November 11, 2008
Eric: We call it Veteran's Day in this country, but around the world it is Remembrance Day.
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, we will remember.
We will remember rows and rows of brave men and boys who charged into a new kind of war, over trenches, facing machine guns that spat out lead faster and with less discrimination than ever before. War was thought of as a noble pastime before they began this fight. Its nobility died on French fields with so many others.
We will remember armies that hated one another by tradition and temperament coming together and forming alliances. The French and the English. The Democratic and the Communist. Always the human.
We will remember the men and women, girls and boys who took up arms when their country called, in every country around the world. Who went and fought and died for causes they could believe in and for no reason at all except that their leaders told them to go. We will remember their courage. We will remember their loyalty.
One day a year, let us take one moment of one day and just remember them.
Whether we name it for those we remember and call it Veterans or commemorate the act itself and call it Remembrance, this is the day we stop and remember.
It is eleven o'clock on the eleventh of November.
We remember.
Posted by Eric Burns-White in Philosophical Snarks at 11:00 AM | Comments (3)
November 5, 2008
Eric: A moment of reality.
In 1992, I watched the election returns at my Parents', as I almost always do. I stayed up late, long after they went to bed. I watch George Herbert Walker Bush concede. And I watched William Jefferson Clinton, after twelve years of Reagan, of Bush, of Republican rule, of jingoism and centralism and scandal and Iran-Contra and any number of things that were of vital importance to my twentysomething self that I can't really remember now, make his acceptance speech.
And it inspired me. My heart soared with his words. Clinton and Gore, the dream team, the redeemers, the bringers of light and life and rationality and whatever else. I clearly remember the two of them and their wives standing on stage afterward, ubiquitous campaign theme "Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow" playing in the background. I remember Tipper and Hillary doing a little song-dance thing, the kind of thing college kids do when they hear that bit of a song they really like, and I just felt good. I knew, I knew it was all going to get better now.
And here's the thing. It did get better. But it also got worse. Good things happened. Bad things happened. There were outrages and triumphs for Clinton, for Gore and for the nation. But the overpowering sense that we had won, that Yesterday Was Gone and Tomorrow Was Here, that this was the theme music for happily ever after? That didn't last.
Because you know something? Yesterday was gone. But tomorrow is still tomorrow. It's today. It's always today.
It is 2008, and last night I went to my parents' house once again. We drank some wine and we watched the election results. I love election night. Win, lose or three month Florida recount, I love election night. I love the drama, the pagentry, the returns, the graphics, the commentary, the excuses, the smug retorts, the concessions and the acceptances. I love it. To me, this is the cultural defining moment of the United States of America, the single most significant act to our national character. In 1776, we declared that from this point forward, we were going to govern ourselves, and Election Day is the culmination and ritual act that makes that happen, and election night is the celebration of that ritual.
And last night was a good one. There was excitement and energy and a good narrative storyline. The various news agencies were on their A game. Dumbass holograms were employed. MSNBC and NBC News froze the red and blue state maps under the skating ice at Rockafeller Center.
And yeah, it ended. The eternal campaigning that took two years ended. The pain ended. And yes, for all those who hated George W. Bush with a passion -- and they are legion now -- that too has had its last trump played. The eight years of Bush are over.
And, what is more, a black man is now the President-Elect of the United States of America. Inauguration Day of next year, I swear to God, is scheduled such that on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the NAACP, a non-white man will for the first time take the oath of office and be our President.
I loved McCain's concession. The word that keeps coming up is 'gracious,' and it was. It reaffirmed what John Wayne said a long time ago about John F. Kennedy -- what we all should remember when our candidate loses and the other guy wins. Wayne said "I didn't vote for him but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job." Last night, McCain essentially said the same thing, and pledged his support, and called upon those who supported him to do the same. I hope that comes to pass.
I loved Obama's speech. It had just the right balance of humility in the face of history coupled with the exultant, soaring culmination of achievement. His daughters were aggressively adorable, and he told them they were going to get a puppy.
I loved Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan, two men I often disagree with, but whose insights and viewpoints were razor sharp last night.
And yes, at the end there was a tremendous feeling of relief. It was over. There was a temptation to feel the way I had felt when I was twenty-four years old and Bill Clinton had just given his acceptance speech. To feel like this was a victory, that we had been ushered into Happily Ever After.
But I'm not twenty-four. I'm forty. And I know the truth. We haven't won.
If you were desperately pulling for Obama, relish the victory. But we haven't won.
If you were desperately pulling for McCain, spare all the time you need for regret. But you haven't lost.
We're not at happily ever after. We're not living in Tomorrow. It's not over.
It never, ever will be.
Today, President-Elect Obama is beginning the process of assembling his administration. In the meantime, we are in financial meltdown. We are in two wars. We have social strife. We have the strangest situation where South Dakota strongly repudiated the politics of the culture war even as California embraced them. We have desperate social inequalities. We have people trapped in foreclosure. We have soldiers in harm's way. We have people who want to kill us just because we exist.
Barak Obama, whether you like him or not, is going to do some things very well. He is going to do okay on other things. He is going to make some minor mistakes elsewhere. And he is going to completely blow it at other times. The Democrats in Congress are going to push their agenda forward in some ways, fall into fracture and divisiveness in others. Sometimes they will cooperate with the Republicans, and sometimes they'll shaft them. The Republicans will sometimes come together with the Democrats to get things done and sometimes will fight tooth and nail to beat them and make them look bad at the same time. And don't kid yourselves -- no one is better than the Republicans at playing defense.
This is where the hard work starts, not ends. This is where we all have to cope with the financial, social and military world that this new Administration and Congress are going to inherit. There is no happily ever after. There is only today, and today there's a Hell of a lot of work to be done.
And Barak Obama's not going to do it. He can't. No one man could. And in two years, we will not have solved all our problems. We might not have solved most of them. And two years after that we'll still be working on it.
Both McCain and Obama made reference to this last night. There is an impossible amount of work before us all, and as Obama said, it won't be done in a year or even in a Presidential term. What he did not say is it will never be done. Even if we fix all the troubles we currently have, new troubles will arise. New challenges will need to be met.
I have hope. Pure, wonderful hope. Hope that Obama will be a good President. Hope that Congress will do a good job. Hope that the nation will indeed pull together and fix things. But hope is not faith, and it certainly isn't blind faith. This is going to be hard. This is often going to suck on toast. And a whole lot of people are going to be desperately disappointed. Hell, a whole lot of people -- an estimated fifty six million as of the current count -- are disappointed today. And the sixty three million who are thrilled and elated will be disappointed sometime in the next four years. It is inevitable. We must be prepared for that.
In the end, it all comes back to the same thing. If you are an American, whether or not you voted for him, he will be your President. Even as he is my President, and, in John McCain's words, his President.
All we can do is hope he does a good job. He and the Congress we the people of the United States of America sent along with him.
History was made yesterday. Soaring, hopeful history, changing the course of this Nation. It was made by millions upon millions of people, and that's amazing. But that was yesterday, and yesterday's gone. It's today now. It's always today. And today, there's a hell of a lot of work to be done. And if a black man was named President-Elect yesterday, it's worth remembering that today homosexuals in California have been told that their relationships and commitments don't count, and that they are second class citizens. Told by their neighbors. The people that they meet each day.
Today's here, and there's a lot of work to be done.
My hope to Obama, to the Democrats and Republicans in Congress, to the elected officials I voted for and the ones I didn't vote for. May they do a good job. May we all.
Posted by Eric Burns-White in Philosophical Snarks at 12:44 PM | Comments (27)
September 4, 2008
Eric: Also on the list of real life mad scientists I know: the coworker who once rebuilt his laptop into a destructive heat ray.
We're getting ready to launch a brand new school year! So I've been, y'know, extra busy this week. Not that anyone's terribly surprised when I disappear for a little while here on the blog. At least this time it wasn't six weeks.
