Would you rather...

1. Would you rather marry someone who is truly selfish or truly insane (i.e. they have diagnosed psychological/cognitive disorder like schizophrenia, psychosis, etc).
2. Imagine you have two choices for a pet and you have to make a choice. Both pets have the ability to speak and understand English. One is a sarcastic and depressed cat and the other is a fun-loving and compassionate dog. If you choose the cat, you will be paid $200/week. If you choose the dog, you will have to pay $200/week. The cat will most likely complain about everything and be a burden on your professional and social life. The cat is also prone to violent outbursts. The dog on the other hand, will not only be energetic, witty, and smart but will also provide you a warm friendship. Once you make the choice, you have to keep the pet for a minimum of one year.
3. You visit a strange travel agency that has in its possession advanced technology. You have two choices for your vacation: (1) A trip back in time or (2) a memory implant of anywhere, ever (i.e. anywhere in the galaxy). Both options cost the same. The trip back in time allows you to visit any time period and location on Earth (except for when the Earth was first forming as it is too unstable). However, to protect the space-time continuum, you can not move from a specified travel area, which is a circle with a 250-foot radius. If you leave this travel area, you will be killed. The trip lasts one hour. The memory implant allows you to "remember" vividly a trip that you hypothetically took. This trip is completely made-up and did not happen. But it will feel like it did. You will remember tiny details and sensory input. It's the same thing in Total Recall. This trip lasts (or feels like it lasted) two days. And you can go anywhere. You can orbit Saturn. You can chill in a cabana in Maui. But it never really happened. Which do you choose?
4. You are about to die. When suddenly, a mysterious stranger appears and gives you two options, both of which will save your life. The first option is to imbue you will magic powers. The magic option will save you from whatever is about to kill you and return you (if you're old) to a youthful age and grant you a multitude of powers. The second option converts your consciousness into a digital format and uploads it to the Internet. But there are some side effects to both options. With the magic option, in order to survive, you have to use magic (i.e. throw fireballs, teleport, turn invisible, etc) which ages you; the more magic you use, the older you become. In the second option, you lose your physical body and can never return to it. While in a digital format, you gain all the benefits of other digital files (speed, duplication, storage, communication, etc). You can visit friends and family (as long as they have a computer or smart phone). You can even upload yourself to games and live in the world of the game. The digital self option renders you nearly immortal. The magic option, depending on how addicted you become to the power of the magic, could kill you quicker than you think. Which do you choose?
5. You are a journalist who has just uncovered a terrible secret about American society: for the past twenty years, aliens have been living amongst us. They plan to overthrow the government and name of their own as the leader. You don't know how many aliens are impersonating humans but you estimate it at around 400,000. The aliens have powerful technology that they are saving for the overthrow. You also know that certain members of the government (at the local, state, and federal levels) are aliens, but you don't know exactly who. Also, there are others like you, who know about the impending invasion. Knowing all this, do you (a) spread the word publicly with verifiable proof or (b) build a secret underground resistance made of people who know the truth?

Revisiting I Am Legend

I find I Am Legend to be a fascinating film. Its really broken up into two sections: the first 80 mins and the last 20 or so. The first 80 minutes are brilliant, intense, and heartbreaking. Robert Neville is living a lonely existence in a ruined New York City. Much of this section is about his day-to-day; scavenging, hunting, eating, bathing his dog, while also searching for a cure for KV, the virus that ended civilization. This might sound banal but its got this quiet intellectualism to it. He acts strange but in the context his behavior makes perfect sense and Will Smith performance is elegant and minimal.

There is a great scene in the beginning where Neville is hunting deer through a verdant Times Square. He comes across one in a cross street and just as he takes aim to bring it down, a lioness pounces on the deer and drags it to her mate and their cub. Neville just looks on, continuing to aim, as this family eats, I'm assuming, their first meal in quite some time. At this point, it becomes clear that Neville is no longer human, but simply a living thing trying to survive. He lets the lions have their prize and he returns home.

Then, to cement this idea of Neville dehumanized, after he captures a female dark seeker to experiment on, a male exposes himself to sunlight in anger. Neville comments on this behavior in a video log. He describes it as irrational and notes how the infected have lost any semblance of humanity. Its clear that Neville is actually the lost one; he doesn't even see that the female is the dark seeker's mate, which is fairly obvious.

Neville's only friend in the world is his dog, who he has to kill when it turns into a vamp. This is a bit manipulative but whatever I like being manipulated sometimes. Neville speaks to mannequins, hoping for one to talk back and when he realizes there is no hope, he tries to kill himself.

