Thursday, February 19, 2009
Creative Destruction
Source: No Kiss Kiss, All Bang Bang Why Film Critic Armond White Loves Spielberg and Attacks Spike Lee -- New York Magazine
This guy reminds me all too much of that critic from Lady In the Water. He seems the kind of guy who lives to find ways to creatively bash films, especially audience and critic favorites. When it comes down to it, the whole point of the field which the Critics represent is not the destruction of public opinion about bad movies. People do that fine themselves. A glance at the internet will quickly show you how much competition these folks have in that field.
The thing about it is, though, that what people really need is better awareness of work that is good, interesting, or both. They don't need somebody to kill bad films; word of mouth will do that. They don't need some hero to save the audience from themselves; for better or worse, the audience likes what it likes, and there's nothing anybody can do about that except encourage better films.
They need more somebody there who can unlock the hidden grace in a movie most people ignore or revile. They need somebody who gets to see the films they don't have the chance or primary inclination to see, the stuff they often don't know exists.
All too often, critics are just overthinking films, overanalyzing things, failing to let themselves suspend disbelief for fear of suspending rational thought as well. The trick is, films reflect experience and experience is not experienced in an entirely rational way, either. Our perceptions are rife with illusions and neurological shortcuts our brain takes. Our feelings are never far from hand when it comes to how we think, how we remember. Our rational mind is imperfect in its knowledge and its breadth. We process so much of what we see in the movie below the threshold of conscious thought.
We don't need somebody tell us what we should feel about a movie. We decide that for ourselves. Take the movie I mentioned, for example. That, and other films of Shyamalan's have been reviled in the media, especially since the mentioned movie killed that particular critic. But me? Sometimes his movies are a bit awkwardly constructed, a bit off. But they're often filled with well constructed scenes and good, original storytelling. My feeling is that Shyamalan is trying to figure out how to do broader kinds of science fiction and fantasy than just the sort of subtle, hints around the edges stuff he did earlier in his career. His agreement to direct The Last Airbender, an adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, an animated series with a plethora of such elements would fit that. He's a filmmaker learning to deal with the challenges of broadening his horizons in front of our eyes.
The results, if not always perfect, are often marvellous to me. I could offer him some advice on how to make the fantastic elements of Lady in the Water work better, but in truth, I'm glad to have seen it.
Ultimately, this notion that a critic or any viewer can hold forth on ultimate truth in film or any other story medium is bullshit. We live our movies for ourselves, and who we are changes what story we get. Not abitrarily, mind you, but enough that two different people will ultimately only see similar stories when they watch, at best, and sometimes wildly different ones. We must realize how subjective art is, if we are to recognize the challenges in channeling the audience's feelings and imagination.
This guy reminds me all too much of that critic from Lady In the Water. He seems the kind of guy who lives to find ways to creatively bash films, especially audience and critic favorites. When it comes down to it, the whole point of the field which the Critics represent is not the destruction of public opinion about bad movies. People do that fine themselves. A glance at the internet will quickly show you how much competition these folks have in that field.
The thing about it is, though, that what people really need is better awareness of work that is good, interesting, or both. They don't need somebody to kill bad films; word of mouth will do that. They don't need some hero to save the audience from themselves; for better or worse, the audience likes what it likes, and there's nothing anybody can do about that except encourage better films.
They need more somebody there who can unlock the hidden grace in a movie most people ignore or revile. They need somebody who gets to see the films they don't have the chance or primary inclination to see, the stuff they often don't know exists.
All too often, critics are just overthinking films, overanalyzing things, failing to let themselves suspend disbelief for fear of suspending rational thought as well. The trick is, films reflect experience and experience is not experienced in an entirely rational way, either. Our perceptions are rife with illusions and neurological shortcuts our brain takes. Our feelings are never far from hand when it comes to how we think, how we remember. Our rational mind is imperfect in its knowledge and its breadth. We process so much of what we see in the movie below the threshold of conscious thought.
We don't need somebody tell us what we should feel about a movie. We decide that for ourselves. Take the movie I mentioned, for example. That, and other films of Shyamalan's have been reviled in the media, especially since the mentioned movie killed that particular critic. But me? Sometimes his movies are a bit awkwardly constructed, a bit off. But they're often filled with well constructed scenes and good, original storytelling. My feeling is that Shyamalan is trying to figure out how to do broader kinds of science fiction and fantasy than just the sort of subtle, hints around the edges stuff he did earlier in his career. His agreement to direct The Last Airbender, an adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, an animated series with a plethora of such elements would fit that. He's a filmmaker learning to deal with the challenges of broadening his horizons in front of our eyes.
The results, if not always perfect, are often marvellous to me. I could offer him some advice on how to make the fantastic elements of Lady in the Water work better, but in truth, I'm glad to have seen it.
Ultimately, this notion that a critic or any viewer can hold forth on ultimate truth in film or any other story medium is bullshit. We live our movies for ourselves, and who we are changes what story we get. Not abitrarily, mind you, but enough that two different people will ultimately only see similar stories when they watch, at best, and sometimes wildly different ones. We must realize how subjective art is, if we are to recognize the challenges in channeling the audience's feelings and imagination.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Stephen Daugherty, the President's Representative!
