LOST 5-14: "The Variable" 2009.04.29 - TWoP Forums p1:
-I found the 'variable' solution (It's people! soylent green) too kinda of tacky and cliche.
p6:
-Oh, I was fuming at that. OK, so Daniel was focusing on 'The Constant' and not 'The Variable.' OK. Fine. I can see him missing some super-special snowflake like Desmond as a variable.
But he seemed to suggest that when he mapped out his time travel theory, he forgot to make the time travelers themselves into variables. And that's stupid. yeah, the whole premise of the question: if a time traveler is introduced into the past, does that change it? No. oh, I forgot about the time traveler being there. he could change it.
anyway the whole appeal of Whatever happened, happened is its meaning that the time traveler was always there at that time, always did whatever he freely chooses to do, and whatever happened always happened. always as in: these things are always. also that is not predestiny, unfree wills, it's realness: *is* is not the same as *is not* (Kings 1.2 Prosperity: "I used to force the distinction: Is. Isn't."), what happens really happens, the happening of Being, the Event. what happened, happened.
[update 5 May: TWoP frontpage minicap for this episode's recap Your Mother's An Other?!: In this landmark 100th episode of Lost Daniel explains that while whatever happened, happened, that's only assuming nothing has changed right, so I shoot him.]
-I am devastated about Daniel. I feel like there could be so much more done with him.
-I felt let down by this episode and didn't enjoy it very much.
me too
-So, one of the best new characters on the show, who has a compelling story, a mysterious past, made me even more interested in him after one centric episode, gets (possibly) killed off, and we're left with *Jack & Kate*?
-Daniel's already alive in 1977, he should be roughly 10 years old or older. He's just not on the island.goodness knows where he is.
--Daniel's memory is really screwy. It's entirely possible that he is currently on the Island. hmm. Ellie turns away fr killing her son and rejoins the 10yrld version? we pick up w him there?
-We had the video of Chang making a video from Comic Con. It sounds very much like Daniel is the one talking to him in the background. When is this movie supposed to take place? This episode certainly didnt give us any indication that Faraday had time to go and visit Chang a second time. hmm. well that's a bit hopeful. but~ that spoiler re a major cast char dying ~bcs of that, it dsn't look good to me.
p10
-She goes her whole life after the shooting knowing that she shot future him; Eloise has to push Daniel throughout his childhood & professional life towards a path of going back to the island. The bomb needs to explode, and the only way that can happen is if Daniel goes back. Eloise is trying to prevent the time loop from continuing and has to sacrifice her son. If he succeeds or Jack/Kate succeed, then adult Daniel dying won't matter because the time loop will end, young Daniel will grow up and never need to come back on the freighter. that wld exonerate her. I guess.
--If Daniel, Jack or Kate succeed then the island is completely destroyed oh including Eloise and Charles. Daniel will never be born or if Daniel is a child on the island then he is killed when the island explodes. It seems to me the that a nuclear explosion is far worse than the "incident" happening. good point.
p5 | -And what did he need to accomplish? what did he accomplish that it was ok for her to send him back to die?
p6 | -And don’t tell me the only reason for all of this is to prevent the crash of 815. I mean, is that really all there is?
right. those are the questions. satisfying to see my complaints~dissatisfaction~objection~questions voiced.
-So, the plane wouldn't crash and Jack & Co can go forward with their miserable lives? Locke will be paralysed. Kate's in jail. Hurley's cursed well, or not on that one ~ no numbers. Sun & Jin are in a loveless marriage. Rose is dead from cancer. Sawyer continues his search for Locke's father. Boone, Shannon and Charlie die anyway because as Eloise is so fond of saying "The universe has a way of course correcting".
-So Jack's going to try to prevent the plane crash? This makes me hope we're not being set up for a Jack v Locke showdown in the near future: "Jack, no, don't [stop the incident]! We were meant to crash here!" "No, John, we weren't!"