However, his suicide attempt is thwarted by Ana, another survivor who rescues him just before he is eaten by a dark seeker. They drive off together and Neville wakes up in his flat with Ana and Ethan eating breakfast. Neville tries to adjust to normalcy and finds difficultly with it. And rightfully so, he hasn't spoken to another human in over three years.

After a short adjustment period, he explains the philosophy of Bob Marley to Ana. This marks the end of the first section and beginning of the second. This second section sucks. I really do not like it. I get the impression that production stopped for a week or so, the director Francis Lawrence was fired or left, was replaced, and they decided to make a completely different movie. The second section finds Robert Neville a nearly different person when he describes Marley and how mankind should "light up the darkness". Then dark seekers attack his pad and he sacrifices himself so Ana and Ethan can escape with the cure. The tone changed drastically from this intimate and dark character study to a bombastic actioner with a messianic hero and happy ending. I just don't buy it.

I've read that the special effects takes over toward the end of the film. This is true as the attack on Neville's house features digital dark seekers and copious amounts of gunplay. But this switch is minute to how Neville's character changes. Granted that characters are supposed to change during the course of a film, but Neville's change appears to be arbitrary. He goes from a dehumanized calculated survivor to an optimist of a childish degree with little more than the movie Shrek to piece it all together.

Rewiring Brains

I heard a story about this great ballet dancer from the early 20th century. As a child, she wouldn't sit still and performed very poorly in school. Distraught and not knowing what to do, her mother took her to see a doctor. The doctor tried various remedies at the time, including just strapping her down in a chair, none of which worked. The mother took her to see another doctor and he recommended putting her in dance classes as a way to "get it out of her system". Well it turns out that dancing was just the medicine. Dancing was just what this young girl needed. She didn't know how to communicate before she began dance. And she turned out to be this incredible dancer.

I just read this story in NYTimes about technology rewiring the brains of young people and how it is creating a population of easily distracted kids. Nothing we haven't heard before.

The main subject of the story was a high school student who is known around his school as one of the brightest, yet his grades beg to differ. He's received Ds and Fs in most of his classes except for his film classes. Sure enough, this kid loves nothing more than to make and discuss videos with his friends. He uses Facebook and YouTube religiously. I'd assume that he wants to be a filmmaker or some kind of multimedia producer.

Now the story uses this kid as an example of someone obsessed and distracted by technology, which is hindering his learning. It also posits that the brains of children are being rewired by technology and that they will literally think differently when using technology. I've actually read literature about this regarding cell phone use and the research is fascinating and convincing.

But I don't honestly see a problem with this kid. I mean, his story sounds a lot like the ballet dancer. His brain is probably being rewired, but is that a bad thing? He's obviously got a lot of passion about filmmaking and passion usually makes people not care about anything else. But it also makes people really good at the things that they are passionate about. If I were an educator, I would cultivate that passion, instead of strapping him down and forcing him to read Cat's Cradle (although that is a fabulous book, which he should probably read).

Moreover, why are the brain patterns of adults better? With all the problems in the world, you'd think someone would want to rewire the human brain. I say, make films Vashal Singh!

Andy Rooney's Tweets

I'm not sure if Andy Rooney keeps the @Andy_Rooney handle on Twitter. It sounds like him but in a stripped-down almost satirical way. Basically, if it came to light that it was actually a young person who was making fun of him, it wouldn't come as a shock.

Here are some of my favorites that I've read:

"Why do ice cream manufacturers insist on such fancy flavors? Strawberry? Pistachio? What's wrong with chocolate and vanilla?"
I agree. Nothing illustrates the decadence of modern society like strawberry ice cream.

"People are using entirely too much foul language. You're free to say whatever you want, but "turd" just makes you sound uneducated and low"
Those whippersnappers!

"They're amazing, walls. They hold up the roof, but they're also handy for hanging pictures. I like that."
Poetry.


"There are too many brands of popcorn. Orville Redenbacher, Jolly Time, Jiffy Pop, Pop Weaver, Pop Secret, and Newman's Own are just a few."
DEAR GOD INFORMATION OVERLOAD WITH THE POPCORN


"I'm not a "dog person," I'm just a person who prefers dogs to cats. They say the Persians worshipped cats. I don't care for them, either."
Wait, you don't care for Persians...or cats?


"My favorite photograph of Mike Wallace: c:\users\arooney\my_documents\mikesnewtrousers.jpg"
Great. Now all I have to do is break into your house, log onto your computer, and look at the photo. You really know how to harness the power of the Internet.
 