Yep. I googled myself, and look what I got for my troubles:Magma: Volcanic Disaster. Is there a fate worse than having your name attached to a science fiction movie that can't even get its plate tectonics right? At least I seem to be one of those guys who actually helps the Intrepid Maverick Scientists Who Buck Conventional Science To Foretell A Disaster. This is the guy who plays me, in case you're curious. Jonas Talkington.
The good news is that my constant blogging has made this movie but minor feature of my web presence. Not to mention the fact that there are a lot of doctors and folks who come up behind me on the search.
I wonder what they think of my stuff when they click that first link?
The good news is that my constant blogging has made this movie but minor feature of my web presence. Not to mention the fact that there are a lot of doctors and folks who come up behind me on the search.
I wonder what they think of my stuff when they click that first link?
From Popular Science: Microsoft: “Sayonara Vista…Hello 7!”
Personally, I'd like to run this new operating system on my PC, after some heavy upgrades. But then, I was a first adopter on Win XP. I'm even writing this on the Release Candidate 1 version of IE8.
And if that doesn't bake your noodle, I'm using its web accelerator feature, and I basically got the thing to blog this article by highlighting the article title, right clicking, and going to the Blogger Accelerator.
And if that doesn't bake your noodle, I'm using its web accelerator feature, and I basically got the thing to blog this article by highlighting the article title, right clicking, and going to the Blogger Accelerator.
And just as they were getting cheap
Are Plasma TVs in trouble? Well if so, it's a shame, but this is what the industry gets for taking such a long time to sell these things at a decent cost. You can't string people out perpetually on the idea. Someday, you got to get the goods in people hands and out of your stores.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Bionic Arm, with Video!
Bionic Arms built using new technology to improve movement and feedback
Some cool video to explain it to show you better than I can tell you.
Some cool video to explain it to show you better than I can tell you.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
So that was what it was!
I saw this triangle of a Crescent Moon, and what looked like two stars, and thought it looked cool. So what was it, really? As it turns out, It was a conjunction of the moon with Jupiter and Venus!
So it doesn't just look cool, it is cool.
So it doesn't just look cool, it is cool.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
DJ Lobanhaki is born!
I just uploaded my first Techno song to the site ACIDPlanet, which essentially Sony's site for those who wish to publish stuff from their program ACID Music. My main artist name for this will be DJ Lobanhaki (low bun gnaw key). The name of the first song is Space Patrol
My profile details are sketchy at the moment, but I'll improve those over time.
My profile details are sketchy at the moment, but I'll improve those over time.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Recent Planetary News: 6-12-2008
Scientists on the Mars Pheonix Lander project succeed in shaking their booty of Mars Soil into an oven designed to analyze its chemical composition.
And Pluto has become the eponymous namesake of a class of objects in the solar system, the Plutoids. Yep, that's all us nerds needed. A nice new term for bullies to employ against us. ;-)
And Pluto has become the eponymous namesake of a class of objects in the solar system, the Plutoids. Yep, that's all us nerds needed. A nice new term for bullies to employ against us. ;-)
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Indiana Jones and the Excess of Seriousness (spoilers)
People are complaining about the implausibility of Indiana Jones' latest adventure. Those people, I'm guessing, are not in the target audience. Which is folks who can have a little fun.
Movies are a free-time activity for most people, not a job, not something they have to take seriously. They can take it seriously, the same way a World of Warcraft fan takes their world seriously, but even then, what these movies are, for the most part, is the human being at play with their imaginations. Some don't feel comfortable with movies that are not built on complex, pre-realized worlds, and others think it's too much work to get involved with such a movie if it's not their cup of tea.
Folks, though, can and often are comfortable with both, they just have to be willing to switch gears, which is a problem for those obsessed with the canons of high art. Some folks look for the ultimate theory of art, and are suspicious of anything that doesn't fit their vision of that.
In reality, different people play different ways, and nobody has to take playing, surprisingly enough, entirely seriously.
Even the most hoity-toity drama or art film is an exercise in play, like the ancient greek recreations of myths that spawned drama and comedy in the first place. The play at work here is the use of symbols and chunks of human experience to mean something, to create additional meaning between the "lines" of those terms.
Film is an exercise in audiovisual logic, books an exercise in verbal logic and reference to imagery. Neither is superior to another inherently, though you might enjoy one over the other on the basis of personal preference.
Getting back to Henry Walton Jones, Jr. ("We called the DOG Indiana." sayeth the wise Sean Connery in the preceding episode) Anybody making the plausibility argument has to get past a number of issues in the preceding movies. Like could Indiana let himself be drug on a dirt road for a few hundred feet and not end up with a back looking like something out of a Clive Barker film? How about a chest full of beautiful angels that then turn to skeletons and melt your face off? Or a guy yanking out a living guy's heart, without him dying on the spot? How about all the funky contraptions, death traps, booby traps that are set up. Where did these ancient civilizations get their engineers, the antiquities protection department of Texas A+M? There are feats of derring-do that probably have no place in actual reality, even in the movies before. I mean, good heavens that Minecar chase? Does anybody seriously believe that some mine exists where there are miles of track set up like roller coaster?
Folks aren't considering where this all fits in to pop culture. That is to say, we're not faced with material here which was grounded in today's accuracy-obsessed style of realism. Which is to further say that realism in storytelling itself is just a style. Indiana Jones gently dropkicks such a theory of storytelling out the door. It's based on the adventure stories and movies of the thirties, forties and fifties, which is to say, a whole bunch of stuff where the enjoyment of the film as escapist adventure was more highly valued than the technical realism of the production design.
