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September 17, 2007
Just in case anyone stumbles upon this…
Posted by nexusstraggler under UncategorizedLeave a Comment
August 19, 2007
1:35 FUCK YEAH DAVID CROSS!
April 10, 2007
Does anyone else feel like the last 3 to 4 weeks of a semester seem to go on for years? Sometimes I feel like saying, “Screw it, I’m getting out with the marks that I have right now!” That would be a terrible idea; but, at least it would all be over.
I’ve decided to keep writing this blog (like a few other classmates that I’ve noticed), since it has been an encouraging blog for me (being forced to write for marks, and all). Just thought I’d let anyone who wants to continue reading this know…
To all those who are reading this, good luck with all of your exams!
March 28, 2007
I think that split-infinitives were supposed to be used as stylistic distinctions in the past, but we’ve discarded them in hopes of not alienating readers.
dictionary.com has taught me to knowingly search for them. (haHA)
March 28, 2007
I can’t tell if playing video games like those discussed in Jakobsson’s article is healthy or not. I think that I have a huge lack of knowledge of the gamer lifestyle; I wasn’t allowed (parental rule) to have a video game console until the first playstation came out. By that time, I was already in high school, and had developed other obsessions (music… too much music), and I never really found video games that interesting. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely enjoyed playing them, and I did play a few games until I beat them, but I never got to the point where it was a lifestyle, or had any importance other than wasting a little time. That’s why Jakobsson’s article, ‘The Sopranos Meets EverQuest: Social Networking in Massively Multiplayer Online Games,’ fascinates me. I can’t understand how someone can be a ‘power gamer’ and spend more time playing video games than sleeping.
One of my roommates helped me put it into perspective a little. She had a friend who spent a lot of his time building up characters and creating characters that he could sell on the internet. Apparently he was able to make a decent amount of money selling these characters which were worthy of the higher level ‘guilds’ talked about in the article. But this still made me ask how the people buying the characters can afford to spend from 4:00 until 12:00, like one of the higher level guilds required, playing the game, just in order to remain worthy of the guild, or like the Soprano’s metaphor, as a ‘good earner.’
I definitely understand how it can be an alternative community for people to socialize and network, and how it is a fantasy where people can experience success, form social bonds, and create extended social networks, I just don’t understand how people can identify so strongly with these games. I found this article very enlightening into what the world of ‘gamers’ is like, especially because the most gaming that I do now, is playing games on addictinggames.com for 20 minutes every once in a while.
March 28, 2007
* I realized after posting this that it is too long to show up in this layout… for better viewing, right click on the comic, and select ‘view image’. *
I love it.
March 21, 2007
I was thinking about the Horsley article, and I think that a unified identity is helpful for pursuing equality in our society, but at the same time, the ideas of queer theory make a lot of sense. I think that it is linked more to the progression of social equality. After reading the short article about Survivor’s latest season, and all of the controversy surrounding it’s possible racism inducing theme, I see that it is quite similar to the issue talked about in Horsely’s article; the only difference is the level of progression of which each movement for social equality is at. The anti-racist movement has been progressing steadily since the civil rights movement in the United States; while it certainly hasn’t reached a point where it can claim success (especially in the United States), there has at least been a long history of progression towards getting rid of racism.
The movement for equality among sexual orientations, and alternative genders, hasn’t had as long of a history, and is thus still at a stage where a unified identity in the media is helpful. While like the apparent disdain for grouping different ethnicities into unified identities, it would not be useful for ethnicity to be seen as a single unified identity. I think that there will be a point where queer theory comes to be the popular view in the movement for social equality in the Gay and Lesbian communities, it will just have to wait until the movement progresses to a point where the general society accepts Gay and Lesbian people more equally.
March 21, 2007
Speaking of alternative images of gender in the media…
Bowie rules, and this album rules even more!
I saw him recently on a British tv show called Extras which lasted two seasons. It fills my heart…
March 14, 2007
Why is the blame always on advertisements? Obviously we know what messages they are trying to get across, we know that there are ridiculous amounts of ads being delivered to us, and we know that people are profiting of the stereotypes that they portray in their ads. But why do we always blame advertisements? It isn’t a conspiracy of capitalist devils creating an atmosphere to exploit; it is just advertisers doing their jobs, doing what they are forced to do in the economic system that we are living in.