Well in his defense, Twitter doesn't exactly lend itself to intelligent commentary.

Marcie in Autumn

My first music video in about three years. Shot on my Canon Rebel EOS T2i. Song is "Walking the Dog" by fun. I made this without their permission but hopefully they realize I made it out of sheer love for this song.

Wall to Wall

The best and probably most overlooked feature on Facebook is the "Wall-to-Wall" link on the news feed. It takes you to all the wall postings you and one other person have ever had. It's really akin to a photo album but for me, it's actually more enjoyable. You can see exactly when comments were made and go back and, in a way, experience them again. I think they are somehow more vivid than photos because many times these wall postings are conversations. They might be short (between two and five threads long) but they're always funny or enjoyable with your closest friends.

In some cases, you can see how your relationships have evolved. You can explicitly see how you conversed with someone you've just met and after you've dated them for years. If you're like me, you definitely held your true personality back, just a little, in the beginning. And then three or six months in, you were able to let it all hang out. All the little idiosyncracies that make people beautiful or interesting. You can literal see it unfold. Some of my wall-to-walls are quite long, especially with close friends, and it's just amazing to back and read them.

If you haven't done this, and you have an hour to spare, do it with your closest three friends.

Wayfinding

This is a photo of an elevator in a parking garage in Bloomington, IN. Is this necessary? was the first thing that came to mind. Donald Norman talks a lot about "reminders" in The Design of Everyday Things. I have a post-it note on my computer at work to remind me to clock-in everyday. We leave ourselves reminders all the time. But I'd never seen a reminder for a reminder. If the word remember hadn't  been there, I would have seen the giant number 1 and thought Okay, I'm on the first floor. But would I have used that information in the same way when it came time to find my car? Probably not. Simply having the number 1 on the door tells me where I am in that moment. Which has value but not as much as when it comes time to leave and I forgot where I parked. There's a different context with the word remember. This elevator is now a wayfinding artifact, not a general informative artifact.

An offshoot of information architecture is a practice called wayfinding, or the systematic organization and labeling for the navigation of discrete physical structures. It's mostly used in the urban planning and architecture disciplines and they largely go unnoticed (until you find yourself lost).

For the parking garage at the mall in Towson, Maryland, images of imaginary creatures were used to help patrons remember where they parked. Instead of using alphanumeric designations (ex. 2B) which might be easily forgotten, there are creatures like squid-bunnies and lion-turtles to demarcate each parking section. Unfortunately, the novelty of that system doesn't contextualize the information. Knowing that I'm in the lion-turtle section doesn't tell me why I should know that. And because I don't know why, I completely forget it the second I enter the mall.

The photo is a great example of how contextual information is and how important it is to define that context for the user's sake.

The Paradox of Choice

click to enlarge

Here's an interesting idea that could, in theory, be applied to several disciplines. The Paradox of Choice is the idea that too much choice actually leads to indecision, anxiety, and well, not choosing anything. The term comes from the 2004 book of the same name by Barry Schwartz. The original context of the book was consumer products and shopping but I came across it in my information architecture readings.

Designing information spaces involves navigation and usability. The idea of Paradox of Choice comes into play when deciding what options to give users when they search for content. For large, complex sites, this is a huge undertaking. I remember my frustrations doing this while working at a city/regional magazine in Annapolis. I decided the website needed to be reworked, specifically the navigation. But because we supplied content from two monthly magazines, it was extremely difficult to provide enough options for users to find what they need but few enough so they don't get confused. It's a subtle give-and-take.

I've added an image of a visualization of this interesting paradox.

Terrible Credit Card Machine Design

Quick, do the exact opposite of what
you think you should do. 

If you've ever used a credit card at a store, you probably have run into this. After you slide your card, you are usually asked to choose debit or credit. I always use credit because my bank charges me fees for using debit. So after you choose credit, a curious thing happens (99 times out of a 100)—the credit card machine asks you to hit CANCEL to continue. What? Why? That makes no sense. Designers are supposed to anticipate the mental models of the users of their products. When I want to continue with a process, my first thought isn't to cancel the process. I want to continue. Yet 99% of credit card machines in stores require me to hit cancel.

The funny thing is, everyone knows this (or is used to it) but everyone still asks if they need to hit CANCEL. I've even been to a lot of stores where there is a piece of paper taped to the machine that says YES, PRESS CANCEL FOR CREDIT. If the users of your product have to tape a note to it to direct its operation, something is wrong.