When Indiana Jones gets blasted for miles out of a nuclear test site by a detonated A-Bomb in a lead-lined refrigerator, the filmmakers are not trying to convince you the physics are sound, either subatomically or on a Newtonian level. They're trying to get the hero of a movie serial out of the cliffhanger in a way that's fun and makes some sense. I had absolutely no problem with it. It was a brazenly nutty solution to the problem, and it was fun to watch.
Which gets to my point. Some people are worried about culture when they see a film where there's a lot of dumb or just intellectually agnostic fun. They get worried that people might not be properly edified. Which means they beat them over the head with Serious Movies That Are Good For You. Oh, how dare Spielberg send his hero rocketing out of a nuclear test-site in a frigidaire! Somebody might actually believe it!
Truth of the matter is, though, there's room, both vertically within the movie and horizontal between them for movies of all types to play in all kinds of areas. The Eighties saw their share of not-so-realistic adventure films, and so have the subsequent decades. And then there are movies that are good, serious and compelling, movies which are tragic and tug at your heartstrings, and none of them represent the limits of imagination.
Go see the movie, or a movie, and go to enjoy yourself, however you like. And let yourself enjoy it. It's only a movie. Perhaps the filmmaker alienates you in ways you can't help, but don't spoil it too much by overthinking your experience.
Movies are a free-time activity for most people, not a job, not something they have to take seriously. They can take it seriously, the same way a World of Warcraft fan takes their world seriously, but even then, what these movies are, for the most part, is the human being at play with their imaginations. Some don't feel comfortable with movies that are not built on complex, pre-realized worlds, and others think it's too much work to get involved with such a movie if it's not their cup of tea.
Folks, though, can and often are comfortable with both, they just have to be willing to switch gears, which is a problem for those obsessed with the canons of high art. Some folks look for the ultimate theory of art, and are suspicious of anything that doesn't fit their vision of that.
In reality, different people play different ways, and nobody has to take playing, surprisingly enough, entirely seriously.
Even the most hoity-toity drama or art film is an exercise in play, like the ancient greek recreations of myths that spawned drama and comedy in the first place. The play at work here is the use of symbols and chunks of human experience to mean something, to create additional meaning between the "lines" of those terms.
Film is an exercise in audiovisual logic, books an exercise in verbal logic and reference to imagery. Neither is superior to another inherently, though you might enjoy one over the other on the basis of personal preference.
Getting back to Henry Walton Jones, Jr. ("We called the DOG Indiana." sayeth the wise Sean Connery in the preceding episode) Anybody making the plausibility argument has to get past a number of issues in the preceding movies. Like could Indiana let himself be drug on a dirt road for a few hundred feet and not end up with a back looking like something out of a Clive Barker film? How about a chest full of beautiful angels that then turn to skeletons and melt your face off? Or a guy yanking out a living guy's heart, without him dying on the spot? How about all the funky contraptions, death traps, booby traps that are set up. Where did these ancient civilizations get their engineers, the antiquities protection department of Texas A+M? There are feats of derring-do that probably have no place in actual reality, even in the movies before. I mean, good heavens that Minecar chase? Does anybody seriously believe that some mine exists where there are miles of track set up like roller coaster?
Folks aren't considering where this all fits in to pop culture. That is to say, we're not faced with material here which was grounded in today's accuracy-obsessed style of realism. Which is to further say that realism in storytelling itself is just a style. Indiana Jones gently dropkicks such a theory of storytelling out the door. It's based on the adventure stories and movies of the thirties, forties and fifties, which is to say, a whole bunch of stuff where the enjoyment of the film as escapist adventure was more highly valued than the technical realism of the production design.
When Indiana Jones gets blasted for miles out of a nuclear test site by a detonated A-Bomb in a lead-lined refrigerator, the filmmakers are not trying to convince you the physics are sound, either subatomically or on a Newtonian level. They're trying to get the hero of a movie serial out of the cliffhanger in a way that's fun and makes some sense. I had absolutely no problem with it. It was a brazenly nutty solution to the problem, and it was fun to watch.
Which gets to my point. Some people are worried about culture when they see a film where there's a lot of dumb or just intellectually agnostic fun. They get worried that people might not be properly edified. Which means they beat them over the head with Serious Movies That Are Good For You. Oh, how dare Spielberg send his hero rocketing out of a nuclear test-site in a frigidaire! Somebody might actually believe it!
Truth of the matter is, though, there's room, both vertically within the movie and horizontal between them for movies of all types to play in all kinds of areas. The Eighties saw their share of not-so-realistic adventure films, and so have the subsequent decades. And then there are movies that are good, serious and compelling, movies which are tragic and tug at your heartstrings, and none of them represent the limits of imagination.
Go see the movie, or a movie, and go to enjoy yourself, however you like. And let yourself enjoy it. It's only a movie. Perhaps the filmmaker alienates you in ways you can't help, but don't spoil it too much by overthinking your experience.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
This kind of interests me as a 3-D Geek
The Depth Mapping aspect of this new camera, if it works, might make 3-D composite not only a snap, but something you can do at home. The implications are really staggering.
