I've spent the last month reading the diary of Samuel Pepys, but as of today -- only one-third through the "Everyman" edition -- I'm calling it quits. No more Pepys for me!
Why?
I have an obsessive, completist nature; I can't stand reading only ONE book in a series, or owning only ONE album by a band. I need to indulge in media either wholly or not at all...if something is missing I feel like I'm losing the soul or sense of the thing.
It's very difficult to get a complete and unabridged set of Pepys' diaries...they tend to be sporadically released by small publishers, and even then you're not guaranteed a COMPLETE unabridgement. You see, Pepys wrote his diaries in a cryptic shorthand that has been translated variously by different people over the centuries...and, what's more, many of those translators wanted to protect the virgin minds of their Victorian-era readers.
I was aware that my "Everyman" edition was abridged, and I'd convinced myself that the editor had removed only the tedious Parliamentary details, but had retained all the stuff that would really communicate to me what Pepys' life and times were all about.
Sadly, after comparing it with the mostly-unabridged Pepys Blog (and the commentary which reveals the somehow-gleaned unexpurgated copy whenever necessary) I see that much of the human interest stuff HAS been removed, and anything racy was COMPLETELY edited out (in my edition, the footnotes keep saying things like "This passage is too vulgar for printing"). To hell with that! I want to know WHAT that drunken Lord was doing on the balcony, and I REALLY want to know what he was "washing" in his drink.
Now that I realize how little of the actual diary is contained in my two-volume edition I'm forced to put it aside. If I DO come across a complete version someday -- preferably one with useful footnotes -- I'll be happy to read it. But for now...no.
Regarding Pepys himself, I've tried to form an impression of the man, but it's difficult to do from this source material. I wonder how much the shorthand aspect ended up dictating his writing style. Also, while Pepys was very curious about all the events around him, he was somewhat lax about actually DESCRIBING them (at least in my edition). He says that events are "exceedingly exciting" or "most displeasing," and women are "the most beautiful" he has ever seen, but he never tells us WHY.
What's more there is no window into his own opinions, except for the most basic details. He will mention arguments he had with various people but he doesn't go into any of them in depth. You're left wondering who this staircase-building, monkey-beating, money-dispensing fellow REALLY WAS.
I liked the diaries and I was getting quite involved with the various intrigues -- the case brought against him in court, the King's philandering, his wife's dancing lessons -- but I never felt that I knew who Samuel Pepys WAS...and I can't bear wondering how much was cut from the text before I ever got to it.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Recent Neglect of Blog
Since you asked (Kimber!) and since I can score more points with an actual blog ENTRY as opposed to just a COMMENT, let me explain why I haven't been blogging recently.
First off, everything that I'm doing is a "coming up" thing; I have plenty of projects and plans on the go, but I've learned not to talk about those things until they actually happen. As soon as I write about them they appear mundane or flawed. It's sometimes just best to keep yourself idealistic.
The MAIN issue, however, is that my blogging routine has been disrupted.
I used to write entries early in the morning -- before going to work -- and sometimes in the evenings. But since my cat is now eating soft food, enough of my morning routine has been taken up by washing her food dish, scraping out new food, and storing the scraps she hasn't eaten. That alone has edged "blogging" (and "reading the New Yorker") temporarily off my morning schedule.
It doesn't help that, ever since she got sick last month, she spends every moment possible on my lap. It isn't easy to type with a cat on your lap. Currently my left wrist is under her chin and my right one is bent out around her back.
Then, I've been spending a few hours each night digitizing, cataloging, and burning old master tapes of music...those tapes won't last forever, and the ancient 4-track recorder will someday break down. Before that happens I want to get everything of interest off those tapes and onto CD.
So rather than sit down and write an entry at night, I'm sitting down and dumping old sound experiments from 1994 onto my computer. When I'm done that I hardly feel like sitting anymore, so I get up and do other things. No blogging!
But this kind of thing happens now and then and I always come around. I'll find ways of rearranging my schedule and I'll get back on track. So keep checking the blog...it's not dead!
First off, everything that I'm doing is a "coming up" thing; I have plenty of projects and plans on the go, but I've learned not to talk about those things until they actually happen. As soon as I write about them they appear mundane or flawed. It's sometimes just best to keep yourself idealistic.