A View of Understanding

I just started graduate school and this is one of my first assignments. I had to define data, information, and knowledge as I understand them. I think my approach is novel. I really enjoyed designing the representation of this view. Maybe there is a career for that kind of work in my future. Who knows. If you click on the image you can see it in a larger form.

Origins of Bow Chicka Wow Wow

The number one album on iTunes today is Mike Posner's 31 Minutes to Take Off and on this album is a song called "Bow Chicka Wow Wow". Now instead of listening to the preview like most normal people, I thought instead: Where in the hell did that come from and how do I know what it means?


Of course we associate the onomatopoeia Bow Chicka Wow Wow with kitschy porn music from the 70s. Yet I was born in the 80s and the only 70s-era porns I've seen are not porns at all but parodies of them. Yet I know instantly what is meant when someone says Bow Chicka Wow Wow, which is probably as well recognized as saying ouch or thwack.

Though in my research there are discrepancies in the spelling and pronunciation of Bow Chick Wow Wow. I've seen

• bow chicka wow wow
• bow chicka bow wow (this is actually my preferred version)
• bow chicka bow bow
• wow chicka wow wow

Finally after reading about this phrase I had to find an answer. Who started it and in what context? 

After a quick google search, I came across two promising leads but both left me utterly deflated in my quest. The first lead was that the phrase appears in the song "Brickhouse" by The Commodores. But it doesn't. The end bridge sounds like bow chicka wow wow but they're actually saying "Shake it down, shake it down now". Ow now brown cow. But even if they did say it, the song didn't give me the context. That's just part of the song—they're no 70s porno reference. And I have to stress the fact that it is 70s porno music. Not 80s (which would probably be hair metal) or 90s (which would probably be Spice Girls-esque). 

My next lead was a video of stand-up comedy by Jordan Brady. The video gives Brady credit and his wikipedia entry also states that he is the progenitor of the infamous phrase. 

But I still don't buy it. If you watch the video, he doesn't say bow chicka wow wow, or any of it's variations. Instead, he tries to actually make music with his mouth. Bow chicka wow wow is not a song or a melody or anything musical. It is a string of words. Sometimes it is said with a certain inflection but the phrase is in no way musical, despite it's contextual meaning. 

Now this is not to say that Brady did not create the phrase contextually. It's clear from the video he did but in it's current incarnation, I don't think he spread it. I mean, he doesn't even really say it. There's clearly a "dwown" and "boom" that he adds in to realistically imitate bass and drums. This is not the the intended use (or at least my perception of the intended use). If Jordan Brady is the creator of the meme, it has definitely had an evolution. And so for me, at least, the origins of bow chicka wow wow remains elusive. One day perhaps, her true beginnings will be revealed...

Real Real or Just Real?

The poll on IMDb.com wanted to find out what meta-reality users would rather be plugged into. Here were the choices:

• The Matrix
• A Na'vi from Avatar
• Biological game device from eXistenZ
• Surrogate from Surrogates
• Dream-sharing device from Inception
• Memory implantation device from Total Recall
• Computer game from TRON
• VR machine from Virtuosity
• Simulation machine from The Thirteenth Floor
• Tunnel to John Malkovich's body in Being John Malkovich. 

Luckily I'd seen all these movies (though some more recently than others) and I was able to pick one accordingly. My first choice was The Matrix but I didn't really know why. So I thought about it and I think I came to an answer. 

"If you're killed in the Matrix, you die here?" 

Before I go into it, I want to say that I choose the Matrix itself, not the reasoning behind it. I don't want to be plugged into the Matrix because I want to be a battery for a robot. So when reading this, only keep the simulated reality of the Matrix and not the forces behind it in mind. 

All the options do essentially the same thing—they transplant you from the "real world" or a "waking reality" to a simulated one or dream state (except for Total Recall, which honestly I don't think really fits in the poll). The physics of each are the determining factors in my choosing, specifically one physical property. Unfortunately for some of the movies, this physical property isn't explored, so I couldn't really consider it. The property which I find the most compelling is death and it is why I choose the Matrix. 

Of the movies that explores death in a simulated reality, the sim-real of The Matrix is the only one that actually kills you if you die while "plugged in" so to speak. In Inception, you're woken up or transplanted to limbo. In Surrogates, you wake up (unless killed by the special weapon). And you'll wake up from your deceased avatar. 