One thing I did take the time to do -- said time taking, oh, nine seconds -- was buy the just released Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog Soundtrack off of iTunes. I haven't felt any huge need to talk up the good Doctor -- most of you should already know about the internet sensation that swept geekdom like a giant... sweeping... thing over the course of the summer. (If you're totally clueless, be enlightened.) I really loved the videos, and it was a fait accompli that I'd get the album when it came out.
I won't promise there won't be minor spoilers below, for the record.
While listening to the studio recordings, I found my mind wandering to mad science. More to the point, I found my mind wandering to writing mad science. I have a project or two under the cone of silence that touch on the few, the proud, the psychotically curious, and like a lot of writers i sometimes use the power of music to get my brain in the right state of mind for whatever I'm working on. We are programmed by television and movies to respond to musical cues, almost subconsciously -- the right music can underscore pain or joy, make us happy or sad, get us into the mindset of who we're watching or drive us away, depending on what they're going for. And a writer can use that when they're writing in the first place.
And honestly, writing mad science takes some brain work.
You see, it's easy to assume that mad science is just cute and fluffy and geek positive. Lots of real life geeks of giant brain identify themselves as "mad scientists." Some (I'm looking at you, Van Domelan) even qualify. (Actually, Superguy alumnus Bill Paul still wins the prize for maddest scientist I've met, though it's worth noting i've never actually met Andy Weir. Apparently, when he took an undergraduate apartment near school, he discovered there was a 220 volt tap for a dryer that didn't currently exist. His immediate reaction was "Cool! Now I can make plasma!" But I digress. And yes -- we're going to be talking about Casey and Andy soon.)
The thing is? Mad scientists, as a trope? They're not cute and fluffy and geek positive. They're insane. They're arrogant and deeply broken -- their pain and insanity driving their science beyond all rational measure. It's a powerful image -- one that laymen are willing to accept almost at face value. Scientists seem like magicians to us, after all -- they make nuclear power plants and electrical grids and bridges and chemicals that do everything from regulate brain imbalances to endanger us with four hour erections. Science is huge and can be scary, and these men and women get it using math most of us don't even recognize as symbols. We can believe that one of these intensely intelligent people might go too far -- push too hard... learn too much, delve into things best left undelved, and lose their mind in an arrogant belief that they can force the world to yield its secrets and bend to his whim. As with Faust in an earlier incarnation, we're willing to accept that something supremely dangerous and horrifying lies just beyond the pale, and those who seek after knowledge with too great a fervor will be consumed by it.
And, of course, when you gain the knowledge of the gods, you become a god -- or so you believe. It is natural for the superior to rule over the inferior. World domination isn't an end, it's a byproduct.
The trick is finding the right music to push your brain into that mindset -- to drive that combination of brilliance and hubris, often with a side order of a pain that can't ever be alleviated. Sure, real life scientists might enjoy "Particle Man," but that's not going to combine the hunger for knowledge and the driving need to change/recreate/rule/destroy the world.
On all the Dr. Horrible soundtrack, the only truly mad science fueled song is the intense (and wonderful) "Brand New Day," as our... er... hero goes from a moderately nice and schlubish supervillain poseur to the real psychotic deal. You can feel the brilliance and evil burn out of Neil Patrick Harris, wiping out the "dork and failure" as he says and leaving behind a being who can (and does) terrorize. None of the other songs on the album have this sheer mad science quality. "My Freeze Ray" is cheerful and pleasant and very human, regardless of the advanced technology. "Slipping" and "Everything You Ever" yield confrontation and consequence, but not that pure expression of manic belief.
And that got me thinking. Clearly, I needed a song list. One song isn't enough, after all. I needed songs that had that quality, whether or not they actually dealt with science or mad science or anything of the sort. And I have a music collection, so why not pare through it.
So I did. I found the songs that seem to trigger the right neurochemical response in my brain -- the frantic energy, the certainty, the terrible surety of their quest or cause. There had to be an edge to these songs -- a sense that something isn't quite right in the world. And even if the songs are enthusiastic, they shouldn't be happy. And in many cases, there should be a sense of defiance. Most Doctor Demento songs get let out because they're not staring you in the eye demanding you kneel before them.
I also kind of decided to avoid the cliche and the twee with my picks. "She Blinded Me With Science" isn't on here -- Thomas Dolby might be a mad scientist but his lament is a victim's lament, not a victor's. And "Weird Science?" Please. There's an Oingo Boingo song here, but it lacks goofiness, thank you. "Weird Science" is what mad science groupies play while waiting outside the laboratory in hopes of getting an autograph or a transmutation into some kind of shark-pumpkin person. Finally, I tried to keep it to one song per artist.
Naturally, these are the songs that work for me. They may not work for you. And yes, I'd be happy to hear more suggestions in the comments. In alphabetical order by title, I give you my Mad Scientist Mix.
"American Jesus," Bad Religion: Right off the bat, you see there's no science here. What there is a hard edged beat and a song about entitlement, about superiority, about damning the consequences and damning the world and not caring because you're a special snowflake 'cause preacher told you so. From the driving core of the song:
He's the farmers' barren fields, (In God)
He's the force the army wields, (We trust)
He's the expression on the faces of the starving millions, (Because he's one of us)
The power of the man. (Break down)
He's the fuel that drives the Klan, (Cave in)
He's the motive and the conscience of the murderer (He can redeem your sin)
He's the preacher on TV, (Strong heart)
He's the false sincerity, (Clear mind)
He's the form letter that's written by the big computer, (And infinitely kind)
He's the nuclear bombs, (You lose)
He's the kids with no moms (We win)
And I'm fearful that he's inside ME (He is our champion)
This concept of the spirit -- the demiurge that wreaks its will upon the countryside while still being a part of you? That could as easily describe "madness" in Narbonic or "the spark" in Girl Genius.
"As I Sat Sadly By Her Side," Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Atypical on this list -- most of these songs emphasize the savage joy (or savage motion) of rhythm. This, on the other hand, is a beautifully orchestrated, piano heavy ballad with a sense of melancholy. It jabs my Mad Science hindbrain because of a combination of unsettling music -- it is beautiful, but there is a sense that somehow it denotes a world that's wrong -- and dark imagery. It describes the figure who has hope for the world, and the figure who sees the suffering of individuals. Either one could be a mad scientist -- the woman who sees a shining future or the man who sees the cost and finds it unacceptable. Telling, though, are two stanzas near the end:
Then she drew the curtains down
And said, "When will you ever learn
That what happens there beyond the glass
Is simply none of your concern?
God has given you but one heart
You are not a home for the hearts of your brothers
And God does not care for your benevolence
Anymore than he cares for the lack of it in others
Nor does he care for you to sit
At windows in judgement of the world He created
While sorrows pile up around you
Ugly, useless and over-inflated"
He has seen the world's flaws. She obscures them and dismisses them. He feels responsible for making the whole world well. She feels no responsibility for the world at all. Polar extremes, and both mad.
"Big O!," Tosihiko Sahasi: The theme song from the cartoon. This is the polar opposite of the last entry -- this one's entirely about the savage joy of rhythm. The lyrics not only don't denote some moral dilemma, they mostly consist of "BIG O!" shouted over and over again. The song has a similarity in feel to the old Queen "Flash Gordon" theme, though, and the hammering beat makes your heart beat faster too. Musically, you can entirely accept that madmen build a world from the musical structures within, and then a giant robot blows shit up.
"Brand New Day," Neil Patrick Harris: What started the article. It doesn't get madder than this. This is the moment of epiphany for the bad Doctor -- the moment when he bursts through the nice, shy guy he was before to become the true, future ruler of the world. This is where he stops wanting to look out for kids in the park, and starts wanting to rampage through the streets:
All the time that you beat me unconscious I forgive
All the crimes incomplete - listen, honestly I'll live
Mr. Cool, Mr. Right, Mr. Know-It-All is through
Now the future's so bright and I owe it all to you
Who showed me the light
It's a brand new me
I got no remorse
Now the water's rising
But I know the course
I'm gonna shock the world
Gonna show Bad Horse
It's a brand new day
The distinction between the driven man of scientist and the madman who uses techniques "no reputable scientist would employ" while tearing into fields of study forbidden, for man was not meant to know them... is a moment of epiphany like this.