The MAIN issue, however, is that my blogging routine has been disrupted.
I used to write entries early in the morning -- before going to work -- and sometimes in the evenings. But since my cat is now eating soft food, enough of my morning routine has been taken up by washing her food dish, scraping out new food, and storing the scraps she hasn't eaten. That alone has edged "blogging" (and "reading the New Yorker") temporarily off my morning schedule.
It doesn't help that, ever since she got sick last month, she spends every moment possible on my lap. It isn't easy to type with a cat on your lap. Currently my left wrist is under her chin and my right one is bent out around her back.
Then, I've been spending a few hours each night digitizing, cataloging, and burning old master tapes of music...those tapes won't last forever, and the ancient 4-track recorder will someday break down. Before that happens I want to get everything of interest off those tapes and onto CD.
So rather than sit down and write an entry at night, I'm sitting down and dumping old sound experiments from 1994 onto my computer. When I'm done that I hardly feel like sitting anymore, so I get up and do other things. No blogging!
But this kind of thing happens now and then and I always come around. I'll find ways of rearranging my schedule and I'll get back on track. So keep checking the blog...it's not dead!
Monday, October 06, 2008
Dr. Seuss and Flit: "What Ho!"
What ho, vassal, it's a new Flit cartoon by Dr. Seuss! Well, new in a sense that *I* hadn't seen it yet, though it was published in the April 20, 1929 issue of The New Yorker.It's a good thing I've been so interested in medieval England lately. Therefore I can state with confidence that this cartoon is 100% accurate, right down to the dog-skin throne-warmer (with head attached!)
Also note the Duke of York's bulge, there.
Sunday, October 05, 2008
BARTH
Last year at this time I subjected myself to a gruelling "Barthathon," an attempt to read every John Barth book in chronological order. Read the posts if you want to know how THAT turned out.
I can't see myself ever reading another book by Barth, but I DID run across an interesting thing in "The Best of Creative Computing," published in 1976.
Anybody who grew up during the beginning of the 8-bit personal computer glut will remember those awful BASIC programs that tried to be INTERACTIVE. Written at a time when average people were still getting used to the idea of computers in general, a program that would ask you your name and then play "Guess My Number" seemed like magic...
...until you learned a bit of BASIC and saw that it was just smoke and mirrors. Those programs were intended for absolute beginners who had no idea about how computers worked, and I imagine even those beginners got sick of the concept pretty quickly (though "ELIZA" and "Animal" were special).
In the quest to make computers friendly, programmers in the '70s often tried to make them seem creative, at the same time tossing an educational bone to keep their programs from getting deleted off the mainframe. Larry Press' article "Computers in the English Curriculum" absolutely reeks of this stuff.
Page two of the article shows the output of a program called "BARTH," meant to emulate some of Barth's interactive-reader experiments from the '70s. It's much the same as all the other programs of its type -- enter verbs, nouns, and adjectives, which are embedded into print statements to create a nonsense story -- but DOES have the distinction of being perhaps the only John Barth video game ever created.
Incidentally, Margaret Chisman's "Producing Computer Poetry" is another example of creative-educational computer blah, notable most for how far we've come in our concept of computing (and how quickly we lost our naivete). My favourite article in that issue of Creative Computing, however, is one by Wes Thomas, in which he becomes extremely annoyed by precocious children at a computer fair.
This is SO bizarre:
I can't see myself ever reading another book by Barth, but I DID run across an interesting thing in "The Best of Creative Computing," published in 1976.
Anybody who grew up during the beginning of the 8-bit personal computer glut will remember those awful BASIC programs that tried to be INTERACTIVE. Written at a time when average people were still getting used to the idea of computers in general, a program that would ask you your name and then play "Guess My Number" seemed like magic...
...until you learned a bit of BASIC and saw that it was just smoke and mirrors. Those programs were intended for absolute beginners who had no idea about how computers worked, and I imagine even those beginners got sick of the concept pretty quickly (though "ELIZA" and "Animal" were special).
In the quest to make computers friendly, programmers in the '70s often tried to make them seem creative, at the same time tossing an educational bone to keep their programs from getting deleted off the mainframe. Larry Press' article "Computers in the English Curriculum" absolutely reeks of this stuff.