For the record, I don't think most of the castaways would ignore the chance to save the lives of the 300-something people who died in the plane crash oh y them, regardless of where they themselves might end up.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Tiger Beatdown: Dollhouse, Joss Whedon, and the Strange and Difficult Path of Feminist Dudes: Some Thoughts -by Sady:
I did not like Buffy. I, unlike a lot of feminist ladies, get annoyed with Strong Female Characters Who Kick Ass, because it seems to me that making your heroine actually magical and skilled in various made-up martial arts is a really silly way to go about delivering Female Empowerment to your viewers. Yeah, yeah: it's a metaphor. It just wasn't a metaphor that worked for me. The strength was always just a little too superhuman, the magic too magical, the villains too obviously and literally demonic, and Buffy -most crucially- way too adorable yes for me to buy in.
The new show Dollhouse has drawn critique from other feminists: because it depicts rape of a very "gray" variety, because it doesn't condemn the forced prostitution and human trafficking it conveys strongly enough, because its characters aren't Strong or lovable in the way they have been in past Whedon shows. Fair points. Also: points with which I disagree.
Dollhouse is, pretty much specifically and entirely, a show about consent.
Whedon, unlike most folks & many feminist or progressive-identified dudes, seems to listen when he is called out then improve his work accordingly. With Dollhouse, I think he is doing smarter work than he ever was.
Getting smarter about oppression, I submit to you, requires making the visible manifestations of it or metaphors for it much, much uglier.
The answer to whether Joss Whedon & his showrunners know how rape-culturey the Dollhouse concept is seems to be Yes: it's a metaphor not only for rape culture but for patriarchy & oppression at large. When they have sex, they aren't consenting: they've been made to think that they are consenting, by being made to think that they are ppl who wld consent. They exist either in non-personhood or implanted w false consciousness. I mean, false consciousness: Whedon's metaphors, they are rarely subtle. Their reactions to learning this, when they "wake up" (which Whedon has shown them doing, albeit briefly) are horror, disgust, and rage at how deeply they've been violated.
Resistance, this time, isn't about throwing punches. It's about reclaiming your right to be a person.
One of Whedon's perennial concerns is masculinity in a feminist era: if women are so powerful now, how are guys supposed to relate to them? It's a good question, and one of the better themes a male writer can explore, if he's willing to do it honestly. Whedon has offered solutions before but they've always been imperfect, because they haven't addressed how pervasive gender inequality is. In Dollhouse, he's giving it deeper and more sustained focus than ever, and is more willing than ever to implicate masculinity: in parallel to the story of how the dolls work to reclaim their personhood, there's the story of the people who take it away from them on a day-to-day basis, and how they justify their actions.
They tell themselves they're protecting the dolls. They tell themselves that they're doing the dolls a favor, by taking away the responsibilities of personhood. They tell themselves they're doing society a favor by keeping the dolls' services available. They tell themselves that the best way to fix the system is to work within the system. They tell themselves that the dolls aren't really people, so none of it matters.
Whedon has done a lot of shows about magically powerful women and the men who protect them (Buffy had Giles, River had Simon and Mal), which is sweet - hey, at least they aren't actively seeking to take power away from those women - but also paternalistic and troubling, and in Dollhouse he seems to know and specifically address just how creepy it is. Lots of parallels have been drawn between the "handler," Boyd, who is a protective father figure to Echo, and Giles, who is a protective father figure to Buffy, and those parallels are correct. However, this time around, Boyd is the guy in the creepy van, who takes her back to the Dollhouse to have her self taken away once she's served her purpose, and if she were a whole person, she might not need him at all. The question of whether he loves her enough to help her free herself is continually raised. Paul Ballard, the FBI agent who wants to "save" Echo, is also implicated: a hero, sure, but also weirdly and sexually preoccupied with "saving" a girl he doesn't know so that she will love him, a person just as involved in projecting his desires onto a blank slate as any Dollhouse client. The show doesn't steer around that fact. You don't hate these men -you love them, in fact- but Whedon is far more willing than ever before to implicate them in the oppression that he condemns. He's toyed with ambiguity and complicity before, but this time around, ambiguity and complicity are what the show is about.