But of course, the first law of technology is, it never turns out how you expected.
Then again, the corollary to that is turning out how you expected is unexpected, and so anticipateable outcomes also full under this category.
But of course, the first law of technology is, it never turns out how you expected.
Then again, the corollary to that is turning out how you expected is unexpected, and so anticipateable outcomes also full under this category.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
My opinion about Fansubbing and DVD sales
I download fansubs every now and then, so I got some stake in this argument. However, I am interested in buying DVDs. My policy is to delete files once I have watched them, but here's something I would say: the big problem is that people like me cannot afford the premium at which most anime series are sold.
Anime series tend to market at above the cost of a typical DVD, and in what I think is really a hangover from the days of VHS distribution, are split between a number of different, separate DVDs. Contrast this with the way most DVDs of traditional series are sold in America: that is, season by season. It's an inefficient business model, especially when the long term arcs of the series are of great interest to the consumer. Some would say you want consumers to jump through hoops, but the real problem with that is that the hoops are seen as unnecessary, and you have a difficult to control, and much easier alternative on the side.
So what to do?
The best way to do this, I think, is to do what music producers did not do until it was too late: provide a nice, safe legal means for people to do what they do now.
And what do fansubs do? Quick and dirty distribution of high quality anime, within days of broadcast, free of charge. Is this impossible for the corporations in Japan? It's not for the fansubbers. These people, for the love of it, get these things done in hours. I have complete faith that folks who get paid to do this could very easily repeat such feats.
Even if the delay were more like a week, I think something still could be managed. The key here is to understand the paradigm by which both movie and music distribution became online-free-for-alls.
Ask yourself: what is it here that these online means of distribution resemble, aside from the on-demand feature? Radio and Television. Tune in, and depending on whether people pay a premium or not, they can see all kinds of different movies and television shows with no out of pocket cost beyond a monthly bill.
The one big barrier, it seems, to doing all this in a timely manner, is not translation, but dubbing. The need to dub each and every show before it hits our shores is a huge part of both the overhead and the delay in getting this product to these shores. Is dubbing necessary, at least at that stage?
No. It's a nice thing to have, for many people, but the explosive growth of fansubbing demonstrates that it is not necessary to folks for their enjoyment. To get their anime now, in plentiful supply, and follow the stories in progress, people are willing to read the translation at the bottom of the screen. Observing the history of Anime in America, we can see that visuals and story are the primary draws here, not the English language. The conventional wisdom is that people will not go to see a movie drenched in subtitles. Yet people go to see movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Passion of The Christ, Kung Fu Hustle, and many others like them, with little complaint. Heck, the second of the two is written in a couple of dead languages, and the audience didn't seem to mind!
It might be a minus if you're marketing crap, but then that's your fault.
People don't need perfect translations or English dubs to want to seek out and enjoy anime on a near real time basis. Give them a subtitled translation, and they'll watch.
So what am I suggesting?
Two routes of distribution present themselves, so long as the people are willing to do things a little quick and dirty: Digital TV and Streaming Internet distribution, with both premium channel models that remove commercials, and basic channel models that include American commercials from American sponsors.
DVDs can then become what they are for most American shows: a way to milk the cow for those who truly do like what they see. The dubs for these shows can be come a part of the premium package of documentaries and other extras that DVDs are beloved for. You either end up justifying the higher price by making it a premium item, or by giving yourself the kind of volume through your primary broadcasts and webcasts that allows you to price them lower and still reap a profit.
The thing to keep in mind is that recorded mediums have always been premium items. Unfortunately, recorded mediums and distributive mediums are no longer as different in real terms. In certain markets, this used to provide a kind of premium priceability to the market- you either get it here, or nowhere else. The reality of today's market, is that people are now capable, either through legitimate means or not, of bypassing this.
Sooner or later, we have to face the globalizing consequences of digital convergence. You have to realize that you have a product that people want, and your main business model can no longer depend on any ability to keep it from them. Like Luke Skywalker says to Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi, you can either profit from this, or be destroyed.
Profit from people's immediate desire for this product, then profit from their wish to have a deluxe version of the shows they really liked. Indeed, you can measure the ratings that shows get to find where the market's heading.
In the end, the only way to get past fansubbing, is to become the fansubbers yourself, and make it a workable commercial model. That is what I am suggesting here.
Anime series tend to market at above the cost of a typical DVD, and in what I think is really a hangover from the days of VHS distribution, are split between a number of different, separate DVDs. Contrast this with the way most DVDs of traditional series are sold in America: that is, season by season. It's an inefficient business model, especially when the long term arcs of the series are of great interest to the consumer. Some would say you want consumers to jump through hoops, but the real problem with that is that the hoops are seen as unnecessary, and you have a difficult to control, and much easier alternative on the side.
So what to do?
The best way to do this, I think, is to do what music producers did not do until it was too late: provide a nice, safe legal means for people to do what they do now.
And what do fansubs do? Quick and dirty distribution of high quality anime, within days of broadcast, free of charge. Is this impossible for the corporations in Japan? It's not for the fansubbers. These people, for the love of it, get these things done in hours. I have complete faith that folks who get paid to do this could very easily repeat such feats.
Even if the delay were more like a week, I think something still could be managed. The key here is to understand the paradigm by which both movie and music distribution became online-free-for-alls.