"Chicks Dig Giant Robots," Deathwish IX: Mad science as surf rock. This was the MEGAS XLR, and as suits that work it is enthusiastic and bright, counterpointing the banality of New Jersey with the epic of saving the world from alien invasion in a giant robot car. It might not immediately seem like Mad Science so much as mecha combat, but the core of the cartoon is an automobile nut who loves video games finds a prototype giant robot that's missing its head in a junkyard, and then rebuilds it using his classic car as the head, rerigging all the controls to a melange of video game controllers. That the thing works at all -- much less that it's superior to anything the designers could have hoped, is pure mad science at its best Plus he added flaming eightball paint jobs. And, as the song claims:
You dig giant robots!
I dig giant robots!
We dig giant robots!
Chicks dig giant robots!
Nice!
As justifications go for your rampage that decimates half of Trenton, it'll do just fine.
"Eli's Coming," Three Dog Night: I'll admit, some of my Sorkin love fuels this pick. In one of the best episodes of Sports Night, Dan (the cool host) sees a convergence of bad signs and declares that Eli's coming. When it becomes clear that he's reffing the Three Dog Night song, and that said song is about an inveterate womanizer, he agrees but said when he first heard it, it sounded like it meant trouble was coming. And, as he says, those things stick with you. And in that way, this has stuck with me. What makes it mad science? Well, it fits musically -- musical and frenetic but with a sense of dread coupled with terrible inevitability:
Walk but you'll never get away
No, you'll never get away from the burnin' a-heartache
I walked to Apollo by the bay
Everywhere I go though, Eli's a-comin' (she walked but she never got away)
Eli's a-comin' (she walked but she never got away)
Eli's a-comin' and he's comin' to git ya (she walked but... she walked but...)
Get down on your knees (she walked but she never got away)
Obsession, fear, flight, conquest. The fools at the Pier 1 down on pier nineteen will pay for defying the will of ELI! Look, it works for my brain. I don't promise it will for yours.
"Genius," Warren Zevon: It was nigh inconceivable a Zevon song wouldn't make the list, but this was iffy. I considered this one, "Piano Fighter" (for it's energy) and others. But in the end, this song has a sense of simmering, respectful resentment masked in a relatively peppy beat. It's the dark face of "Brand New Day" in its own way -- the loss that forms the maniac resolve. "You'll pay," the song seems to say. "When I have taken over the world then you'll pay!"
When you dropped me and you staked your claim
On a V.I.P. who could make your name
You latched on to him and I became
A minor inconvenience
Your protege don't care about art
I'm the one who always told you you were smart
You broke my heart into smithereens
And that took genius
You and the barber make a handsome pair
Guess what--I never liked the way he cut your hair
I didn't like the way he turned your head
But there's nothing I can do or say I haven't done or said
Everybody needs a place to stand
And a method for their schemes and scams
If I could only get my record clean
I'd be a genius
"I Wanna Be a Boss," Stan Ridgway: There are dedicated, passionate, even obsessed scientists who want nothing more than to make the discovery, to find the truth. While some of them might be Mad Scientists, they don't have to be. Mad Science requires something beyond the drive to know. There also has to be ambition -- ambition that can't ever truly be satisfied. This is where the drive to rule comes from -- the certainty that you could do it better, coupled with the sense that finally your genius will be given its unmitigated due. He starts off wanting a nice office, expensive clothes, a lear jet, the respect of his peers... but as the song progresses, his dreams get progressively grander, wilder, not just unlikely but impossible. And then he goes farther:
Now if I find a product I like
I'll buy up the whole company
Shave my face, and grin and smile
And then I'll sell it on TV
And everyone will know me
I'll be more famous than Howard Hughes
I'll grow a long beard and watch
Ice Station Zebra in the nude
And grow my nails like Fu-Manchu
Keep a row of specimen jars
Get other people to work for me--well
Maybe I'll buy the planet Mars, and
Build an amusement park up there
Better than old Walt's place
You'll have to be a millionaire to go
We'll smoke cigars and lounge in lace
Talk the talk of businessmen
And bosses that we are
So here's to me--the drinks are free--
'Cause I just bought this bar!
Within the heart of the Mad Scientist beats the heart of a man who knows that when he rules the world, it will be an absolute paradise. For him, anyway, and who else could possibly matter as much?
"The Math Song," The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets: from the movie Spaceship Zero. It opens with someone shouting "Your facts! Your figures! What are they worth now? Huh? Are they worth the lives of seven billion people?!" So, you know it starts out well. And then the song starts with a good drum beat and high guitar and cheer and a singer who sounds a touch strung up singing a song that makes it clear that yes. Yes these facts and figures are worth the lives of seven billion people. Don't be ridiculous:
X
X by the tangent of N
N minus pi over 10
That equals negative 9
Negative 9 is so fine
You've got a brain
And nobody really needs another love song
This is the song that underscores the joy and beauty in math, the power of the brain... and honestly, haven't we heard all the ridiculousness about love and adoration and other people before? No one needs another love song! You've got a brain! Read a book!
"The Needle Lies," Queensryche: Another song that sets the tone with a voiceover before it begins. "I've had enough -- and I want out!" [sound of crash] "You can't walk away now," comes the answer, followed by the all-important mad scientist laugh -- a laugh that trails up at the end instead of down. Operation: Mindcrime is a concept album that plunges the horrible depths of mad science. One of its characters is actually called Doctor X for God's sake!
I looked back once
And all I saw was his face
Smiling, the needle crying
Walking out of his room
With mirrors, afraid I heard him scream
Youll never get away
Cold and shaking
I crawled down alleys to try
And scrape away the tracks that marked me
Slammed my face into walls of concrete
I stared, amazed at the words written on the wall
Dont ever trust
Dont ever trust the needle, it lies
Dont ever trust
Dont ever trust the needle when it cries...
Cries your name
In a way, this suffers from the same thing as "She Blinded Me With Science." Nikki is a victim, not a mad scientist. But where "She Blinded Me With Science" is a romp, about the seductive powers of the modern woman with her perfume and her wicked ways... this is about a man crawling away desperately from the madman who has taken over his existence and threatens to destroy it, and there is no escape.
Now that's Mad Science, baby. Dr. X could take Dolby's chick out with one jab.
"No One Lives Forever," Oingo Boingo: This pick was a tossup between it and "Insanity" -- both the version from Farewell -- Live, the last concert Boingo played as Boingo. Both have that burning energy, that intensity that separates the sane from the not-sane, and they both kick the ass of "Weird Science" in pretty much every way. I go with this one because it's less about true full on non mad-sciency psychosis and more about the inevitability of death and the need to therefore go for absolute broke in life, without concern for laws or what is possible:
No one beats him at his game
For very long but just the same
Who cares, there's no place safe to hide
Nowhere to run--no time to cry
So celebrate while you still can
'Cause any second it may end.
And when it's all been said and done . . .
Better that you had some fun
Instead of hiding in a shell-Why make your life a living hell?
So have a toast, and down the cup
And drink to bones that turn to dust ('cause) . . .
No one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one
No one lives forever!! (Hey!)
The song is a party, a celebration. What it celebrates is that we're alive and someday we won't be so don't hold back! Don't let yourself have regrets! Take this life for all it's worth. Doctor Madblood would certainly agree. Not that he won't prove them wrong. Oh yes. Yes he will.
