor and a horse we learn about his wife and child (which we also found out about several panels earlier in the artwork), who he leaves town to try and find.

Kirkman shows disrespect to his readers by having to spell out every notion in words. He seems to not trust his artists, who in turn seem not to trust him (using the most extreme ‘surprised’, ‘angry’, ‘sad’ looks in any frame they want to express emotion). Some of his frames are so full of words there’s almost no room for characters to walk around in them. When his characters fight, their dialogue feels like an 8-year-old at play: “I’m going to blow your head off” says one survivor to another at one point, presumably before she is about to blow someone’s head off.

With all its negatives, though, the most frustrating thing about The Walking Dead is its amazing potential. The artwork, when it’s not painfully obvious, is quality black and white, which adds to the bleakness of the world the characters inhabit. The covers, all done by Tony Moore are beautiful, if a bit repetitive and the splash pages, few and far between are used very effectively. Walking Dead is at its best when Grimes is wandering alone and there are two or three wordless pages in a row, capturing the voiceless zombie threat more perfectly than any conversation can, but Kirkman again finds a way to spoil many of these with a speech bubble filled only with “…”.

Kirkman is asking very interesting questions about humans living in extreme circumstances, I just wish he could sometimes avoid asking them right out loud.

[1] Kirkman, Robert. The Walking Dead: Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye. Introduction. Berkeley: Image Comics, 2005.

*this post may actually have been posted... but it's listed as a draft. Regardless it first appeared on fourcolor.org, a now defunct awesome comic blog.

Michaels or Sorkin
(30 September 2006)

Sitting here this evening watching (what i think is) the season premiere of Saturday Night Live, i am quickly realizing that the fake SNL on Monday nights this season is a hell of a lot more entertaining than the actual SNL. It's all part of the recent TV phenomenon of to create shows about what folks wish their real work was like. To my knowledge, the tradition started with Ally McBeal & on with David E. Kelly's other shows, where he made shows about what we all wish our lives were like. Boston Public tried to show what teachers wished their lives were like. The Practice was a dreamy lawyer's life & shows like The West Wing and Gray's Anatomy follow the same model, where we watch every week and see people doing what we wish people in their positions were doing, were being. More real.

The first episode of Studio 60 had Judd Hirsh, essentially as Lorne Michaels apologizing for the past years of network cowardice and selling out the material for political correct-ness and sponsor friendliness. The question, though, is whether SNL (or any show) was ever any kind of idyllic challenging, comic programming that we like to imagine once existed (and has been since lost.) And i think the easy answer is no.

*i vaguely remember thinking of this tv commentary... Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, woo-hoo!

Line Up
(25 December 2006)

The American Spirit of Christmas is alive and well this year and i would like to take this opportunity to try and educate us all how we can make a slightly better world.

We Americans have an abysmal habit for forming a line. Everyone is so interested in winning the line lottery, sneaking into the new register that just opened up, beating a total stranger to the check-out & we all suffer for it. While i'm surely not the first person to point this deficiency out, i was so struck yesterday at the liquor store by how uncivilized we all are, that i feel it's my Christmas duty to try and fix this.

Step 1:
Everybody chill out. You are not that important & an extra 45 seconds out of your day is a small price to ask for universal harmony. Don't be so discontent with where you are in lif(n)e that you are constantly looking at other lines to see who's going faster or slower than you are. Line envy is just where the trouble starts.

Step 2:
(this is the hardest step) - we need to work toward a more civilized queue.

*oh yeah... here was when my blog was going to change the world, on Christmas Day, no less)

Turn my pants into shorts
(30 March 2007)

It's March in Omaha, which means the sun is shining (onto the sun porch), it's occasionally uncomfortably hot both here and outside, and despite the idyllic weather, none of the bars in town have their outdoor seating set up yet.

Early on in our tenure here in Omaha, brooke heard a statistic on the radio (almost certainly false, but nonetheless exceptionally compelling) that Omaha had as many sunny days per year as Fort Lauderdale (or Fort Knox, or perhaps Miami Beach... i can't remember any more). On first moving to Omaha this seemed like an apollionic blessing. Omaha seems to have a lot less of the heavy, bleak, gray season that i remember growing up in southern Wisconsin, and later in Iowa and Minneapolis. Almost every memory i have of Clinton is gray-colored

*this was before i lived in milwaukee again...

Total Sell-Out
(31 May 2007)

Due to the fact that i don't actually have any fans, or anyone really who pays that close of attention to what i do i am officially announcing that i am (or would be, rather) a total sellOut. If ever, any of my future work is of any value to any one with more money than me i will sell it...

But, moreso, over the last few weeks i've been desperately trying to whore out every bit of my life... With a looming move floating overhead, we've been trying to sell as much of our stuff as possible.

*think i covered this one

your time is almost up
(16 October 2007)

While i should be reading Gloria Anzaldua's i'm sure glorious essay "Entering into the Serpent", i find myself instead updating my facebook page. This isn't to say that facebook is to blame for the eventual failure of my students... Colbert's exciting announcement

* Here i was trying to get out of teaching... which i think i've done admirably since...

Bowl Prospector
(21 November 2007)

Evidently, i'm now a fine art collector.

*I was totally going to blog about this... a few weeks ago brooke & i went to a non-profit event called Feed Your Soul, put on by Brigette's company, America's Second Harvest... At this event there was a silent auction on pieces of art shaped like bowls... We won two. Evidently, the Milwaukee Art scene is full of cheap bastards...