Because Topher, the programmer, who is responsible for constructing the artificial personalities & implanting them in the dolls, is a dorky blonde guy just like Whedon and who speaks in distinctly Whedonian cadences & lines, and we are encouraged to dislike him more than almost anyone else in the series. What you hear, when you hear Topher speaking about how difficult it is to construct a believable personality, how all of his creations have to be full & nuanced & have reasons for how they behave, how achievement is fueled by lack and he gave her asthma because that made her a more complete person and blah blah blah, is noted feminist auteur Joss Whedon reflecting, very consciously and very obviously, on his life's work -hiring gorgeous women & making them into who he wants them to be. It's a beautiful thing: brave, and self-questioning, and radical in a way that entertainment by dudes -even entertainment by dudes who identify as feminist- very rarely is.
I did not like Buffy. I, unlike a lot of feminist ladies, get annoyed with Strong Female Characters Who Kick Ass, because it seems to me that making your heroine actually magical and skilled in various made-up martial arts is a really silly way to go about delivering Female Empowerment to your viewers. Yeah, yeah: it's a metaphor. It just wasn't a metaphor that worked for me. The strength was always just a little too superhuman, the magic too magical, the villains too obviously and literally demonic, and Buffy -most crucially- way too adorable yes for me to buy in.
The new show Dollhouse has drawn critique from other feminists: because it depicts rape of a very "gray" variety, because it doesn't condemn the forced prostitution and human trafficking it conveys strongly enough, because its characters aren't Strong or lovable in the way they have been in past Whedon shows. Fair points. Also: points with which I disagree.
Dollhouse is, pretty much specifically and entirely, a show about consent.
Whedon, unlike most folks & many feminist or progressive-identified dudes, seems to listen when he is called out then improve his work accordingly. With Dollhouse, I think he is doing smarter work than he ever was.
Getting smarter about oppression, I submit to you, requires making the visible manifestations of it or metaphors for it much, much uglier.
The answer to whether Joss Whedon & his showrunners know how rape-culturey the Dollhouse concept is seems to be Yes: it's a metaphor not only for rape culture but for patriarchy & oppression at large. When they have sex, they aren't consenting: they've been made to think that they are consenting, by being made to think that they are ppl who wld consent. They exist either in non-personhood or implanted w false consciousness. I mean, false consciousness: Whedon's metaphors, they are rarely subtle. Their reactions to learning this, when they "wake up" (which Whedon has shown them doing, albeit briefly) are horror, disgust, and rage at how deeply they've been violated.
Resistance, this time, isn't about throwing punches. It's about reclaiming your right to be a person.
One of Whedon's perennial concerns is masculinity in a feminist era: if women are so powerful now, how are guys supposed to relate to them? It's a good question, and one of the better themes a male writer can explore, if he's willing to do it honestly. Whedon has offered solutions before but they've always been imperfect, because they haven't addressed how pervasive gender inequality is. In Dollhouse, he's giving it deeper and more sustained focus than ever, and is more willing than ever to implicate masculinity: in parallel to the story of how the dolls work to reclaim their personhood, there's the story of the people who take it away from them on a day-to-day basis, and how they justify their actions.
They tell themselves they're protecting the dolls. They tell themselves that they're doing the dolls a favor, by taking away the responsibilities of personhood. They tell themselves they're doing society a favor by keeping the dolls' services available. They tell themselves that the best way to fix the system is to work within the system. They tell themselves that the dolls aren't really people, so none of it matters.
Whedon has done a lot of shows about magically powerful women and the men who protect them (Buffy had Giles, River had Simon and Mal), which is sweet - hey, at least they aren't actively seeking to take power away from those women - but also paternalistic and troubling, and in Dollhouse he seems to know and specifically address just how creepy it is. Lots of parallels have been drawn between the "handler," Boyd, who is a protective father figure to Echo, and Giles, who is a protective father figure to Buffy, and those parallels are correct. However, this time around, Boyd is the guy in the creepy van, who takes her back to the Dollhouse to have her self taken away once she's served her purpose, and if she were a whole person, she might not need him at all. The question of whether he loves her enough to help her free herself is continually raised. Paul Ballard, the FBI agent who wants to "save" Echo, is also implicated: a hero, sure, but also weirdly and sexually preoccupied with "saving" a girl he doesn't know so that she will love him, a person just as involved in projecting his desires onto a blank slate as any Dollhouse client. The show doesn't steer around that fact. You don't hate these men -you love them, in fact- but Whedon is far more willing than ever before to implicate them in the oppression that he condemns. He's toyed with ambiguity and complicity before, but this time around, ambiguity and complicity are what the show is about.