"The Sidewalk Song (v 1.1)," The Tenmen: For a while, Radio Achewood had a couple of tracks up from 'the Tenmen,' the black clad trio of rickenbacher playing cats who Roast Beef, Emeril and Spongebath all love. They're gone now, which I can understand -- how can one hope to put to music a group defined in a silent medium as the best post-wave musicians of their age. Still, this track has a beat and a funk that's infectious, and feels like distilled productivity. There are no lyrics -- it is, if anything, aureal wallpaper, but I could see it as the closest representation to the music a mad scientist hears in his mind, and that's good enough for me.
"Skullcrusher Mountain," Jonathan Coulton: Yeah yeah, I know. All these songs I've been avoiding all the geek-adored obvious picks. I don't have "They're Coming to Take Me Away." Hell, I don't have any They Might Be Giants on the list. These are songs about the crush and the pain, and here I have geek icon Jonathon Coulton with his parody of romantic light rock songs, all about the mad scientist who woos a pretty young thing. Look, the difference here is the absolute sense of rightness in the protagonist's voice, and the continued failure of his methods to have any positive effect:
I'm so into you
But I'm way too smart for you
Even my henchmen think I'm crazy
I'm not surprised that you agree
If you could find some way to be
A little bit less afraid of me
You'd see the voices that control me from inside my head
Say I shouldn't kill you yet
I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you
But I get the feeling that you don't like it
What's with all the screaming?
You like monkeys, you like ponies
Maybe you don't like monsters so much
Maybe I used too many monkeys
Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?
It's all here -- the lack of ability to see the real world. The absolute certainty that his master plans cannot fail -- be they destroying the planet or hooking with his girlfriend. And, as he said above -- the chick likes ponies and likes monkeys, so why wouldn't a monkey-pony monster be the perfect gift! It's convenient, and no one else one! Honestly, Can't you show a little gratitude?
"Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hank," Bare Naked Ladies: This song's subversive. It's very bright and perky and cheerful and you can listen to it a dozen times before it hits you that this guy's a crazy celebrity stalker who thinks Anne Murray's talking to him in her songs. (Or Rae Don Chong. Or others. I've heard several women named.) He is a farmer, he works in the field, and he has come to see himself as the man who feeds the world -- and especially the love of his life -- with his labors. There's no science here but there is the right kind of delusion -- as well as the sullen resentment that can creep in when his letters to the celebrity stop fulfilling his worldview:
All of this corn I grow I grow it all for you
I took a hatchet to the radio I did it all for you
You could have written back,
You could have said "Thank you"
I guess you've got better things,
better things to do.
You say you love me, is that the truth?
Although they've heard the songs, my friends want living proof.
I know your address, I ring the bell
I bring you flowers and a .22 with shells.
He knows what the world is. He knows that he gets it -- he knows the truth. And his friends -- his friends -- won't believe them, and you won't write back so he could prove it. You have to understand, he's got to prove how you feel. He's got to prove it to the world. And then, when he has you and his life is so great... well, his so called friends will change their tune, won't they, but it will be too late. Too late!
Replace the psycho stalking with 'building an Oo-ray,' and Bob's your Uncle. And it's so upbeat in its psychosis.
"What We Need More Of is Science," MC Hawking: I'll admit, I'm not the biggest MC Hawking fan on Earth. It just seemed... I dunno. Cute, to me. A little twee. I didn't hate the Hawk, I just didn't buy in. But "What We Need More of is Science," the first of the Achewood songfights (the second was the fantastic "Corner of Dude and Catastrophe" by MC Frontalot with Brad Sucks) is just a wonderful rant against the people of the world who follow ridiculous cults (from crystals to fundamentalist Christianity in his view) and don't spend enough time listening to their god damn science teachers. This is the sort of rant that leads, fundamentally, to a giant steam powered robot with vortex rays mounted on the shoulders and an unbreakable glass dome on the head where the inventor sits in an easy chair, holding a martini that foams slightly, smiling and saying "where's this God then? Why doesn't He stop me? Mm? Here's my creation -- it's the one beating up His creation." And then he would laugh, and laugh and laugh.
The list is incomplete. The list can't be complete, because there could be something on it tomorrow that serves the same purpose. And the list that works for me might not work for you. If we could find the music playlist that elicited the same brain chemical responses in every listener, we could (of course) rule the world, but so far that goal is elusive. Still, we can get closer. Go ahead and chime in, down in the comments. What's music rocks your Mad Science hindbrain? What do you listen to when you're dreaming of unleashing your unstoppable Pneumatic Steel Legion upon the fools at Tompkins-Cortland Community College? And in what way am I wrong? Which of these songs denotes my clear inferiority, which shall lead to your song list crushing mine like so many grapes held in the hydraulically driven hand of your fabrication robot?
Go on. Prove me wrong, Silent Bob. For if you do not... then soon... I... will... rule... the world.
Of mad scientist mix tape creation.
Look, start small.
Posted by Eric Burns-White in Philosophical Snarks at 11:18 PM | Comments (78)
September 1, 2008
Eric: I promise you, we don't get up that early on a Sunday.
(From Least I Could Do! Click on the thumbnail for full sized homily!)
It's been demonstrated in the last that Lar deSouza likes to throw in stealth cameos into the strip. (I assume it's deSouza who does it, since he does the drawings and all.) My favorite to date has been when Rayne hit on Jamie and Hazel in a supermarket, trying to talk them into a threesome.
Now, it's well known that Wednesday and I can appreciate... well, what we term "recreational Christianity." We enjoy watching Christian entertainment on an MST3K level -- and sometimes on its own merits. Since becoming involved with Weds, I've seen most of Bibleman, a fair number of the Charlton Heston introduced Greatest Heroes And Legends Of The Bible, the horrifically cheesy and generally (though not exclusively) bad Left Behind movies, a metric ton of Davey and Goliath, and most recently I've been infected with The Flying House, which is a frighteningly well made cartoon regardless of its subject matter. Oh, and lots of Jack Chick tracts, as long time readers well know.
Which leads us to the above Least I Could Do.
It's by no means certain that the two horrified people sitting in front of Noel and Mick in panel four are supposed to be Wednesday and Eric Burns-White, but it's also by no means uncertain. Granted, if it were the two of us, in the mythical panel five, our looks of shock would have been punctuated by a "...duuuuuuude."
On the other hand, it might simply be coincidence. Weds is usually depicted with more chestnut or auburn hair, for example. In which case, they may just be... well, someone else.
So if they're not supposed to be us, please, enjoy the message. Don't be a bitch, man.
And if they are?
Well then, submitted without comment.
(Yay! We've hit for the 2004-5 cycle!)
Posted by Eric Burns-White in Webcomics at 12:10 PM | Comments (4)
August 31, 2008
Eric: Man, I hope that if you log your character out on City Hall's steps or in front of the doors to the tram, your day job is "panhandler."
Sometimes, one eats crow.
When Issue #12 of the various free content upgrades NCSoft NorCal puts out for City of Heroes was announced, I was guardedly excited but somewhat dubious. "Midnight Hour" featured a new organization called the Midnight Club (well, new in terms of being an active part of the universe -- it had been part of the backstory from the beginning), some new cross-faction content related both to that organization and the origins of superhumanity, a new zone of content back in pseudoRome, some new costumes most characters couldn't use, and new Villain Epic Archetypes to finally balance the scales between the bad guys and the good guys, with their alien Kheldans. And some other stuff.
And I had something to say about all of it -- well, here, let me paste in the specific comments I made about the Villain Epic Archetypes back in March:
Villain Epic Archetypes: As I said above, Villains have been waiting since the introduction of Grandville and L40-50 content for an Epic Archetype to counterbalance the heroes' Kheldans (the aforementioned Peacebringers and Warshades). Now, "Epic" in the City of Heroes sense means "tied to a specific epic story," not "all powerful and grand." On the other hand, the Kheldans are pretty damn spiff. You can become an all powerful energy squid that can blast as well as any given blaster, or you can become a gigantic lobster person -- in effect a somewhat gimped pocket tanker -- and you can also develop a wide variety of personal powers. And you get your travel powers for free, and the content -- the epic story -- was all new to the game, and added whole new dimensions.