Why would they not use stereotypes? If it is working, and they are selling products to the ’stereotypes,’ why would they stop doing it? Abby Friedrich touches on the fact that advertisements are a reflection of our society, but she contradicts herself with her final message: “Until people realize that the physical appearances seen in magazines and on television are completely out of anyone’s reach, we will all continue to strive with a false sense of hope.” It isn’t the images in magazines and television that people are striving for, those are just reflections of our society. A sociologist at our school corrected me quite importantly once when I was saying that advertisements cause things (patriarchy, racism, etc.) in society; it is society that causes, or creates, advertisements. We are racist (North American culture; not all of us, of course), we are sexist, we are all the bad things that we see in our advertisements that make us sick; is it not that we must first “fix” (however we do that) the problems in our society before we can stop striving for “a false sense of hope?” When the issues, which are reflections of the way we live, are solved, would it not be logical that the evil advertisers will stop exploiting our society’s weaknesses?
Now I know, the article, All of your insecurities wrapped up in a thirty second spot, is aiming at ending those problems, or weaknesses of our society, or culture, but I think that it is aiming its weapons at the wrong target. The advertising industry is made to do what it does; it is supposed to exploit us. Is it ever possible to “minimiz[e] the threat [of] advertising and the commercial culture that has spawned it,” (from Advertising at the edge of the apocalypse) or does it need to be discarded entirely? I don’t believe that reforming a system that is made to do exactly what it is doing, or molding it into something that we could say is acceptable, will work. You can’t make a shark stop eating other fish, without serious repercussions to the shark (this sentence, indeed, was approved by a biologist).
March 7, 2007
While I agree with most of David Hayes’ interpretation of the act of collecting records on vinyl, I don’t think that I agree with how much he emphasizes record collecting as a form of dissidence against large record labels and distribution companies trying to force new music down our throats (or ears?), whether it is good or bad. Sure, it is a way of harming the profits of those major record companies, but collecting records on vinyl is not the only way to avoid buying music, nor do I think that it is the intention. The emergence, and popularity, of independent record labels (and distribution companies) has allowed music consumers many alternative choices to music that is produced solely for the intent of making profits; and, most of the profits that those independent record labels are making come from CDs. And before you say that I am missing the point of the article, being that it is ABOUT record collectors, I want to highlight some of my own experience and the experience of many people I know.
I will first admit that I buy records on vinyl, as do many of my friends. While I am not an avid ‘collector’ of vinyl, I do still prefer to buy records whenever I can; I just seek to buy only music that I will listen to for enjoyment, not collecting. After that, I must also admit that many of my friends are very much ‘into’ music; so much so, that some people might call them music snobs. But from the experience that I have had, I do not, nor do my friends, buy vinyl because it is a subversive act against major record companies. We just don’t buy the crap that they are trying to sell us that isn’t good (while that can be argued against with Adorno’s idea of distinction, but let’s not get into that). Though we may be intentionally not buying the CDs that these major labels want us to buy, we do still buy things from their labels (re-releases, occasional good new album, etc.). He also highlights “serious music collectors” buying older music, whose albums may be considered more holistic, but the emerging popularity of independent music also breaks down that argument.
I, for one, love buying music on vinyl, but mainly for the physical aspects of listening which Hayes discuses. I also love to buy albums on vinyl that I wouldn’t be able to find of CD, like this Flaming Lips album:
But at the same time, I still buy CDs of bands, like Rocket From the Crypt, a band who wouldn’t fit into the “singles music” that Hayes talks about, if it is more convenient.
Hayes does, though, make a lot of really good point about the culture behind buying records on vinyl, and the experience of playing and listening to them, that I strongly identify with. It was a fun article to read.
March 6, 2007
Well, just in case I’m not randomly selected by Paul, and I freeze up and don’t volunteer (it happens often… seriously, it’s a real pain in the ass in classes that give out participation marks), I’d like to share my favorite album by my favorite musician.
Tom Waits – The Heart of Saturday Night
I love it! I love all kinds of music, but this album seems to kind of sum up my interests. I really love jazz and blues (good blues; gritty old blues), but also have a fondness for punk rock and rock and roll with a side of the absurd, or avant-garde I guess (weird stuff, anyway), and he seems to meld it all in to this album, somehow. It has good loungy jazz (or on Drunk on the Moon, a section of straight-up hard swing), really boozy sounding blues chord progressions, and a rock and roll attitude in the lyrics that a lot of new rockers only dream they could have. On top of all that, though, it has a soulfulness and humanistic tone that grabs me every time, and makes me listen carefully. So damn good.
I tried to find a video of a song from this album, but the only videos I found had really warped audio, so I decided to post this instead; it’s a clip from the movie Coffee and Cigarettes where Tom Waits and Iggy Pop have coffee together. Enjoy.