Because Topher, the programmer, who is responsible for constructing the artificial personalities & implanting them in the dolls, is a dorky blonde guy just like Whedon and who speaks in distinctly Whedonian cadences & lines, and we are encouraged to dislike him more than almost anyone else in the series. What you hear, when you hear Topher speaking about how difficult it is to construct a believable personality, how all of his creations have to be full & nuanced & have reasons for how they behave, how achievement is fueled by lack and he gave her asthma because that made her a more complete person and blah blah blah, is noted feminist auteur Joss Whedon reflecting, very consciously and very obviously, on his life's work -hiring gorgeous women & making them into who he wants them to be. It's a beautiful thing: brave, and self-questioning, and radical in a way that entertainment by dudes -even entertainment by dudes who identify as feminist- very rarely is.
Monday, April 13, 2009
You Left the Water Running, by Dan Penn
You left the water running, when you left me behind.
You left all the water running,
running from these eyes of mine
You turned out the light of love You left with another guy
You turned off all your love for me But you forgot to turn off the cryin'
You'll regret, baby, you'll be upset, now, when you *get* your water bill to pay
emphasis on *get* and *bill*. to pay ~. love it.
Cody B - mog.com: You Left The Water Running
The Muscle Shoals songwriter Dan Penn has been involved with some of the greatest moments in R&B, Country, and Pop: At The Dark End Of The Street, Cry Like A Baby, I'm Your Puppet, and Do Right Woman, Do Right Man are just a sampling of the incredible songs he has written. Normaly he worked with Spooner Oldham, but on You Left The Water Running, Fame Studio Owner Rick Hall and the mysterious Oscar Franck are given writing credit. I don't know for sure, but this sounds like some nefarious record biz stuff. Either way, it is a simple, but killer Southern Soul tune.
I've got 3 versions for ya' First up is Reggae legend Ken Boothe with his version from the excellent Safe Travel Comp. on Pressure Sounds. In comments please find the Otis Redding version and the songwriter's Dan Penn's own take on the song from this "comeback" 1999 Live Album: Moments From This Theater
Tags: Sunday Cover, Southern Soul, Otis Redding, Dan Penn
13 comments:
-I'm feelin' all of the vers', sick post Cody. -Cody, dig all three versions especially the Ken Boothe version, in which his singing is much less mannered and more straightforward than much of his later stuff. Here's a fourth take, not necessarily better than the others, but different and interesting. No doubt you've got it already, but.... also Dan Penn, right? with who? -I didn't have that one,Ivy.Dug it,though. @Bartleby, It was kinda cool that folks backed both Otis and Ken. I really love that Penn/Oldham record though.
my new favorite song. been liking it for a while. listening to the three versions on this blog post, the deal is sealed. favorite. anything better? ok tvz. this is up there, though, with townes van zandt.
the Ken Boothe reggae version is fine. I like Otis Redding, as always. But Dan Penn singing his own song, from the live album with Spooner Oldham, is my favorite. ~ get that album ~ maybe also this one, w album versions:
az- Do Right Man -by Dan Penn
The Man Who Penned The Words In Soul, December 28, 2001 By J. Kerr (Waukegan, IL United States)
This brings together legendary soul songwriter Dan Penn/Spooner Oldham together with American Studio session musicians. They go over tunes recorded by everyone from Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, James Carr and others. This cat was twisting the dials for the Boxtops (Chilton got his soulful growl from Penn I'm convinced) playing backup or having written the tune for about every major Southern soul jam from the 60s.
Penn and Oldham are more important than Lennon and McCartney in my opinion.
Plus, every car in album cover pictures on Penn's solo albums are ones he has bought and restored. A renaissance man.
915 Screw Click - Otis Reding - You Left The Water Running
Otis Redding Chopped n Screwed by the 915 Screw Click - Screw Oldies Vol. 2 - at www.illineat.com
You left all the water running,
running from these eyes of mine
You turned out the light of love You left with another guy
You turned off all your love for me But you forgot to turn off the cryin'
You'll regret, baby, you'll be upset, now, when you *get* your water bill to pay
emphasis on *get* and *bill*. to pay ~. love it.