The Villain Epic Archetypes are... Blood Widows and Wolf Spiders.
Which, for those who don't play the game (and if you don't play the game, why are you still reading this far down?) are two of the minions that serve Arachnos.
Yeah. On the hero side, we have energy squid lobsterpeople with a rich, new dimension of storytelling to the game. On the villain side.... I have the mooks I've been mowing down by the truckload since the day I first started playing City of Villains. In fact, one of the sidequests in the Outbreak tutorial involves your Level 1 villain saving a hapless and clueless Wolf Spider from capture and completing the mission he bungled. And hey, now you too can be that wolf spider! Yay!
Yay.
On the one hand, the execution of these new Villain Epic Archetypes looks really cool. It's a branching system, so you can climb the ladder of Arachnos types -- you start as a Blood Widow, say, but work your way up to Fortunata Mistress or Night Widow. And Wolf Spiders can become the nasty and powerful Bane Spiders, or they can become Crab Spiders, which means will have giant eight armed crab spider backpacks. And God damn it, I want a giant eight armed crab spider backpack. And they describe it as "infiltrating" the ranks of Arachnos, which could be cool and the story could be good.
But... dude, the Villain epics are mooks. And honestly, I'm sick of Arachnos anyway. Instead of Epics that added a new dimension and story to City of Villains, we're getting additional depth and explication on the overused part of City of Villains.
But dude. Eight Armed Crab Spider Backpack. Not to mention Night Widow. And they've finally put gender equality into the ranks of Arachnos, including male Blood Widow(er)s, and female Wolf Spiders, which they highlight in the archetype specific costume choices. I'm weird -- It's not the metrosexual guys or the Goth Chick Bane Spider that looks cool to me -- it's the badass reddish female wolf spider on the end. Yeah, she's a mook in the most mooklike armor, but that armor is slick.
So, on the one hand I'm disappointed. On the other hand I'm desperately levelling my top villain to be able to play one of these upon release. So, I'm going to call this a win for CrypticNCSoft, but I hope we get some different kinds of Epic which add new story elements soon.
Yeah. They released Issue 12. I earned my Villain archetypes.
And man, do I love them. I mean, love them. And yes, I played a female Wolf Spider who leveled up to earn her Crabpack, and it is indeed awesome. The storyline for the Arachnos soldiers is solid (and has one of my favorite hooks from this game to date -- in your very first mission, your Mook wolf spider or blood widow actually hacks the computer with the list of "Destined" Supervillains and adds his name to it. They embrace the idea that you're a nobody minion who then decided to take a shot at the big leagues. The characters play well, they're fun, and the bonuses they give to teams they're on make the Kheldan squid bonuses look sad and pathetic. On the whole, they more than make up for the vague sense of disappointment that the Midnight Club itself represents.
(For the record, the Midnight Club is essentially a non-entity as of Issue #12. You have, like, one string of missions dealing with it if you're a hero, a different string if you're a villain, a chance to join the club a little later on, and a chance to have Fake Roman adventures which amount to one task force and a never ending string of "go Kill X." With a little extra time and content, it'll be cool, but apparently the only really amazing thing is the Task Force, which I have yet to actually get to go on. Since, you see, I generally solo these days, and most of my group's gotten bored with City of Heroes and plays World of Warcraft now. Not that I'm bitter.)
Regardless, Issue 12 is, on balance, very solid. Which brings us to Issue 13, which was just announced.
As a side note, it has been noticed that NCSoft NorCal pretty much gave E3 and Comic-Con to their competitors. Champions Online and DC Universe Online had playable demos and a lot of grist for the anticipation mill, while City of Heroes... well, they had costume codes for people who went to Comic-Con, but that mostly just annoyed the people who didn't, so... yeah. And this had me concerned, because they were giving all the press over to the people coming after them, and the theory is that Champions Online will actually launch before the next round of these begins. While City of Heroes is very healthy, that still seemed like a mistake.
Well, now we know know what they were doing. They were letting the newcomers make their announcements in the midst of a crowded field of video game news... and now that we're at the end of the summer and the beginning of the runup to Christmas, they've announced their next free issue. It's called "Architect." Its subtitle might as well be "screw you, Champions Online."
Champions Online promises a huge amount of character customization, plus a Nemesis system. Both of these things are awesome. Well, City of Heroes is now officially launching the Mission Architect -- the long-alluded to system of player created content for City of Heroes. With the release of issue 13, players will be able to create their own missions, their own story arcs, their own plotlines. In short, anything that a player feels is lacking from the storyline of the game... Mission Architect will let them add in. And the developers will be reviewing the content -- and apparently, if the content is good enough, it'll be put front and center -- and potentially even made canon.
Seriously. Joe Morrissey -- who does storyline development and lots of other cool things -- had a presentation at PAX which was followed by a very brief appearance online on the Training Room test server, and one of the things he alluded to was that the Corolax storyline (it's involved) that was started back at the start of City of Villains and then never touched would be opened up to players to write as part of this feature, and that the best of it would go into the game. I suspect that "Developer's Choice" missions -- the stuff that the Dev Team finds among the top content created for the game -- might here or there actually go live. Meaning that players might -- might -- get the chance to actually have lasting impact on the game.
I have to admit, I am way looking forward to this system. I'm already speccing out story arcs and the missions to develop them. This is a chance to actually gamemaster in City of Heroes, and I'm very excited for this. In particular, it's a chance to really fill out City of Villains content -- to give villains a chance to fight heroes and the police instead of other villain groups. I have a whole set of Rogue Islands Police (RIP) plots in my brain. I also have a series of story arcs I want to tell in King's Row -- including one faux Task Force, with an involved storyline for lower level characters. I will spend weeks making content for people to play. I will live in this thing.
And of course, this will all be time that I'm not actually playing my characters -- but that's okay, because there's also an offline character development system going in with Issue 13. In effect, when you log a character out, that character will then go on to a day job, which is designated by the location he's logged out in. Log him out in the hospital, and he works in the medical field. Log him out in a university and he becomes a scholar. I dearly hope there's a place we can log out our characters that will designate them "Baristas" or "convenience store workers."
The time you spent logged out in that location will then give you buffs or bonuses when you log in, dependent on the day job you've been working on. And yes, you can have "fighting crime" (for a hero) or "committing crimes" (for a villain) as your day job.
So, I'll take breaks from writing mission content to log alts in, move them to where the work I want them to do is, and log them back out. And they will happily gather buffs while I create more and more stuff for other players to do. This issue is essentially like Crack Cocaine for me. Wednesday has been duly warned that I may become a horrible shut in during this time.
There's other announcements too, like Shields (at long last) for certain archetypes and a reverse Empathy powerset for villains called Pain Domination (I'll admit, I will have a Mastermind who has this power). And there's also Yet Another Economy being implemented (a Merit system to buy the specialty stuff you had to farm certain content for before). But honestly, with "create content" and "give your offline characters something to do," they had me pretty solidly.
Hand in hand with all this is movement towards hybridizing their economic model. While they're still subscription based and your subscription fees still get the regular (if slightly slower than earlier stated) free "issues" of upgraded content and gameplay, they're also introducing more inexpensive add-ons. There is a "Booster Pack" coming that will have cyborg costume parts and a bunch of new Emotes (not unlike the Wedding Pack from earlier this year), as well as a currently unspecified "new power." And, as part of a promotion, there are game cards that let new players get the game essentially free, with a five dollar thirty day "jet pack" power that essentially means they don't need to take travel powers if they don't want to. Existing players can get the cards, get a month of time, and get the jet pack. And they're promising that for five dollars, you can get a month of the jet pack if you like.