So why is this important? The easy way to answer it is that it makes the Matrix more real in that in our current perceived reality, death is real, certain, and inevitable. The hard way to answer it is that actual death makes life worth living more than in a safer sim-real.  In film at least, death is a good motivator. Characters have to accomplish something or else someone will die. Perhaps art imitates life (or the other way around) in that death makes life more appealing. Of course, I can't really say for sure as I have never died. Yet. 

I'm also under the impression that I would learn much more about myself while in a simulated environment that I could actually die in. In Inception, I could live as long as I wanted (in theory) and I would be able to re-do any mistakes I've made, which would defeat the purpose of learning. Having a surrogate would lead to a super hedonistic life, devoid of pain or humanity. I could literally do whatever I wanted. In the Matrix it's different. I have to live by some kind of rule. One of these is that "the body can not live without the mind" which none of these films really explore. They're more about the nature of reality. But I find these rules important. Though ironically, I find the fact that you would die in the Matrix to be unbelievable. It makes more sense that you would simply wake up, like in the other movies. 

Perhaps another film will come out that deals more heavily with the "body-mind" question and less of the "What is reality?" question. 

Review: Eating the Dinosaur

In his new book, Eating the Dinosaur, Chuck Klosterman delivers another thought-provoking exploration of pop culture very similar to his Sex, Drugs, and Cocopuffs. The book ranges in topics from comparing Kurt Cobain to David Koresh, dissecting time-travel, and critiquing the writings of Ted Kaczynski. 


Klosterman is the master of probing seemingly innocuous or forgotten events and people of popular culture, dismantling them, and exposing new ideas and concepts. He is able to find similarities and analogies in things that seem completely different.

Klosterman's main thematic focus, as in Cocopuffs, is his examination in how musicians, artists, filmmakers, athletes, and the media define reality. Klosterman takes hold of the power of the increasingly simulated experience of modern life and breaks it down, shakes it out, and sees what falls through. This is what makes Klosterman one of my favorite writers—he can discuss a variety of subjects that all come back to his central focus.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in media/cultural studies or anyone who is interested in a good laugh as the book is also funny in a sardonic kind of way.

Where are Fox News' Comments on Global Warming Now?

In some parts of the US (mainly the Northeast), temperatures reached up to 100 degrees and with the humidity it felt like 110. The heat forced me to stay inside and I got a chance to watch some quality news on the 24-hour networks. And while I was watching, I realized no one was saying anything about how the heat proved climate change or global warming. Of course, this statement has no scientific merit at all but, in the same token, it didn't stop anyone from saying the blizzard earlier in the year debunked the theory.

If you remember there were countless comments and reports, from Fox News in particular, about how global warming and/or climate change is not a legitimate theory because it snowed in January. Now that it's July and it's hot out, you'd think there would be some report about how it proves global warming and/or climate change. I'm assuming that the people at Fox News are praying no other news outlet will pick up on this. But they won't because other news outlets know better than to make outrageous and uninformed claims about things they know nothing about.

By the logic of Fox News, today's 100 degree weather proves global warming. And by normal logic, it proves that Fox News is an embarrassment to journalism.

Bonehead Op-Ed of the Week: Kathleen Parker

Kathleen Parker from the Washington Post just published an articled explaining why Obama is our nation's "first female president" much like how Clinton was our "first black president" according to Toni Morrison. But there lies a vast gulf in meaning in both articles. Morrison's sets out to show similarities in the social experience of Clinton and a typical black person in America (i.e. single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas). Parker's article, in inexplicable boneheadedness, just reaffirms gender stereotypes and illuminates her own internalized oppression in regard to the position females should take in America.

She writes, "Our enlightened human selves may want to eliminate gender norms, but our lizard brains have a different agenda." She's saying that gender norms are biologically grafted into our brains. A delusion that was practiced with much fervor by misogynists and racists during most of the 20th century. This is the kind of thinking that gave way to phrenology and other psuedosciences that attempted to disprove the aptitude of women and people of color.

Almost everything Parker says about the way women do things is choked with an air of inferiority. She goes on to describe the president's actions during the oil spill as "passive" and his "lack of immediate, commanding action". So this is why he is our first female president? Because he's passive and lacks action? From the way she describes women in authority, you'd think she never wants to see a real female president in office.

For attempting to erase 40+ years of women's lib and social progress, the Bonehead Op-Ed of the Week goes to Kathleen Parker. Kudos.