Page two of the article shows the output of a program called "BARTH," meant to emulate some of Barth's interactive-reader experiments from the '70s. It's much the same as all the other programs of its type -- enter verbs, nouns, and adjectives, which are embedded into print statements to create a nonsense story -- but DOES have the distinction of being perhaps the only John Barth video game ever created.
Incidentally, Margaret Chisman's "Producing Computer Poetry" is another example of creative-educational computer blah, notable most for how far we've come in our concept of computing (and how quickly we lost our naivete). My favourite article in that issue of Creative Computing, however, is one by Wes Thomas, in which he becomes extremely annoyed by precocious children at a computer fair.
This is SO bizarre:
The Greyhound Bus From Hell
I really don't mind taking the Greyhound. I'm always stressed about arriving on time, and I'll never understand their "don't board the bus until five minutes before departure" policy, but the trip is relatively comfortable and cheap.
Last week I wrote about the gashed-up razor-eater who skulked around the Toronto terminal until he was ejected. This week...
I took the bus on Saturday morning so I could vote in the TICOT elections. After only fifteen minutes in Toronto I returned to the bus terminal and waited to catch the return trip home.
There was only one other person waiting when I got there. Let's call him "Chatty O'Stink." He was borderline homeless and exuded an amazing stench, which he occasionally made worse by splashing perfume on himself. Mr. O'Stink REALLY wanted to talk to me, asking me all sorts of things about where I lived and why I was in Toronto. When I retreated into my book, he started touching the pages and asking me what I was reading.
"The Diary of Samuel Pepys," I said, knowing I'd never be able to explain this to him.
"I don't have any book-learning," he told me. "Can't even read and write. Didn't realize it until I was forty! Hey, did you know that Alice Cooper is coming to Kitchener?"
Chatty O'Stink wasn't a bad person, I just didn't want to get saddled with him, let alone sit next to his horrible body on the bus. So I stopped answering his questions and he eventually left me alone.
Lucky for me, though, the next arrival was a pre-teen boy with a skateboard who was either mentally handicapped or had just smoked a joint. He was frightened by Chatty O'Stink -- who was now walking around in circles and singing -- so I guess he thought I'd be a good ally against the Big Scary World. He kept turning his huge dilated pupils at me and making truncated observations like "Cold out here" and "That bus is big." He edged closer and closer. So I had to ignore him as well.
There I was, trapped between a guy who stank like the world's dirtiest armpit and a kid on drugs.
Then The Farmer arrived.
The Farmer was a short, stocky guy wearing a straw hat, except that the center portion of the hat was gone, leaving only the brim. He began to talk to Chatty O'Stink, but soon he was yelling in a way that reminded me of a big dog barking. "I DON'T CARE IF THEY DO IT, BUT DO THEY GOTTA BRAG ABOUT IT?" he screamed. "ASSF*CKERS!"
Soon The Farmer was walking up and down the growing line of passengers, by turns calm and agitated ("I HAD A BAD F*CKING DAAAAAAY!!!"). Even Chatty O'Stink became frightened, and he went to find the security guards. "That guy's crazy," said the wide-eyed pre-teen, holding his skateboard like a stuffed toy. "This line is big."
By the time the security guards arrived, The Farmer had disappeared and we'd begun boarding the bus. Chatty O'Stink chose the front seat and I sat far enough back to avoid his smell.
Suddenly, Chatty jumped up and started whispering to the bus driver. "That's him!" he was saying, pointing out the door. "That's the guy in the hat!"
"A seat's a seat," said the bus driver. The next thing we knew The Farmer had boarded the bus...and sat down next to Chatty. Things were tense.
All good things come in threes, of course. Our next wonderful passenger was a drunken red-faced guy wearing sunglasses who sat directly behind The Farmer. This was like an intricate chess problem being constructed, the kind where everybody ends up dying.
The drunk noticed that none of the seats in the bus had headrests. "This is a liability!" he kept saying. "There isn't a single seat in this bus with a head rest!"
"You're talking to the wrong guy," said the bus driver simply.
"Just don't drive like a maniac! I don't wanna get whiplash, man."
"You can get out now if you like."