A lot of people think that's silly -- there's lots of temporary jet packs in the game, after all, and most people take travel powers. But I don't know. For five bucks a month -- one cup of coffee for those of us who like lattes -- you can zip through Mercy Island at level two and never, ever have to think about giving your character travel powers unless they're actually part of your character concept. That's tempting, to be honest. Plus the jet pack looks pretty Flash-Gordonesque.
These small payment options give the developers extra liquid cash to hire more developers, and it shows. The issues may not be coming as fast as we'd like, but they're getting increasingly ambitious. We're getting new systems, new functions. And if a recent survey conducted by a third party company on NCSoft's behalf is to be believed, we're moving towards a flexible alignment system that not only will incorporate side-switching but the concept of neutral or shades of grey characters, and there's even some implications that the long requested, often claimed to be technically unfeasible power customization system may be coming.
I'm stoked for Issue 13. And whatever else I might think of the way NCSoft is handling things, it's clear they're not about to make way for Champions Online without a fight. And for the first time in months, that fight looks like the advantage is to City of Heroes.
Game on, man. Game on.
Posted by Eric Burns-White in at 5:04 PM | Comments (9)
August 29, 2008
Eric: Also, I kind of miss the Volvo. But I'm weird.
(From Real Life Comics! Click on the thumbnail for full sized CLANG!)
I continue to follow Real Life Comics, generally happily so. However, there's a certain dynamic energy that it's been lacking of late. I've sometimes tried to figure out what it could be, mind -- it's not that Real Life Comics is bad, it's just not....
Oh God, here comes that phrase. That horrible, horrible phrase.
...it's just not what it was.
The phrase is horrible because it is both unreasonable and inevitable. No comic can remain what it was. None. Garfield today is not the same comic as Garfield in 1977. Blondie is massively different from when it started. The first days of Sheldon have a different feel than the most recent days of Sheldon. Webcomic, newspaper comic, pamphlet comic, or other -- time forces evolution of some kind.
It's unreasonable because it belies entitlement of the worst sort. "Oh. Well, I liked the strip before... so they should stay like that. Now it's different. It's just not what it was." It's the passive-aggressive variation on "you suck."
Which, you know, Real Life Comics... doesn't. It doesn't suck. It's pretty good. It's got good art and it's generally funny. I have no complaints. It's just... not what it was, you know? I couldn't get my brain around the concept better than that. I couldn't point to anything and say "this is what's changed." It was just there.
Which is one reason I haven't written about it much, lately. You remember E. Burns-White's Principle on Discourse from the last post, right? "Anytime you think something is self-evident? It's not." I couldn't write about Real Life Comics without asserting it's differences without demonstrating them. Which is high-falutin' for saying i couldn't back my words up.
And today, with Tony coming back in, I can. Suddenly, my thoughts have crystalized. I can write this post. Because today has the dynamic energy that it generally doesn't have, and I can put it to words.
For quite a while now, Real Life Comics has been too close to real life.
The joke of the comic's premise has always been that these are just 'real life comics.' Greg Dean is just documenting his daily routine. Nothing to see here. But of course, said real life included dimensional doors, sentient computers, time machines, death rays, and a universe where the Dreamcast was a successful gaming platform. There was a certain undercurrent of absurdity to everything. If Greg ate a whole box of Krispy Kreme donuts, he could gain superpowers. When new computers were constructed, sometimes they needed cooling towers. It wasn't just fantasy, it was absurdly unreal.
Now, that element hasn't completely disappeared. For several strips, Dean's been telling us about how drinking an energy shot has accidentally made him a supergenius. That's within the ballpark. However, things are generally more settled now. More grounded. Greg and Liz are married. They have jobs. They go out to movies. They point out the truly absurd aspects of life. And there is a sense that things are just... there. Settled. In a routine. Like most college students who's moved out into the world (with almost ten years' passage of time), the characters have gone into routine.
Today, though... today's a glimpse of that old energy. The frying pan to the back of Greg's head as "cure" harkens back to the truly absurd. It's not one step away from reality -- it's a full on lurch.
And I've missed that. Greg Dean (the cartoonist) has such a great sense of imagination -- such a grasp of the crazy -- that it's sad to see it gone from the strip most of the time. I'd love to see some full on adventures come back center stage. I'd love to see Greg and Liz accidentally fall through time to somewhen else and have to try and deal with it. I'd love to see the incarnate totality of X-Box Live gain sentience in their living room and call them infantile names.
Hell, you know what would be fun? Have some horrific experiment of Dave's send today's Greg back to 2000, and send that Greg to today. Just for a couple weeks, mind -- but if there's going to be contrast, revel in it.
Like I said above, Real Life Comics will never be what it was -- because it can't be. None of us can go back to what we were. (Says the man who's blogging the way he did four years ago and seeing how long it sticks.) But maybe what it was... can inform what it becomes.
Either way, I enjoyed that frying pan disproportionately much.
(Apropos of nothing -- the Real Life Support Group is being called upon by Greg and Liz, what for to help preserve Liz's education in the wake of the current economic climate. It's on their front page right now, down towards the bottom. Fly! Liz is cool people!)
Posted by Eric Burns-White in Webcomics at 5:21 PM | Comments (31)
August 28, 2008
Eric: The sad thing is, I generally preferred Siskel to Ebert.
Oh joy. It's another Zen and the Art of Criticism post. I'm sure you're all excited.
Like most people, I look at my various statistics. I like to know how many people come to the site, and how many of them have things to say, and how many of those things are good versus... well, not so kind. It's this thing one does. And most of us in fact do it.
Well, I saw an incoming link from Tad Williams's online forum, so I followed it to this discussion, which had been prompted by the Kurtz/Carlson thing, but (as with so many of these discussions) it had morphed into something else. The link in question described me as the "Roger Ebert" of Webcomics Criticism, which isn't the worst thing I've been called (one aspires to be the Pauline Kael of Webcomics Criticism, and fears becoming the Anthony Lane of Webcomics Criticism, but Ebert's a cool guy. I'm not nearly that good at what I do, mind, but still).
The question was raised, however -- well, let me quote "Rook," who was the guy kind enough to link me in the first place:
One of the things that kinda gets me is that works of art can be critiqued. But can critiques be critiqued? I suppose so, but that creates a weird feedback loop where there seems to be no end. Another thing is when you call a critic out on something, a typical response is, "Well, it's just a matter of opinion after all." Whereas an artwork, whether visual, written, or musical, has to stand for something.
Can critiques be critiqued? Can criticism be criticized?
Unquestionably, undoubtedly, and unreservedly yes. But we should discuss what we mean by criticism.
I've beaten this drum before, but there are really three definitions of criticism in use today, which have had the unfortunate effect of muddying the waters for everyone involved. In no particular order:
- Criticism is the interpretation or analysis of creative work, attempting to discern both technique and meaning within one of many potential contexts. This is the one Kris Straub will make fun of me over -- criticism in this definition refers to working out what an artist has done and how he has done it. While the analysis is necessarily subjective, this definition is less about judgement and more about interpretation. There are lots of "critical theories" that critics of this stripe subscribe to, ranging from traditional analysis through political filters like Marxism or Feminism (or any other -isms you care to apply) up to modern and post-modern theories like the (quite old) "New criticism" through the esoterica of Deconstructionism. When you read literary journals, this is ostensibly the kind of criticism you'll find.
- Criticism is the judgement rendered by (theoretically) qualified, (hopefully) impartial analyst over the effectiveness of given creative work at meeting its intentions and the suitability of the work to popular enjoyment. This is an overly highfalutin' way of saying "Critics review shit." This is the Roger Ebert side of Criticism -- it may touch on aesthetics or artistic merit or the like, but generally it says "this work is good and you should consume it" or "this work sucks and you should shun it," or some value in between the extremes. When we make references to film critics, book critics, theater critics, the old television cartoon The Critic or the like, almost always we're referring to Reviewers like this. Any time you've seen stars or thumbs as part of a criticial essay, you're reading a review.