A Really Pretentious Entry on Life Philosophies

Recently, a friend told me that she "lives in the moment". By this she means she focuses on the present—what's happening now. I took it as the foundation of her general take on life. I've heard this from a lot of people—this kind of foundation; I would assume it's a popular way to live one's life. I don't live in the moment and I don't think anyone else should either.

I like to think ahead. I envision shit. I like reflecting. Conversely to my friend, I live in all moments. Of course I leave room for spontaneity, but generally I have a plan. For me, "living in the moment" means living with tunnel vision. Imagine looking through a telescope onto a lake and spying a speed boat. You follow it along the water, skidding and bouncing. It's quite exhilarating. But you're missing the rest of the lake. In fact, you might forget that it's a lake that the boat is on because your looking at it through a telescope. That's what I imagine life to be like by living "in the moment". It's fun but the actual scope of experience is quite limited and therefore missed or forgotten.

This is exactly what Hemingway was talking about in his short story Snows of Kilimanjaro. It was about a writer who lives a decadent life and never actually wrote anything down. And in the final moments of his life, he realizes that he has nothing to show for his exceptional journey.

I imagine that people who live in the moment are always comfortable. While that's not bad at all, it can lead to complacency. I can't allow that in my life and I wouldn't want that to befall anyone else. I just can't imagine living a fulfilling life by "living in the moment". The character in Hemingway's story was a writer who didn't actually write. I see that as a metaphor for someone who didn't actually live, or at least didn't live up to any expectations.

John Stossel and Rand Paul are Racist F*cks

Even his mustache is racist.

I remember watching John Stossel on TV when I was a boy and thinking, "Okay, I like this guy. He tells it like it is". Now, I think he is a complete jackass. Recently, Rand Paul made comments about amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There is a clause that includes public accommodation—this means that any business or organization that has the public come and go (like a restaurant) can't practice segregation. This apparently doesn't sit well with Rand Paul and now Stossel who went on TV like an idiot and announced that he is "in total agreement with Rand Paul".They believe private business owners should be able to discriminate their patronage based on race, religion, or any other demographic criteria.

So John Stossel and Rand Paul believe that racists should be able to segregate their private business. But they also state that they "don't think they should" but they can if they want to. Basically they wipe their asses with the part in the Declaration of Independence that says people should be entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

Since both these morons are liberatarians, they can argue that they are just promoting individual freedom. But they're also sanctioning racism, segregation, and attempting to take American society backwards about 60 years. Nice work. John, for the record, you can't say you want to amend the Civil Rights Act like this and say people shouldn't be racist. That's like using the "n" word with your white friends and telling everyone else that you're not a racist. You can't have it both ways. If you allow racism to exist, then you have to be racist. Now please resign and live alone in the mountains. You too, Rand.

My Time at a Magazine

I want to be reflective. Right now, I'm thinking about my career so far at a city/regional magazine in the Chesapeake region of Maryland. As much as I've learned and grown during my time at the magazine, I can say confidently that I do not want to ever work for the media any longer. There are three things that are certain to happen when you work for the media and they are all bad.

When I tell people that I work for a magazine, they automatically assume that I write for the magazine. And when I tell them that I don't, they get confused and inquire "what is it that I actually do". For the general public, there is apparently no other work to be done at a magazine—other than write. If you don't write, then what could you possibly do for a magazine? Well, I produce video and I manage the website. This type of work just does not compute for most people.

The next thing that happens when someone finds out I work for a city/regional magazine, is they assume that I aspire to win a Pulitzer (because I'm there to write, apparently). I received the same expectation from the general public during college when I told others my major. "Oh, so you're going to be the next Spielberg, eh?" No, I'm not. I don't aspire to be the next Spielberg or Scorsese or Coppola or anyone else. I just want to do my job and do it well. This extra pressure from the general public grows thin very quickly.

The third thing that happens to employees of regional media companies, is the extra attention. Whether I like it or not, the local business community knows who I am. I work with them frequently on video and new media projects. A lot of these businesses are restaurants and going out to eat is very uncomfortable. Not only do the restaurants give me more attention than I want, but they give me this look like I owe them something. In their mind, because they gave me a free appetizer, I have to write a blog about them or plug them in a newsletter. When I go out to eat, I want to be a nameless, faceless patron who eats with his head down and leaves promptly. That's it. Just like everyone else.