Cody B - mog.com: You Left The Water Running
The Muscle Shoals songwriter Dan Penn has been involved with some of the greatest moments in R&B, Country, and Pop: At The Dark End Of The Street, Cry Like A Baby, I'm Your Puppet, and Do Right Woman, Do Right Man are just a sampling of the incredible songs he has written. Normaly he worked with Spooner Oldham, but on You Left The Water Running, Fame Studio Owner Rick Hall and the mysterious Oscar Franck are given writing credit. I don't know for sure, but this sounds like some nefarious record biz stuff. Either way, it is a simple, but killer Southern Soul tune.
I've got 3 versions for ya' First up is Reggae legend Ken Boothe with his version from the excellent Safe Travel Comp. on Pressure Sounds. In comments please find the Otis Redding version and the songwriter's Dan Penn's own take on the song from this "comeback" 1999 Live Album: Moments From This Theater
Tags: Sunday Cover, Southern Soul, Otis Redding, Dan Penn
13 comments:
-I'm feelin' all of the vers', sick post Cody. -Cody, dig all three versions especially the Ken Boothe version, in which his singing is much less mannered and more straightforward than much of his later stuff. Here's a fourth take, not necessarily better than the others, but different and interesting. No doubt you've got it already, but.... also Dan Penn, right? with who? -I didn't have that one,Ivy.Dug it,though. @Bartleby, It was kinda cool that folks backed both Otis and Ken. I really love that Penn/Oldham record though.
my new favorite song. been liking it for a while. listening to the three versions on this blog post, the deal is sealed. favorite. anything better? ok tvz. this is up there, though, with townes van zandt.
the Ken Boothe reggae version is fine. I like Otis Redding, as always. But Dan Penn singing his own song, from the live album with Spooner Oldham, is my favorite. ~ get that album ~ maybe also this one, w album versions:
az- Do Right Man -by Dan Penn
The Man Who Penned The Words In Soul, December 28, 2001 By J. Kerr (Waukegan, IL United States)
This brings together legendary soul songwriter Dan Penn/Spooner Oldham together with American Studio session musicians. They go over tunes recorded by everyone from Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, James Carr and others. This cat was twisting the dials for the Boxtops (Chilton got his soulful growl from Penn I'm convinced) playing backup or having written the tune for about every major Southern soul jam from the 60s.
Penn and Oldham are more important than Lennon and McCartney in my opinion.
Plus, every car in album cover pictures on Penn's solo albums are ones he has bought and restored. A renaissance man.
915 Screw Click - Otis Reding - You Left The Water Running
Otis Redding Chopped n Screwed by the 915 Screw Click - Screw Oldies Vol. 2 - at www.illineat.com
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
to tune of Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater:
I wish you were a tv star
so I could watch you from afar
I'd see your face & hear your voice
without you having any choice.
stalker version. (like joe says of Every Breath You Take.)
web idiom version:
I wish you were a tv star
so I could watch you from afar
I'd hear you voice & see your face;
belong to me would all your base.
expressive of the occasioning thought (jl):
I wish you were a tv star
so I could watch you from afar
I'd hear your voice & see your face
without having to keep your pace.
I wish you were a tv star
so I could watch you from afar
I'd see your face & hear your voice
without you having any choice.
stalker version. (like joe says of Every Breath You Take.)
web idiom version:
I wish you were a tv star
so I could watch you from afar
I'd hear you voice & see your face;
belong to me would all your base.
expressive of the occasioning thought (jl):
I wish you were a tv star
so I could watch you from afar
I'd hear your voice & see your face
without having to keep your pace.
Monday, April 6, 2009
az- Wicker - by Kevin Guilfoile [UK title of Cast of Shadows. 1 cust rvw here under this title at az.com]
Justin Finn, at three, looks like any other child. But his face, one day, will be the exact match of the cold-blooded killer of whom he is a perfect genetic replica. And Justin Finn at fifteen has an unhealthy obsession with The Wicker Man, a notorious serial killer who prowls the streets of Chicago. The question is, are you born evil (or made) evil? not a qstn I usually likel but here was made int & was the suspense of the novel as a whole (beyond the pleasantly constantly resolving suspenses along the way). who will turn out to be okay. who will be a monster.