February 28, 2007
Noam Chomsky always makes me think of Winnipeg punkers, Propagandhi, who often use clips of Mr. Chomsky speaking in their recordings, and also talk about the Manufacturing of Consent. While not on the same intellectual level, they are still fun to listen to after all of these years…
* Warning! If you don’t want to listen to curse words or punk rock, don’t play this video*
February 28, 2007
This blog post is in response to Russell Smith’s article, “The films stink more than the greasy audience”. I had initially intended on going to the movie, Children of Men, at Park Place cinema for this assignment, but ended up showing up to the theatre just in time for the movie to start, and getting so enthralled by the movie that I wasn’t able to observe very well. But what I did observe in that experience was quite similar to what I observed at the second movie that I went to, which I will expand on later. I decided that for the second movie I would go to a movie that I didn’t have a lot of knowledge, or interest, in; I went to see Stomp the Yard at the Movie Mill with my girlfriend. This movie ended up being a lot more sociologically fascinating than I had expected; as, it was a niche market movie and had a crowd that seemed very excited to watch it.
When we first walked into the theatre, it seemed kind of dead and I was worried that there would not be a lot of people to observe. While sitting and waiting for the movie to begin, though, the theatre began to fill up very quickly. I hadn’t realized that the movie was a dance movie such as the likes of Save the Last Dance, or Footloose (for the old-schoolers), but it quickly became apparent as most of the attendees were females who looked to be between the ages of 15 and 30. Many were friends, and several groups seemed to know each other from elsewhere. Those in attendance dressed in a range of very casual fashions, to very expensive fashions.
My first definite rejection to what Smith says about movie going is the behavior before the movie starts. He portrays the people watching movies in a theatre as animalistic, with metaphors of barnyard behavior. I don’t think he could be any more wrong about this. While sitting there watching people, and trying to overhear conversation, I in no way thought that “the representatives of humanity” were “anxious,” or “focused on their feed;” I found that the people, while some may have been eating popcorn, were deep in conversation about their personal lives. People seemed quite relaxed and free to talk, and from what I noticed, their conversations seemed to be about their families and relationships, and the complexities of both. The conversations that I noticed seemed to much less mundane than “what food they like to eat and what food they don’t like to eat,” or how tired they are in comparison to yesterday. I think that Smith intentionally looked for the mundane in order to feel superior with whatever social capital he has.
I do have to agree with Smith when he complains about being forced to watch advertisements, though, as is a laborious task to not feel used by your desire to experience entertainment. I’m not sure if I’m longing for something that didn’t quite exist the way I remember, but I do not recall having to sit through actual advertisements (other than for movies or for that particular theatre) when I was younger. The Movie Mill wasn’t so bad, as they played most of their ads during the slides before the movie started (which most people were conversing during and not paying much attention to), but at Park Place, while watching Children of Men, they blare advertisements so loudly that it is hard to even focus on what they are about. Now, I’m not one to avert from loud noise, I have been going to punk rock concerts since I was in middle school, but I seriously think that the volume of the ads and movie trailers is ridiculously loud (I really hope I don’t sound too much like an old man). It’s almost as if advertisers think they can engrain their product in your brain by playing their ads so loud that their message will remain with the ringing in your ears.
My second rejection to Smith’s views of movie going lies also in the preview/advertising part of the movie. People don’t just sit “docilely munching and slurping” while watching these ads; it is actually the most exciting part of the movie. During the previews at the Movie Mill, people were continuing their conversations with excitement for the movie. People were also reacting directly to the previews with such comments as, “that looks good,” or groaning at a preview for a movie that doesn’t seem very good. The complete opposite of what Smith wrote happened: people vocalized their feelings about what they were seeing. This was also the part of the movie where the interaction of the people in the crowd with each other, and the movie screen, began. The people in the crowd’s moods seemed to be feeding of each other, making the whole thing a very interactive event.
This crowd interaction seemed to continue throughout both movies. People sat quietly for most of Stomp the Yard, but there were several moments when the crowd would react to events in the movie. When two of the main characters kissed, a row of girls exclaimed, “ahhhh!” While at another point in the movie, there was a bunch of shirtless male dancers in a shot with the sun setting, and a row of girls in the back of the theatre expressed their enjoyment with a chorus of, “Ooh!” There were even several people who verbally and physically expressed frustration when the “bad” fraternity tied the “good” fraternity in a dance competition. While watching Children of Men, people were also interacting together in response to the movie by gasping at shocking events.
I think that the whole process of coming to the theatre, sitting and waiting for the movie to begin, watching the previews, and, finally, watching the movie, is part of the totality of enjoying entertainment in a social setting. Movie-goers need to develop a feeling of comfort around others in order to feel free to express their feelings about the movie, and to interact with others expressions as well. I think that Russell Smith is missing the point; movie watching in a theatre is about the interaction and crowd response. There is nothing different about the people at the theatre than there is with the people we interact with daily in all kinds of situations. If Smith is so repulsed by ordinary people, maybe he should sit at home, watching movies while sipping Sherry (as he so arrogantly refers to), all by his lonesome, and bask in his self-fabricated superiority while the rest of us continue to enjoy the merits of social interaction.