There is a reason for these observations—I'm not just making this up. And the reasons are totally inescapable. Media is made to be consumed—magazines to be read, radio stations to be listened to, and movies to be watched. The amount of skill, expertise, and know-how to create the stories and programs is immense. But anyone can be a critic. That's the rub—I can go to film school, get a BS, go get a master's, spend $10,000 on a film and take 2 years producing it but it only takes 15 minutes for some knucklehead to tear it to pieces. I've used the term "general public" a lot in this entry for a reason. I needed to define the audience. Since anyone can (and they do) read my magazine, it is susceptible to not only  the criticism but an unbreakable bond to other, most esteemed magazines. This is why people can somehow put me in the same league as Andrew Sullivan or A.O. Scott. This only happens with the media. In no other industry are two completely different circumstances compared. If I worked at Northrup Gruman, no one will ask me why I'm not working for Raytheon. No one will tell me that their missiles are better. The general public doesn't know anything about missiles. But they know a lot about media. If I was the supply manager for Target, no one would tell me to work at Wal-Mart because their supply chain is more efficient. Again, the general public doesn't know these things. But if I tell them I work for a magazine, they tell me I should freelance for the New York Times because "it's a good newspaper". If I tell them I'm a video producer, they tell me they have a cousin in Hollywood who might be able to help me. Thanks, asshole, but no thanks. The common theme behind it all is, success in the media is easily defined for the general public, i.e. you're on TV, your movie is a blockbuster, your magazine is on every newsstand, your book is on the New York Times bestsellers list, etc. No one will ask a sociology student when they'll win the Albert O. Hirschman Prize; either because no one has heard about that prize or no one cares about successful sociologists.

And since the general public "knows" the ins and outs of the media, they find it incomprehensible that other professions could lie inside. Again, using Target as an example: I could say that I was either a register clerk, a store manager, or a truck driver for Target and no one would bat an eye. But every time I tell someone I don't write for the magazine, it's like trying to explain to someone that the sky is actually purple. This is the thought processes: Magazines companies produce magazines which are read, therefore the only types of employment to be found at a magazine company are writing positions.

The media has such a hold over the American zeitgeist that everyone is an expert on the subject. Preconceptions abound. And even though I'm aware of the thought process, it still gets to me. After four years of people telling me how they "can't wait to see my name in the lights", I get really bummed out that it hasn't happened yet. And when I see someone I know who does get their name in the lights, I feel even worse. Business majors don't have to deal with that. Biology majors don't either. It's not like a biology major is constantly asked "so are you going to be the next Crick or Darwin?" But since the general public consumes more TV shows, films, and magazines than biology textbooks, they expect great things from us lowly media employees.

We Are So Smart

After taking an object-oriented programming class and a PHP/MySQL class, I have this new and incredible respect for the human brain. In PHP (which, if you're not familiar with, is a standard web programming language), syntax is very important. If you forget a semicolon or a curly bracket, your webpage will not work. The web server is very unforgiving when it comes to syntax. And it got me to thinking how incredible the mind is and how unnecessary syntax is in human language (well at least in English). This is because our brain focuses on semantics, or the actual meaning of strings of characters, rather than the individual placement of characters. So I can write:

Ths pzza is rlly awsm.

And everyone who reads this blog will be able to understand it. Our brain is somehow able to extrapolate meaning out of this extremely grammatically incorrect sentence. But if I were to write this inside a PHP block:

$x=10;
$y=12;
$Sum=$x+$y
echo $Sum;

It wouldn't work because I didn't put a semicolon behind "$Sum=$x+$y". It can't just understand what I'm trying to do, like my brain would (coincidentally, this makes programming very difficult). This is really interesting (and kind of scary) because even after 50+ years of computing, we have not even scratched the surface of the capabilities of the human brain. You'd think that we'd be somewhere close to having some kind of relative AI functionality. Most of the web is focused on syntax rather than semantics, which can make searching for things difficult. Facebook recently "linked" everything in it's users profile pages to either an existing fan page or to a newly created page that pulls form Wikipedia and related user-created examples. But it's very flawed in it's execution because of this syntax problem. For example, one of my favorite books listed in my profile is Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. And when I click the link on Facebook, all the user-generated results have nothing to do with the book—these users are using "choke" to define the physical action or the sports term. Facebook doesn't know what I mean by "choke". It just sees it as a five-character string and it compiles a list of people who have mentioned the same string (c-h-o-k-e).

As frustrating as it is to purchase a computer in the zenith of the Information Age and not have it be all that you want it to be, it does highlight how incredible the human brain is. I think we should appreciate much more how incredibly smart we all are. The ability for our mind to just make sense of complete nonsense (like the high school text message above) is nothing short of extraordinary.