- Criticism means pointing out the flaws in someone or someone's work. This is unquestionably the most popular day-to-day usage. "Do you mind some constructive criticism?" "To be critical for a moment...." "If you can't take criticism maybe you shouldn't ask my opinion." And so on and so forth. Criticism is innately negative, in this definition -- it isn't about what people do right, or how well a given work (or given person) accomplishes its goals, it's about they've done it wrong. Criticism is innately negative under this definition, and the only good that can come from it is reform.
You can see the problem, I trust. Someone can work diligently under the first definition of criticism and be conflated with the third by virtue of terminology. Reviewers and analysts becomes one thing, and the people who read their essays will expect elements of both somewhere in the work. It's not enough to describe how something is done -- the majority of the audience wants to hear whether or not the work's any damn good.
The relationship that each type of critic has with the artists they're referring to is different as well. The first type -- the analyst -- needs little and probably should have no direct connection to or influence on the critic they're analyzing. Seriously. Little to none. In literary criticism, for well over a hundred years, critics have asserted that "the author is dead," meaning that authorial intent -- what the author "meant to do" in his work -- was irrelevant to the interpretation of that work. Ray Bradbury can insist -- as he recently has -- that he never meant for Fahrenheit 451 to be about censorship. He meant for it to warn how television was and would destroy interest in reading. However, all the thousands of people who interpreted Fahrenheit 451 to be about censorship still saw it that way, whether Bradbury intended it or not, and the essays written supporting that contention aren't made wrong by authorial fiat.
But at the same time, if Bradbury decided to write a sequel tomorrow, he is under absolutely no obligation to write that sequel with the popular interpretation in mind, no matter how popular it may be. He may and should proceed from his own contentions and create the work he wants to read. And no one -- absolutely no one -- can tell him he's wrong when it comes out. No matter how brilliant and well supported the analysis and interpretation of a given critic, the author does not and never will answer to that critic. And that's entirely as it should be.
The second type of critic -- the reviewer -- is certainly important to artists, especially if they have some traction among the audience the artist is trying to attract. Certainly, every artist hopes for "good reviews," even if the artist has no intention of reading them. Good reviews mean more audience. Good reviews mean more money to buy food to keep the artist alive while he writes the next work that goes down the line. And whether or not artists should be influenced by their reviews, for the most part they are influenced by their reviews. It's coldly cynical, but it's true. If ten people review a book written by an author, and eight of them pan it and say he spends too much time on strawman arguments between characters and not enough on plot, the author's way more likely to make the next book plot heavy. He wants to sell copies, and reviewers are a means to that end. This can lead down bad directions, as an author who just writes to the reviewers' expectations can become artistically bankrupt -- possibly getting good notices and making some good sales, but producing forgettable works that have no long term staying power. And never forget -- some very popular works have been trashed by reviewers (which is how Rob Schneider still has a career) and creative works that were critically panned upon their release have sometimes absolutely stood the test of time and been acclaimed as masterpieces.
The third type of critic -- the so-called constructive (or destructive) critic is a very weird case. There are times their observations are spot on, and an artist would be well advised to consider them as they move forward. At other times, they lead to the destruction of the creative process -- the artist becomes paralyzed, unable to proceed because of the harsh words of a few, and all too often destructive critics aren't representative of popular opinion. An artist's best course of action is to find those readers whose opinions they trust and filter negative criticism through them.
I mention the artists above essentially to dispose of them. The question at the top of the essay remains. Can criticism be criticized?
I was unequivocal in saying 'yes.' Of course criticism can be criticized. More to the point, all criticism is subject to all three definitions of criticism given above, just like any other produced work, regardless if the criticism itself falls under the first, second or third definition.
Let's take them in order, shall we? We'll take an example of each definition of criticism at work, and we'll describe how each interacts with the three types of criticism being levied towards them:
Case 1: A scholarly essay analyzing a webcomic for both technique and interpretation.
A first definition (Scholarly) Critic would analyze the essay's techniques, interpreting language and showing appropriate context either within the essay or surrounding the essay to describe how the essayist analyzed the webcomic and intuit the philosophy behind the essay. The essentially philosophical field of Critical Theory is entirely devoted to the analysis of analysis. This is one reason Critical Theory gets mocked -- it seems self-referential and masturbatory. However, what the field is doing is less about literature (or other forms of artistic expression) and more about how we see literature or art as a whole. What is being analyzed is our eye, not what it sees. It is specialist work, often only of interest to specialists. Some truly great work has come out of these impulses (Coleridge's Biographia Literaria springs to mind), as well as many many thousands of pages of sheer, unmitigated bullshit. As always, the truth lies in the eye of the beholder.
A second definition (Reviewer) Critic would look at the essay's effectiveness. Consider the professor of literature, receiving a paper that compares Clive Cussler to Geoffrey Chaucer. That professor isn't looking at the paper's startling insights, typically -- the professor is trying to figure out if the student effectively stated his thesis and then supported it in the body of the work. If he did, even if the professor disagrees with the student's thesis, he should grade it well. The student has done his work effectively. If he didn't, even if the professor agrees with the student's thesis, he should grade it poorly. The student has failed to write a good essay. Applying this logic to a critic writing about the Case 1 essay -- a critic will review the essay based on the usual criteria. Was the essay well written? Did it make its point? Was its point well supported? And -- and I can't emphasize this enough -- was it entertaining to read? Essays of all stripes written for the public arena are themselves meant to be entertaining as well as educational. If your essay is boring (I know, you're thinking I might be calling the kettle black with this one) then even if you're right you've failed, because no one will stick around. He might not grade the paper (though, y'know, star reviews and other silly devices come into play), but his subjective impression will still inform others. And the essayist's credibility as a critic may well come into play.
A third definition (Negative) Critic would go into what the essayist did wrong. This is less about the technique of the essay or the effectiveness of the essay, and more about the flaws of the essay. This is the first area where the actual subject matter of the essay comes into play -- if a negative critic disagrees with the essay's point, he is going to judge it harshly. Even if he does agree with the essay, he's the fellow who'll gladly poke holes in the essay's points or evidence -- all the better to force the essayist to write a tighter piece next time, or so he thinks.
Case 2: A generally positive review of a webcomic's latest story arc.
The Scholarly critic would analyze the criteria a reviewer brought to his review -- examining the elements the reviewer found to be important and assessing the technique the reviewer used to develop his overall opinion. The scholar would likely take a scholarly interpretation of the webcomic itself -- as well as other reviews written about that webcomic -- and use it to illustrate the reviewer's philosophy.
A Reviewer might review the review (man, this is getting funky to type) both as entertainment -- was the review worth reading on its own merits? -- and as a statement about the webcomic. If the (second) reviewer disagreed with the first review's contentions, he may well review the webcomic himself as a means of highlighting the areas where the first review was weak, and use that as evidence to demonstrate the review's effectiveness (or lack thereof). These kinds of things can get heated.
A Negative critic will attack the review's weak points, obviously. Much of the time, this will be fueled by a disagreement with the review's result. Perhaps the negative critic hates the comic the review spoke positively of, and therefore the negative criticism will lash into those points the review makes to support its positive impression. Or, perhaps the negative critic thinks the areas that the review found to be weak were in fact not weak, and so the negative critic punches holes in those arguments. Or perhaps the negative critic will just think the reviewer had his head up his ass and make fun of perceived sexual preferences. It's been known to happen.
Case 3: A snark filled rending of a webcomic's failings.
The Scholarly critic might well analyze the snarker's underlying intentions -- perhaps looking at more than one rant to find commonality. Or the critic might examine the use of humor as a means of blunting (or sharpening) the hostile intent of the negative criticisms.
The Reviewer, as always, will look at the effectiveness of the rant. Many of the most vitriolic negative essays on the internet are meant primarily as entertainment. Television Without Pity doesn't lay into its subjects because they really hope the producers of America's Got Talent will reform their ways. They're trying to entertain their readers. A reviewer will look to see if they manage it -- and will try to tell the difference between a hate filled genius with words and a subliterate monkey hurling feces against the wall.