February 14, 2007
After reading the excerpt from Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, his ideas have become much clearer to me. I’ve read about the idea of Manufacturing Consent, as well as Dissent, but when used in relation to North American news services, it is starting to make a lot more sense. I wonder, though, how much this phenomena has wandered into the Canadian news industry, and whether it is having as drastic of an effect as in the United States. I think that it is hard to tell which news is being left out; there are days when we praise the media for printing articles like this one in the Toronto Star. It seems like this type of article was much more like what original news companies had wished to create. They had a sense of obligation and voice to the working class, and people not of the upper, powerful, classes. After reading the excerpt from Chomsky and the Russ Kick article, I almost felt proud of the Canadian Press and its ability to remain free from dominant corporate interests, or as Chomsky called it, the news “filters.” After thinking about this for a bit, though, I felt that it couldn’t be the entire truth; the Canadian Press could not be immune from such influence.
I know, for one thing, that there are many stories which are simply over-looked, or considered not news-worthy. That’s why we have news groups such as the Guerrilla News Network. It’s not possible that we are free from such influence, seeing as how much our economy is intertwined with the U.S. economy. In Kick’s article, he says that the Canadian news agencies were not as blatantly biased as the American news agencies, yet in the textbook they reference Peter Desbarats’ book, Guide to the Canadian News Media, to tell how “Canadian news traditions [have] followed the U.S. model and not the British model” (pg. 146). I find more and more that I am not trusting what is broadcasted in the Canadian news agencies televised reports, and I have started trying to find alternative news sources. The only problem is when the alternative press has there own ulterior motives as well.
I think that if we want to solve the problem of confidence in our media, journalism should be treated more and more like a professional occupation, and thus form better professional groups like lawyers, doctors, and nurses, and allow them to lobby for true freedom of the press. One problem with this, though, is that the public needs to recognize journalism as a more legitimate profession than it is recognized as right now, and proper advertising and news agency management could be negotiated in order to negate corporate interest in our news.
February 14, 2007
I have a bunch of friends in Edmonton who celebrate Festivus, and have celebrated for the past few years. One of them even bought (or possibly just made it themselves) the Festivus pole. I think that the internet has made it popular to actually partake in the holiday because it is more organized than if people had only seen it on an episode of Seinfeld.
I haven’t been able to make it to the celebrations yet, but maybe next Festivus I’ll make it up.
February 7, 2007
I think that Canadian film and television gets criticized way too harshly by the Canadian public. It is, first of all, terribly unrealistic to expect Canadian t.v. and film content to be equal to American content, seeing as how there is a huge population difference (Canada: 32,822,396; United States: 301,123,254). It is totally unreasonable to expect a population of our size to produce as many good writers, producers, directors, etc., that the United States does. A lot of people like to put the blame on the National Film Board, with their influence causing schools to promote documentary style filming as a way to get money from the government, and thus causing a different style of filming feature films, but I think it is more than that. The textbook cites amounts of money that the Feature Film Advisory Committee came up with in 1999 to promote Canadian movies, and I think that those amounts are pathetic compared to the amount of private funding that is put into the American movie industry. I’m not suggesting that the Canadian government is responsible for funding our film industry to the extent that the American private sector does (that would be ridiculous), but there has to some way of making it more lucrative for private companies to invest in Canadian film. It seems like the best we have done so far is entice Hollywood companies to bring their productions north of the border.
I do think, though, that we do produce a lot of great writers, producers, directors, etc., but they tend to go to the United States because they can make better money. Take the Simpsons for instance; this interview with two Canadian writers for the Simpsons is a perfect example:
Also, when we were talking about Da Vinci’s Inquest last week, everyone groaned a little in response, but I loved that show. The writer, Chris Haddock is fantastic! He started out living on the streets and eventually worked his way up to be a screenwriter. I was skeptical of the show at first as well, but when I gave it a chance, I really liked it; it’s so gritty, not sensational, but definitely gritty.
February 3, 2007
I love the title of The Bob Loblaw Law Blog’s blog, it is such a great reference. Arrested Development is the greatest show that Fox never appreciated (and just greatest show in general)!
February 2, 2007
musically: I’ve come under the spell of Dan Sartain.
And as I’ve hinted at in another post, I’ve spent many hours entertained by the random ridiculousness of Scrubs, yet this week’s episode… well, meh. Why do sitcoms use topical humour… no wait, why do smart sitcoms use topical humour? It’s cheap, and they know it. Is it lack of time? Vacation time for the writers? Or have they started to let Zach Braff write as well as direct the odd episode (just kidding! he did a great job on Garden State)? I don’t know, I was just disappointed after waiting for two weeks.
“Seriously, I was only kidding, you’re a great writer…”