By Craig Clarke (New England) - See all my reviews
There is a medical and philosophical thread in addition to the suspense & tension created by the various scenarios y. constant suspenseful devlpmts w hint & then payoff within pages: I love that, kept finding it remarkable, how uncondescending the narrative was. a question is raised, reader suspects the answer, the answer is made part of the story. rather than drag out: dvlpmts come to a head quickly (eg Dr Moore is found out rather early on), then develop further.
And that's only the beginning -- themeat of Wicker concerns eighteen years of aftermath. exactly.
Which brings Guilfoile's skill at characterization to the fore. He must construct whole personalities that develop along with the different stages of life, and he must keep up with their possible choices (and the consequences) along the way. Fittingly, the most fully developed character is the one for whom Wicker encompasses his life from before its beginning: Justin Finn, Boy Clone. Showing his development (physical, mental, emotional) throughout his childhood could have been no easy task, but Guilfoile pulls it off with confidence, making Justin even more fascinating than the "villain" (and I always have a soft spot for those guys). Watching Justin's thoughts advance so quickly that he even becomes aware of how he should behave at a given age (?)-- and wondering which side the author is going to take on the nature/nurture debate -- was really what kept me enthralled throughout Wicker. and which side did he take?? I suppose, after twist twist --Sam's ok no he's bad but maybe I hope Justin will be ok, oh no he's not, but wait Sam was ok after all-- in expectations, came down on side of No, it's not nature. (though not analyzably nurture either, not so much nature v nurture as Does DNA determine you? and the answer is No. ~ thinking your DNA determines you determines you, though. )
In trying to find the morally and philosophically "correct" ending, Guilfoile comes up with one that is overcomplicated and less satisfying than the rest of the book deserves. well I tht its complexity was cool. (although ~ did feel ~unsatisfied at end. but I think any end might have left that. once it's over, left with a dark sad prose story. crime. gruesome, violent. dark sad without the resonance that makes a poem).
dlcs: books a-before
+ virtual = re Shadow World game, which Guilfoile imagined as Sims developed to an extreme. was writing in 2001, finished in 2003, which is the year Second Life opened to public.
so, *not* based on or conceived as analog to Second Life. while he was imagining Shadow World, someone was actually making a similarly played game. diff is, Second Life is a fantastical world, not (attempting to be) a copy of our world, with same cities, streets, buildings.
what interested me was the supposed starting-point for players of Shadow World, with facts ('education, job, family') of own actual life. how could that be mandated? is it *not* dependent on user data entry? but then this would be an awfully big-brother kind of world, right, which would have to show up in the narrative? at one point, the game 'consults Justin's schedule' & determines what class he'd be in: is that a schedule he created? or does the game actually have access to all sorts of real world data like class schedules?
I get that Guilfoile not esp int in working that out here; but how he can throw out this notion that every player of shadow world begins with real life, and not somehow acknowledge the difficulties and-or implications of that idea?
Justin Finn, at three, looks like any other child. But his face, one day, will be the exact match of the cold-blooded killer of whom he is a perfect genetic replica. And Justin Finn at fifteen has an unhealthy obsession with The Wicker Man, a notorious serial killer who prowls the streets of Chicago. The question is, are you born evil (or made) evil? not a qstn I usually likel but here was made int & was the suspense of the novel as a whole (beyond the pleasantly constantly resolving suspenses along the way). who will turn out to be okay. who will be a monster.
By Craig Clarke (New England) - See all my reviews
There is a medical and philosophical thread in addition to the suspense & tension created by the various scenarios y. constant suspenseful devlpmts w hint & then payoff within pages: I love that, kept finding it remarkable, how uncondescending the narrative was. a question is raised, reader suspects the answer, the answer is made part of the story. rather than drag out: dvlpmts come to a head quickly (eg Dr Moore is found out rather early on), then develop further.