The negative critic, naturally enough, is there to tear into the snark filled rending with choice criticism of their own. All too often, negative criticism fails to be convincing -- in part because often a negative critic thinks his criticisms are self-evident (The E. Burns-White Principle of Discourse: any time you think something is self-evident? It isn't.) and therefore are unsupported. Or sometimes the snarker's points are (to the negative critic) just plain wrong. And of course, sometimes the techniques they're using detract from their point instead of make it, and the negative critic helpfully points those problems out.
For the record? I have written criticisms of all three varieties for Websnark. No one is superior to any other. I'll admit I usually strive to be a first definition (scholarly) critic, in part because that's what I enjoy. I certainly do indulge in review now and again (the "State of the Webcartoonist series" is nothing but review, really). And every so often, my essay is just there to point out something I think is wrong. Also for the record? Everything I write is meant to at least entertain. Maybe some essays are meant to entertain smaller audiences (I doubt the audience for this particular essay is as broad as, say, my essay on Garfield without speech balloons), but they're meant to entertain someone. And when I put something up, I'm opening it to the scholarly discourse, presenting it for others to judge, and inviting folks to tell me just how wrong I am. Just like every other website on the world wide web. It's the nature of the beast -- when you produce, even if what you're producing is criticism, you become grist for all kinds of critical mills.
2,700 words on critical theory. Jesus, we really are back in 2005 on here.
Posted by Eric Burns-White in Philosophical Snarks at 1:40 PM | Comments (26)
Eric: Next, I fully expect we'll be introduced to an irish anthropomorphic fish with sleep inducing powers dressed as a 1920's Chicago Gangster.
(From Evil, Inc. Click on the thumbnail for full sized flashback!)
For the record, I smirked.
Also for the record, one doesn't go to Brad Guigar in the first place if they're not prepared for the occasional pun.
However, I put it to you, the assemblage. How far is too far when setting up said pun?
Posted by Eric Burns-White in Webcomics at 11:26 AM | Comments (14)
August 27, 2008
Eric: It is worth noting I often hear Oompa music when I read XKCD. I have no idea why.
(From Sarah Zero! Click on the update for full sized riddlin'!)
The thing about Sarah Zero is the soundtrack.
I can't describe it -- not really. There's only one language to articulate the music in your head, and while I can read music and I can imagine music, I can't write music. I don't have the theory, the understanding of the relationships. I can't take the music in my head and put it down on paper.
But reading Sarah Zero, I can hear it. So very, very clearly. I can hear the angry base, the distortion on the guitars. I can hear Randy Bachman fighting it out with Flea. Every panel, every page of Sarah Zero gets louder and angrier and sometimes quieter and sadder. Music evokes. Music entices. Music enflames. And music destroys.
What is it about Sarah Zero?
One of the things that happens in webcomics is graphic design. To be a webcartoonist you must create imagery, but to present imagery on a page you have to design that page. It may be web design or page design or print design but at its core it is graphic design, and a good number of fantastic artists make for terrible graphic designers. Despite everything, they are two different skillsets, and while some of that is language -- sometimes, the artist can see the web site in their head but they lack the XHTML and CSS to put it on the page -- a lot of it is a different sense of understanding. An understanding of whitespace, of navigation, of leading the eye. It's not just panel arrangement, it's comprehension.
In the old days, essays were called compositions. It's why we still take "English Composition" in college. And in the end, graphic design is to sequential art as composition is to writing. It is the framework, that presents the thesis. It is the structure that tells the story. It is the gateway into the brain.
We compose.
Just like the composer penning notes in 3/4 time, arranging measures and considering individual instruments. Each musician in the piece will be playing music, but if they all come together -- if they all play at exactly the right moments -- the whole weaves together into a tapestry vastly greater than any one piccolo player can produce.
One of the things about the artist? (The artist who identifies as both Stef and Ace Plughead, so takes your choice.) The artist is a graphic designer. This site is entirely devoted to the presentation of content. It doesn't use Flash or any weird barriers. It slams the visuals full size right into your brain, getting out of the way while remaining accessible.
So too there are the panels themselves. Each panel is self contained -- a statement that stands alone. The juxtaposition of text, image and concept. There aren't word balloons here. You're never sure if the voice you hear is literally or internally speaking. And there is no detail that seems to small not to work in. Have a look at page 264 -- two panel spread, but within the two panel spread you have a secondary layout; a grid format working in whitespace easily recognizable to a desktop publisher in 1992 and just as recognizable to a web developer today. Every word works into the grid, and at the same time every link and icon is its own angry satire. Panel 2 becomes almost Russian Realism as done for the MTV generation. Less defined, more defiant.
I burned through the whole archives. They lend themselves to that. And through it all, I heard the music.
I'll be honest -- part of me wonders if I should put Sarah Zero aside until it's finished. It's got such a strong sense of connection -- such a strong sense of one page building from the last, that reading a new page in near isolation doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. I'd forget too much of what I'd seen. I'd have to start anew every time. Possibly it's better to wait until the whole is done, and experience the composition in its entirety.
Either way, this is a Hell of a way to start a morning.
Posted by Eric Burns-White in Webcomics at 10:39 AM | Comments (9)
August 26, 2008
Eric: The Surgeon General has generally recommended pregnant women or women who are nursing avoid Potions of Heroism. Consult your Healer with questions or to see if Potions of Heroism are right for you.
(From The Order of the Stick! Click on the thumbnail for full sized stereotypical cravings!)
With the end of the last major storyline, Rich Burlew took the opportunity to divide his cast while putting the Order's leader -- action Roy Greenhilt -- out of contact through death. While this greatly increased his storytelling abilities -- letting him progress to a certain point on one side, then moving to the other where enough has happened to put things into a whole new in media res situation -- the other advantage this has granted is an increased secondary cast. Each subgroup of the Order of the Stick has its own supporting cast, its own antagonists, and its own situations to work through. Where once the strip was essentially the primary adventurers and their primary antagonists, now Burlew has a device that lets him develop his world and the people who live in it.
These two -- Kazumi Kato and her husband Daigo (last name withheld in case of emergency as an anti Redshirt function) -- are probably my favorite of these new supporting character. Two soldiers who have become adventurers, the pair has developed a relationship on the periphery of the Order's activities, culminating in their marriage and Kazumi's pregnancy. On the one hand, the pair have become yet another example of the various d20 jokes and roleplaying convention parodies that populate the strip. On the other, they're just a nice example of a couple of budding heroes who have essentially no angst in them no matter what's happening around them. Sure, their city's been invaded and occupied, their liege is on the run for his life, and there's always the danger of Ninja Attack, but on the other hand they're gaining levels and they have each other, and they're pretty happy.
That may be about to change, with Daigo unconscious and Kazumi fighting for her life while many months pregnant... but with today's strip, I can't say I'm seeing any down side. Frankly, this made me laugh for fifty-two minutes straight, and even now I find myself muttering "why should I care how many people I have to kill? I can just make more in my TUMMY!" and giggling all over again.
In a way, this is the fantasy equivalent of one of my favorite Super Stupor strips. In lots of fiction, the most kick-ass of women becomes little more than a helpless plot device, unable to do anything to save herself when someone shows up to kill her -- at least until some (male) hero comes and saves her helpless pregnant body.
Not so here. Burlew put Daigo down fast, and let the "helpless" Kazumi to herself. And, flush with hormones and righteous anger, she has proceeded to slaughter all in her way. It's not like she's endangering her unborn child more than helplessly waiting to be stabbed, after all. And she is, in the end, a hero, and the idea that a pack of low level ninja assassins are going to take her down just because -- in her words -- "her egg's perimeter was breached" is just plain ridiculous.
Power to her. Win or lose, triumph or tragedy, this was downright kick-ass.
Posted by Eric Burns-White in Webcomics at 12:20 PM | Comments (13)