Ask yourself: what is it here that these online means of distribution resemble, aside from the on-demand feature? Radio and Television. Tune in, and depending on whether people pay a premium or not, they can see all kinds of different movies and television shows with no out of pocket cost beyond a monthly bill.
The one big barrier, it seems, to doing all this in a timely manner, is not translation, but dubbing. The need to dub each and every show before it hits our shores is a huge part of both the overhead and the delay in getting this product to these shores. Is dubbing necessary, at least at that stage?
No. It's a nice thing to have, for many people, but the explosive growth of fansubbing demonstrates that it is not necessary to folks for their enjoyment. To get their anime now, in plentiful supply, and follow the stories in progress, people are willing to read the translation at the bottom of the screen. Observing the history of Anime in America, we can see that visuals and story are the primary draws here, not the English language. The conventional wisdom is that people will not go to see a movie drenched in subtitles. Yet people go to see movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Passion of The Christ, Kung Fu Hustle, and many others like them, with little complaint. Heck, the second of the two is written in a couple of dead languages, and the audience didn't seem to mind!
It might be a minus if you're marketing crap, but then that's your fault.
People don't need perfect translations or English dubs to want to seek out and enjoy anime on a near real time basis. Give them a subtitled translation, and they'll watch.
So what am I suggesting?
Two routes of distribution present themselves, so long as the people are willing to do things a little quick and dirty: Digital TV and Streaming Internet distribution, with both premium channel models that remove commercials, and basic channel models that include American commercials from American sponsors.
DVDs can then become what they are for most American shows: a way to milk the cow for those who truly do like what they see. The dubs for these shows can be come a part of the premium package of documentaries and other extras that DVDs are beloved for. You either end up justifying the higher price by making it a premium item, or by giving yourself the kind of volume through your primary broadcasts and webcasts that allows you to price them lower and still reap a profit.
The thing to keep in mind is that recorded mediums have always been premium items. Unfortunately, recorded mediums and distributive mediums are no longer as different in real terms. In certain markets, this used to provide a kind of premium priceability to the market- you either get it here, or nowhere else. The reality of today's market, is that people are now capable, either through legitimate means or not, of bypassing this.
Sooner or later, we have to face the globalizing consequences of digital convergence. You have to realize that you have a product that people want, and your main business model can no longer depend on any ability to keep it from them. Like Luke Skywalker says to Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi, you can either profit from this, or be destroyed.
Profit from people's immediate desire for this product, then profit from their wish to have a deluxe version of the shows they really liked. Indeed, you can measure the ratings that shows get to find where the market's heading.
In the end, the only way to get past fansubbing, is to become the fansubbers yourself, and make it a workable commercial model. That is what I am suggesting here.
Friday, December 14, 2007
A Small Enviromental Idea
I think it would be in our best interests as a nation to make recycling a priority. I know, it sounds cheesy, but when you really think about it, we're chucking a hell of a lot of resources, including petrochemicals, plastics, paper, metal, and other items which we will then have to replace by pumping up some oil, mining some metal, or doing some other kind of work.
I know, also a bit of a cliche. But when you take a trip out to the local landfill, drive up a small mountain of former landfill to get the current part, and it is itself quite immense, you just have to think about just how much of our resources end up lost to us in a place like this.
We might end up, at some point in the future, using the wonders of nanotechnology to pick through what we once considered disposable. How much of our own garbage do we want to be picking through, and how soon?
I know, also a bit of a cliche. But when you take a trip out to the local landfill, drive up a small mountain of former landfill to get the current part, and it is itself quite immense, you just have to think about just how much of our resources end up lost to us in a place like this.
We might end up, at some point in the future, using the wonders of nanotechnology to pick through what we once considered disposable. How much of our own garbage do we want to be picking through, and how soon?
Monday, October 01, 2007
Digital photography and Body Consciousness
I recently discovered some things about the way programs like Adobe Photoshop can be used to alter the way a person looks, and I think we should consider the implications of these facts in determining our expectations of our own bodies.
Men and women both stare at photos in magazines and lament that they can't have the perfect bodies they see there. What some of them may not realize is the extent to which these photos might be touched up. Heavily. Blemishes can be removed with the touch of a button, inconvenient curves distorted and erased, shadows and highlights reworked to add definition to muscles, perfection to skin. Blurring techniques can clear up complection, and even eyes can be moved about, if need be, to get that perfect look.
In the age of Photoshop, it's worth considering that almost no photography done professionally comes out in a national publication without extensive retouching.
Especially when it comes to being thin. As if the mounds of exercise, skimpy diets or other methods are not enough, those retouching glamour shots often use the tools to smooth away the places where the flesh bunches up where it shouldn't.
In short, we're making our assumptions about what thin looks like based on a digital fiction.
Here's a simple point to be made: the camera always lies. With Photoshop, and other image editing programs, it makes it even better at lying.
So what are we to do, raid the downtown headquarters of the modeling agencies, burn it to the ground? No. We have to change our attitudes about what these images mean. With documentary photography, of course, we should not accept much more than a few technical fixes for clarity. But beyond that, we should keep this one important point in mind: these are forms of communication, not necessarily representations of the truth.
The models in these shots do plenty of work to get their bodies in shape. They probably take up their whole lives in this. Rare ones can get away with doing little exercise and still eat like a normal person, but for the most part, this is a job. Even so, it's revealing that even as they best approximate our ideas of perfection, these people still must be retouched and reshaped in order to meet that ideal.