"Oh, no no no." He kept looking for confirmation from the other passengers that he was making a valid point, turning around and staring and shaking his head. Then he'd get up and wander halfway down the aisle, make a sound of disgust, then come back to his seat again.
He had to make a big show of how much neck support he required, so he clumsily opened the overhead compartment to get his jacket out and make a pillow out of it...
...and he knocked The Farmer's straw hat off.
We froze. All of us were staring. We'd seen The Farmer's level of emotional stability in the terminal and we'd found it lacking. The Farmer picked up his hat, sat back down, and began to flip his head forward and backward, apparently to straighten out his hair. Then his head began to oscillate slowly from side to side as Chatty O'Stinky leaned as far away as possible. I felt very sorry for him.
The bus driver started the bus, and he announced that we'd be making the usual stop in Cambridge on the way to Kitchener. "WHAT?!?" yelled the drunk. "What's this about CAMBRIDGE?!?"
"It's on the schedule" said the bus driver.
"How long's that gonna take?"
"Fifteen minutes or so."
"That's bullsh*t" said the drunk, turning his red face to his fellow passengers to bask in their adulation.
The Farmer turned around and said "You could always walk."
Ooooo. Total silence now. I'm sure I wasn't the only one considering exiting the bus. This could NOT be a happy ending...
...but somehow it WAS. You know how some tough guys sort of half-wilt when their bluff is called, and their derision turns to respect? The driver had been polite and unyielding, and now The Farmer had dealt with him. Somehow this defused all of the drunk's anger. Within fifteen minutes the four of them -- the drunk, the driver, The Farmer, AND Chatty O'Stink -- were deep in a discussion about hockey, though The Farmer kept getting distracted by the voices in his head. He wanted to talk about all the bus rides he'd ever taken. Occasionally the drunk would retreat to the bathroom and come out stinking of booze, rubbing his little red eyes and massaging his unsupported neck.
What's going on? After fifteen years of trouble-free bus rides, suddenly I'm stuck dealing with crazy people, with the added bonus of a few recent stabbings to keep us on edge. Are they giving bus passes to these people just to get them out of town?
I leave you with The Farmer's favourite joke, which he made up on the spot and seemed to find delightful. While we were stopped in Cambridge, The Farmer wanted to stand up and go for a walk. Chatty O'Stinky told him not to. "They won't let you off, they won't let you off." He said.
"UNLESS YOU COUGH!" yelled The Farmer, and he laughed and laughed and laughed.
Last week I wrote about the gashed-up razor-eater who skulked around the Toronto terminal until he was ejected. This week...
I took the bus on Saturday morning so I could vote in the TICOT elections. After only fifteen minutes in Toronto I returned to the bus terminal and waited to catch the return trip home.
There was only one other person waiting when I got there. Let's call him "Chatty O'Stink." He was borderline homeless and exuded an amazing stench, which he occasionally made worse by splashing perfume on himself. Mr. O'Stink REALLY wanted to talk to me, asking me all sorts of things about where I lived and why I was in Toronto. When I retreated into my book, he started touching the pages and asking me what I was reading.
"The Diary of Samuel Pepys," I said, knowing I'd never be able to explain this to him.
"I don't have any book-learning," he told me. "Can't even read and write. Didn't realize it until I was forty! Hey, did you know that Alice Cooper is coming to Kitchener?"
Chatty O'Stink wasn't a bad person, I just didn't want to get saddled with him, let alone sit next to his horrible body on the bus. So I stopped answering his questions and he eventually left me alone.
Lucky for me, though, the next arrival was a pre-teen boy with a skateboard who was either mentally handicapped or had just smoked a joint. He was frightened by Chatty O'Stink -- who was now walking around in circles and singing -- so I guess he thought I'd be a good ally against the Big Scary World. He kept turning his huge dilated pupils at me and making truncated observations like "Cold out here" and "That bus is big." He edged closer and closer. So I had to ignore him as well.
There I was, trapped between a guy who stank like the world's dirtiest armpit and a kid on drugs.
Then The Farmer arrived.