And that's only the beginning -- the
Which brings Guilfoile's skill at characterization to the fore. He must construct whole personalities that develop along with the different stages of life, and he must keep up with their possible choices (and the consequences) along the way. Fittingly, the most fully developed character is the one for whom Wicker encompasses his life from before its beginning: Justin Finn, Boy Clone. Showing his development (physical, mental, emotional) throughout his childhood could have been no easy task, but Guilfoile pulls it off with confidence, making Justin even more fascinating than the "villain" (and I always have a soft spot for those guys). Watching Justin's thoughts advance so quickly that he even becomes aware of how he should behave at a given age (?)-- and wondering which side the author is going to take on the nature/nurture debate -- was really what kept me enthralled throughout Wicker. and which side did he take?? I suppose, after twist twist --Sam's ok no he's bad but maybe I hope Justin will be ok, oh no he's not, but wait Sam was ok after all-- in expectations, came down on side of No, it's not nature. (though not analyzably nurture either, not so much nature v nurture as Does DNA determine you? and the answer is No. ~ thinking your DNA determines you determines you, though. )
In trying to find the morally and philosophically "correct" ending, Guilfoile comes up with one that is overcomplicated and less satisfying than the rest of the book deserves. well I tht its complexity was cool. (although ~ did feel ~unsatisfied at end. but I think any end might have left that. once it's over, left with a dark sad prose story. crime. gruesome, violent. dark sad without the resonance that makes a poem).
dlcs: books a-before
+ virtual = re Shadow World game, which Guilfoile imagined as Sims developed to an extreme. was writing in 2001, finished in 2003, which is the year Second Life opened to public.
so, *not* based on or conceived as analog to Second Life. while he was imagining Shadow World, someone was actually making a similarly played game. diff is, Second Life is a fantastical world, not (attempting to be) a copy of our world, with same cities, streets, buildings.
what interested me was the supposed starting-point for players of Shadow World, with facts ('education, job, family') of own actual life. how could that be mandated? is it *not* dependent on user data entry? but then this would be an awfully big-brother kind of world, right, which would have to show up in the narrative? at one point, the game 'consults Justin's schedule' & determines what class he'd be in: is that a schedule he created? or does the game actually have access to all sorts of real world data like class schedules?
I get that Guilfoile not esp int in working that out here; but how he can throw out this notion that every player of shadow world begins with real life, and not somehow acknowledge the difficulties and-or implications of that idea?
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Life on Mars (US) - TWoP Forums p71:
-I just imagine Harvey Keitel saying to himself, "The movie roles haven't been coming like they used to, so I figured why not take an easy TV gig and collect a nice paycheck. And now I'm standing here in a fucking spacesuit."
hehee.
--What kind of space program sends a 70 year old man out anyway? yeah. Then again, what kind of 1973 cop shop employed one?
Yeah. I realize Keitel is magically supposed to be playing 50s. Heh. But man... did ANYONE believe it?
-The problem is that I'm watching Damages now and I'm totally expecting Patty to start flying or Kendrick to be a robot. yeah that happens to me!!!!! expect the playing field of the one show ('story') to carry to another. felt sth like that here, after turning on tv to watch the last five minutes of..
.................. happens w books too. 4/5 reading Cast of Shadows, toward the end whole long scene inside the game Shadow World, and once narrative back to the 'real life' events, still caught myself thinking of it in terms of avatars controlled by chars at keyboards, then had to remind myself not.
what is that? the expected carry over of what? I said "playing field" ~ could say 'rules' ~ the reality ~ parameters ~ the physics.
-I just imagine Harvey Keitel saying to himself, "The movie roles haven't been coming like they used to, so I figured why not take an easy TV gig and collect a nice paycheck. And now I'm standing here in a fucking spacesuit."
hehee.
--What kind of space program sends a 70 year old man out anyway? yeah. Then again, what kind of 1973 cop shop employed one?
Yeah. I realize Keitel is magically supposed to be playing 50s. Heh. But man... did ANYONE believe it?
-The problem is that I'm watching Damages now and I'm totally expecting Patty to start flying or Kendrick to be a robot. yeah that happens to me!!!!! expect the playing field of the one show ('story') to carry to another. felt sth like that here, after turning on tv to watch the last five minutes of..
.................. happens w books too. 4/5 reading Cast of Shadows, toward the end whole long scene inside the game Shadow World, and once narrative back to the 'real life' events, still caught myself thinking of it in terms of avatars controlled by chars at keyboards, then had to remind myself not.
what is that? the expected carry over of what? I said "playing field" ~ could say 'rules' ~ the reality ~ parameters ~ the physics.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)