So let's get clear on this: the people commissioning and taking these shots are not representing reality, they are communicating something to you, something the models, the photographer, the program and the digital artist come together to shape. They are distilling something that in reality would be far more mundane, if it weren't for the labor of all involved.
The inspiration for this post came from working on exercises in Photoshop Restoraton and Retouching, by Katrin Eismann. If you want to know just how much the photos we see are communication, and not reality, this is the book to teach you.
Men and women both stare at photos in magazines and lament that they can't have the perfect bodies they see there. What some of them may not realize is the extent to which these photos might be touched up. Heavily. Blemishes can be removed with the touch of a button, inconvenient curves distorted and erased, shadows and highlights reworked to add definition to muscles, perfection to skin. Blurring techniques can clear up complection, and even eyes can be moved about, if need be, to get that perfect look.
In the age of Photoshop, it's worth considering that almost no photography done professionally comes out in a national publication without extensive retouching.
Especially when it comes to being thin. As if the mounds of exercise, skimpy diets or other methods are not enough, those retouching glamour shots often use the tools to smooth away the places where the flesh bunches up where it shouldn't.
In short, we're making our assumptions about what thin looks like based on a digital fiction.
Here's a simple point to be made: the camera always lies. With Photoshop, and other image editing programs, it makes it even better at lying.
So what are we to do, raid the downtown headquarters of the modeling agencies, burn it to the ground? No. We have to change our attitudes about what these images mean. With documentary photography, of course, we should not accept much more than a few technical fixes for clarity. But beyond that, we should keep this one important point in mind: these are forms of communication, not necessarily representations of the truth.
The models in these shots do plenty of work to get their bodies in shape. They probably take up their whole lives in this. Rare ones can get away with doing little exercise and still eat like a normal person, but for the most part, this is a job. Even so, it's revealing that even as they best approximate our ideas of perfection, these people still must be retouched and reshaped in order to meet that ideal.
So let's get clear on this: the people commissioning and taking these shots are not representing reality, they are communicating something to you, something the models, the photographer, the program and the digital artist come together to shape. They are distilling something that in reality would be far more mundane, if it weren't for the labor of all involved.
The inspiration for this post came from working on exercises in Photoshop Restoraton and Retouching, by Katrin Eismann. If you want to know just how much the photos we see are communication, and not reality, this is the book to teach you.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Why I have always liked Harry Potter, Despite What the Snobs Say...
I have the good fortune of being one of the original readers of Harry Potter. As a science fiction and fantasy fan, I was on the look out for new authors, new works, and Potter fit in nicely. I don't remember how long the book spent on my shelf, but I remember picking it up when I first saw it at the Baylor Bookstore.
My reaction to the first book was that I wanted more. But before I go on, let me recall that her audience hasn't exactly been bereft of material to read in this genre. There have been plenty of predecessor series. There's the Prydain Series by Lloyd Alexander, featuring our favorite Assistant Pig Keeper. There's The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper, which featured a fine cast of characters, including Will Stanton, young man, yet one of the Old ones, and Bran, the strange Welsh kid with the surprising family connections. There's The Chronicles of Narnia, which recently got its own cinematic treatment. There are likely quite a few more, but my recollection escapes me, and I don't want to belabor the point too much. Others might undoubtedly recall others, and I'd be happy to hear about them.
And lets not forget Grimm's Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Anderson's work, and a multitude of others. Children's fantasy is a rich literary tradition.
Which may be part of the problem. Many works scorned in their day are grandfathered into later canons of literary greatness by readers with fond memories and nobody still alive to drop it in the waste basket as trash. Harry Potter has the problem that its, well...
New. Test of time, and what have you.
Maybe Potter will end up as a curiosity of our times, remembered mainly by enthusiasts and lovers of esoterica. But lets not forget, that a lot of people wrote in the old days for the same purpose they write today: Money, and because they love doing it.
Rowlingly obviously loves doing this. Her exquisite sense of detail would allow no other conclusion. She gave the cinematic translators of her work a magnificent headstart. Her plots are well organized, the dialogue fairly good. She takes care with how she reveals information, and the mysteries that form the heart of her novels are well organized. As for money, well she's getting a sh... well, a lot of it.
Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and many others wrote not for the future idolization of their art, but for the love and the profit of it. I know that's kind of a generalization, but if you look into the history of many of the authors of what we call canon, you'll find more than a few commercial works, more than few overripe works of popular fiction.
I will not say that Harry Potter Books will necessarily become literature in the years to come. That truly is beyond my ability to say. But I will say this: It's popular enough to have some staying power, on the basis of having soaked into to enough homes and libraries, and it's of good enough quality to ensure that folks who pick it up, whether it remains out and about or gathering dust on some distant shelf, will pick it up and read it. So it could join works like Robinson Crusoe, The Three Musketeers, Great Expectations and others on the lists.
But what's the deal with the lists anyways? I'm going to tell you a little secret here: The lists are an accident! There are plenty of works we could speak of that would not have gotten on them had the folks who determine canonicity now been in charge. I look at a lot of what people read as literature, and some of the work is genuinely good, some of it not. Today's literary elites focus so much on pushing a certain world view, a certain view of realism, surrealism, postmodernism, or whatever camp they lump themselves into, that they're missing the new canon of literature as it rolls by them. They'll pick up on something that resembles their world view, like Pullman's His Dark Materials, but they'll miss a great deal of the other stuff, because it doesn't fit their idea of what is worthy.