Horror in an HD World

The profiteers of the motion picture industry decided to reboot A Nightmare on Elm Street. Despite the fact that narrative canon really is obsolete at this point, I've decided I will go see it. I like Jackie Earle Haley and I think he'll be good in the role of the iconic killer. Though something has me a little concerned, something that no writer could have predicted—especially a horror writer. How will high definition affect the film and other horror films?

It may be a stupid question that has no relevance at all. HD might not have any effect on the horror genre. But for some reason, I feel like it's counter-intuitive to shoot a horror film in high definition.

The reason the great horror films of our time are so terrifying is because they don't show a lot. It's not the details in the monster that make them scary, it's the opposite—it's what you don't see. But with high definition and 4K resolution cameras, you will see everything.

The one word that I can think of that every horror film needs is grit. There must be a degree of grittiness in order for a horror film to be effective. Dim lighting, shadows, gritty film stock—all of these are essential. But the technologies that everyone is clamoring for completely contradict the need for grit.

Fundamentally, HD seems like the wrong choice for horror. A perfect example of this is The Blair Witch Project. I would attribute more than half of the success of that film to the fact that it was shot on shitty DV cams and 16mm. Even the more recent Paranormal Activity realized that grit is necessary. Most of the film was shot in "night vision" to lessen the effects of a crystal-clear picture.

Lady Gaga: Artist

I didn't know what to think when I first saw Lady Gaga. It was back in the summer of 2009. I think I was late to the Lady Gaga-party. I was in a bar that played music videos on the TVs and the video for "Poker Face" was on. It was a fucking circus. It was ridiculous. At first I thought she was just a crazy person looking for attention. I didn't think she had any real vocal talent—just the ability to strike interest in the public and sell records. I'll be honest, I haven't really listened to her music all that much. From what I've heard it could be described as above average pop. 

I don't want to talk about her music. I want to talk about her identity. What does she mean to the image industry or the celebrity industry? I was looking at photos of her from the Grammys that premiered a few days ago. It's gotten a lot of press for how odd it was. But I don't think anyone has really spent time to look at it from an artistic perspective. And I think there is a lot to say about her dress. 

First of all, it's not just her dress—it's everything from her make-up, her obvious wig, the star she carried around, and her performance. Let's start with her make-up: really heavy, over-done, clownish. She looks like someone who's never really worn make up. Her wig, as I mention, is an obvious fake. You can see the seam line go down her face. The wig itself is contoured to look like a typical blond bombshell from the 80s—big, platinum, over-the-top—reminds me of Morgan Fairchild. Her face looks like Prostitute Barbie and the thin stocking-like material that covers her arms, hands, legs, and feet make her look like she is wrapped in plastic. 

Her dress has little ringlets wrapped around, like a celestial gas-giant with orbiting bits of debris. The star is like a ninja weapon with pointy ends. I'm sure sitting next to her was a pain in the ass. 

I mentioned a performance—by this I mean her overall countenance for posing for the photos. Her eyes are vacant, mouth usually ajar, as she genuflects on the red carpet. 

All these attributes were preconceived prior to the event because Lady Gaga was making a statement. She was reflecting the vapidity and self-indulgence of a typical Hollywood event. She made her head look spurious—like a Barbie but creepier and without a shred of innocence. Her body itself reflects the massive ego of Hollywood socialites and players to the point where galatic debris has begun to revolve around it. In fact, the ego of the Hollywood socialite is so massive that it in fact is the center of the universe with the star revolving around it, not the other way around. 

In the end, what we have is an fake, hollow, painted shell of a human that is so self-centered that the properties of astrophysics no longer apply. 

I applaud Lady Gaga for her bravery. To reflect the narcissism and emptiness of Hollywood is one thing but to do it and then attend an event that honors them, well, that takes huge balls. Unfortunately I don' t think anyone really knew what she was trying to get at. She remains simply "an eccentric". I think she's brilliant. 


Lady Gaga's examination of depravity in Hollywood is very interesting. I plan on exploring her music and fashion in later entries. There are so many interesting things about her. Even her name is genius to her artistic sensibilities. Gaga which means crazy is an obvious nod to the realm in which she lives. She is the crazy lady. Everyone knows her as this but really, she's just a mirror. The crazy ladies and gentlemen surround her. She understands this dynamic. It's become a part of her psyche. In some ways, her "character" is similar to that of the Comedian from Watchmen. The Comedian was called such because he saw the "true nature" of humanity—it's just a joke. Lady Gaga sees the human nature through a different lens—she thinks we're all bat-shit crazy.