Now my brother's much further into the modern works that I am, or care to be, but I notice that often enough he picks works that have a sense of humor, rather than loading himself up with only depressing material. I can imagine that there's no accounting for taste, which is why all kinds of books enjoy success, but still, there are some observations I'd like to make.
Genre work, meaning the stuff that doesn't stick to absolute reality, has a bad rap. That said, There's artistry in creating new worlds, or at least in doing some refit to this one. We can see in the works of Salman Rushdie and others this kind of approach. Whether you call it magical realism, fabulism or whatever, popular authors of the literary canon often drop in for a visit to fantasy and sci-fi land. And why not?
People right stories to figure out what you could call the human condition. But just consider all the things that go into that- our civilization, our culture, our sensibilities. There's a lot of space in there for examination of things like our relationship to technology, to religion, to all kinds of things. Fantasy and sci-fi, world-building works in particular, have their own territory to explore, their own intuitive truth to uncover.
While the genres can be escapist, they can also act as kind of a strange loop, as Douglas Hofstadter would call it, whereby readers can escape to the other worlds and parallel dimensions, and nevertheless come back deepened for their frivolity, because they come back to know the place they are in for the first time. That's perhaps one of the things cultural elitists hate- that they lose the control of those minds, that these works so entrance readers as to take them away from what's real.
But what is real? As a political writer on Watchblog, I've noticed what can only be called a strong divergence between what different parties consider real. Its noticeable elsewhere. Now I am not a big fan of philosophies that say that there is no objective reality, only what is brought into existence by consensus of belief. I believe there is an objective reality, but that we all have subjective, incomplete understandings and perceptions of it. Reality as it exists may be objective, but reality as we perceive it is a different story. With all that in mind, though, it's still important to seek the best possible understanding of that objective reality, to go beyond the shell of our perceptions, the necessary illusions that they are.
Fantasy and Science fiction allow us to look at the way people think and deal with cultures without necessarily having to glance directly at our own.
There are magnificent reflections of human truths in Harry Potter, and I believe that this is part of its lasting appeal. The relationship between Dumbledore and Potter, Potter's development into adolescence, the petty rivalries and lifelong grudges of personal and professional life, carry into her books.
They, among other aspects of a narrative work, literary or otherwise, contribute to what could be called the experiential value of the work.
The processes of the human mind are complex, multifacet, and represent the difference between what one is told, what one is shown, and what one experiences. Art is about taking advantage of the methods by which we seek to understand the world as reality, and using it to communicate wisdom and knowledge about the world too complex or beyond the person's normal experience to understand. It is also about how we train our minds to deal with the world around us.
Harry Potter's world is complex enough to believe in, with characters that are complicated enough to play around believeably in this world as human beings, and not just ciphers for the author's feelings. In all our self-indulgence, we writers have a tendency sometimes to put our own feelings as greater than our readers, but the truth is, no matter what we do, the success of our work depends on how we engage our readers, and how well we do it. Some would like to fantasize about how they will draw in an audience, or how they should be drawing in the audience instead of some author who just got lucky (from their point of view), but the fact is, by entering the profession they have, they've put the fate of their stories from the get-go, and have to do that to make art or to make money.
So my advice to those who hate what Potter has done to literature is this: compete. Be dazzling storytellers. Be original. Don't be a cliche, regardless of whether you're literary or commercial in your inclinations. Have some fun, while you take the work seriously. Understand that without the audience, without the bridge you build to them in your words, your work, your imaginings are incomplete. Only when somebody puts down a book satisfied, having had a worthy experience, can the art and the commerce of your work be complete.
My reaction to the first book was that I wanted more. But before I go on, let me recall that her audience hasn't exactly been bereft of material to read in this genre. There have been plenty of predecessor series. There's the Prydain Series by Lloyd Alexander, featuring our favorite Assistant Pig Keeper. There's The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper, which featured a fine cast of characters, including Will Stanton, young man, yet one of the Old ones, and Bran, the strange Welsh kid with the surprising family connections. There's The Chronicles of Narnia, which recently got its own cinematic treatment. There are likely quite a few more, but my recollection escapes me, and I don't want to belabor the point too much. Others might undoubtedly recall others, and I'd be happy to hear about them.
And lets not forget Grimm's Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Anderson's work, and a multitude of others. Children's fantasy is a rich literary tradition.
Which may be part of the problem. Many works scorned in their day are grandfathered into later canons of literary greatness by readers with fond memories and nobody still alive to drop it in the waste basket as trash. Harry Potter has the problem that its, well...
New. Test of time, and what have you.
Maybe Potter will end up as a curiosity of our times, remembered mainly by enthusiasts and lovers of esoterica. But lets not forget, that a lot of people wrote in the old days for the same purpose they write today: Money, and because they love doing it.
Rowlingly obviously loves doing this. Her exquisite sense of detail would allow no other conclusion. She gave the cinematic translators of her work a magnificent headstart. Her plots are well organized, the dialogue fairly good. She takes care with how she reveals information, and the mysteries that form the heart of her novels are well organized. As for money, well she's getting a sh... well, a lot of it.
Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and many others wrote not for the future idolization of their art, but for the love and the profit of it. I know that's kind of a generalization, but if you look into the history of many of the authors of what we call canon, you'll find more than a few commercial works, more than few overripe works of popular fiction.
I will not say that Harry Potter Books will necessarily become literature in the years to come. That truly is beyond my ability to say. But I will say this: It's popular enough to have some staying power, on the basis of having soaked into to enough homes and libraries, and it's of good enough quality to ensure that folks who pick it up, whether it remains out and about or gathering dust on some distant shelf, will pick it up and read it. So it could join works like Robinson Crusoe, The Three Musketeers, Great Expectations and others on the lists.
But what's the deal with the lists anyways? I'm going to tell you a little secret here: The lists are an accident! There are plenty of works we could speak of that would not have gotten on them had the folks who determine canonicity now been in charge. I look at a lot of what people read as literature, and some of the work is genuinely good, some of it not. Today's literary elites focus so much on pushing a certain world view, a certain view of realism, surrealism, postmodernism, or whatever camp they lump themselves into, that they're missing the new canon of literature as it rolls by them. They'll pick up on something that resembles their world view, like Pullman's His Dark Materials, but they'll miss a great deal of the other stuff, because it doesn't fit their idea of what is worthy.
Now my brother's much further into the modern works that I am, or care to be, but I notice that often enough he picks works that have a sense of humor, rather than loading himself up with only depressing material. I can imagine that there's no accounting for taste, which is why all kinds of books enjoy success, but still, there are some observations I'd like to make.
Genre work, meaning the stuff that doesn't stick to absolute reality, has a bad rap. That said, There's artistry in creating new worlds, or at least in doing some refit to this one. We can see in the works of Salman Rushdie and others this kind of approach. Whether you call it magical realism, fabulism or whatever, popular authors of the literary canon often drop in for a visit to fantasy and sci-fi land. And why not?
People right stories to figure out what you could call the human condition. But just consider all the things that go into that- our civilization, our culture, our sensibilities. There's a lot of space in there for examination of things like our relationship to technology, to religion, to all kinds of things. Fantasy and sci-fi, world-building works in particular, have their own territory to explore, their own intuitive truth to uncover.
While the genres can be escapist, they can also act as kind of a strange loop, as Douglas Hofstadter would call it, whereby readers can escape to the other worlds and parallel dimensions, and nevertheless come back deepened for their frivolity, because they come back to know the place they are in for the first time. That's perhaps one of the things cultural elitists hate- that they lose the control of those minds, that these works so entrance readers as to take them away from what's real.
But what is real? As a political writer on Watchblog, I've noticed what can only be called a strong divergence between what different parties consider real. Its noticeable elsewhere. Now I am not a big fan of philosophies that say that there is no objective reality, only what is brought into existence by consensus of belief. I believe there is an objective reality, but that we all have subjective, incomplete understandings and perceptions of it. Reality as it exists may be objective, but reality as we perceive it is a different story. With all that in mind, though, it's still important to seek the best possible understanding of that objective reality, to go beyond the shell of our perceptions, the necessary illusions that they are.
Fantasy and Science fiction allow us to look at the way people think and deal with cultures without necessarily having to glance directly at our own.
There are magnificent reflections of human truths in Harry Potter, and I believe that this is part of its lasting appeal. The relationship between Dumbledore and Potter, Potter's development into adolescence, the petty rivalries and lifelong grudges of personal and professional life, carry into her books.
They, among other aspects of a narrative work, literary or otherwise, contribute to what could be called the experiential value of the work.
The processes of the human mind are complex, multifacet, and represent the difference between what one is told, what one is shown, and what one experiences. Art is about taking advantage of the methods by which we seek to understand the world as reality, and using it to communicate wisdom and knowledge about the world too complex or beyond the person's normal experience to understand. It is also about how we train our minds to deal with the world around us.
Harry Potter's world is complex enough to believe in, with characters that are complicated enough to play around believeably in this world as human beings, and not just ciphers for the author's feelings. In all our self-indulgence, we writers have a tendency sometimes to put our own feelings as greater than our readers, but the truth is, no matter what we do, the success of our work depends on how we engage our readers, and how well we do it. Some would like to fantasize about how they will draw in an audience, or how they should be drawing in the audience instead of some author who just got lucky (from their point of view), but the fact is, by entering the profession they have, they've put the fate of their stories from the get-go, and have to do that to make art or to make money.
So my advice to those who hate what Potter has done to literature is this: compete. Be dazzling storytellers. Be original. Don't be a cliche, regardless of whether you're literary or commercial in your inclinations. Have some fun, while you take the work seriously. Understand that without the audience, without the bridge you build to them in your words, your work, your imaginings are incomplete. Only when somebody puts down a book satisfied, having had a worthy experience, can the art and the commerce of your work be complete.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Hexagon on Saturn?
I think I have a rough idea of what this atmospheric formation on Saturn might mean.
Water spun very fast in a bucket will take on hexagonal shape. The speed has a lot to do with things, and Saturn's winds are damn fast, over a thousand miles an hour.
 |
| hexagon |
Water spun very fast in a bucket will take on hexagonal shape. The speed has a lot to do with things, and Saturn's winds are damn fast, over a thousand miles an hour.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
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