The Farmer was a short, stocky guy wearing a straw hat, except that the center portion of the hat was gone, leaving only the brim. He began to talk to Chatty O'Stink, but soon he was yelling in a way that reminded me of a big dog barking. "I DON'T CARE IF THEY DO IT, BUT DO THEY GOTTA BRAG ABOUT IT?" he screamed. "ASSF*CKERS!"
Soon The Farmer was walking up and down the growing line of passengers, by turns calm and agitated ("I HAD A BAD F*CKING DAAAAAAY!!!"). Even Chatty O'Stink became frightened, and he went to find the security guards. "That guy's crazy," said the wide-eyed pre-teen, holding his skateboard like a stuffed toy. "This line is big."
By the time the security guards arrived, The Farmer had disappeared and we'd begun boarding the bus. Chatty O'Stink chose the front seat and I sat far enough back to avoid his smell.
Suddenly, Chatty jumped up and started whispering to the bus driver. "That's him!" he was saying, pointing out the door. "That's the guy in the hat!"
"A seat's a seat," said the bus driver. The next thing we knew The Farmer had boarded the bus...and sat down next to Chatty. Things were tense.
All good things come in threes, of course. Our next wonderful passenger was a drunken red-faced guy wearing sunglasses who sat directly behind The Farmer. This was like an intricate chess problem being constructed, the kind where everybody ends up dying.
The drunk noticed that none of the seats in the bus had headrests. "This is a liability!" he kept saying. "There isn't a single seat in this bus with a head rest!"
"You're talking to the wrong guy," said the bus driver simply.
"Just don't drive like a maniac! I don't wanna get whiplash, man."
"You can get out now if you like."
"Oh, no no no." He kept looking for confirmation from the other passengers that he was making a valid point, turning around and staring and shaking his head. Then he'd get up and wander halfway down the aisle, make a sound of disgust, then come back to his seat again.
He had to make a big show of how much neck support he required, so he clumsily opened the overhead compartment to get his jacket out and make a pillow out of it...
...and he knocked The Farmer's straw hat off.
We froze. All of us were staring. We'd seen The Farmer's level of emotional stability in the terminal and we'd found it lacking. The Farmer picked up his hat, sat back down, and began to flip his head forward and backward, apparently to straighten out his hair. Then his head began to oscillate slowly from side to side as Chatty O'Stinky leaned as far away as possible. I felt very sorry for him.
The bus driver started the bus, and he announced that we'd be making the usual stop in Cambridge on the way to Kitchener. "WHAT?!?" yelled the drunk. "What's this about CAMBRIDGE?!?"
"It's on the schedule" said the bus driver.
"How long's that gonna take?"
"Fifteen minutes or so."
"That's bullsh*t" said the drunk, turning his red face to his fellow passengers to bask in their adulation.
The Farmer turned around and said "You could always walk."
Ooooo. Total silence now. I'm sure I wasn't the only one considering exiting the bus. This could NOT be a happy ending...
...but somehow it WAS. You know how some tough guys sort of half-wilt when their bluff is called, and their derision turns to respect? The driver had been polite and unyielding, and now The Farmer had dealt with him. Somehow this defused all of the drunk's anger. Within fifteen minutes the four of them -- the drunk, the driver, The Farmer, AND Chatty O'Stink -- were deep in a discussion about hockey, though The Farmer kept getting distracted by the voices in his head. He wanted to talk about all the bus rides he'd ever taken. Occasionally the drunk would retreat to the bathroom and come out stinking of booze, rubbing his little red eyes and massaging his unsupported neck.
What's going on? After fifteen years of trouble-free bus rides, suddenly I'm stuck dealing with crazy people, with the added bonus of a few recent stabbings to keep us on edge. Are they giving bus passes to these people just to get them out of town?
I leave you with The Farmer's favourite joke, which he made up on the spot and seemed to find delightful. While we were stopped in Cambridge, The Farmer wanted to stand up and go for a walk. Chatty O'Stinky told him not to. "They won't let you off, they won't let you off." He said.
"UNLESS YOU COUGH!" yelled The Farmer, and he laughed and laughed and laughed.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Muffy vs. Palin
I don't believe it. I'm actually going to watch the Palin/Biden Vice Presidential debate. I even have my Palin Bingo card.
Why am I so interested? Because I want to believe that slick, deceptive, and ignorant people are totally naked under a spotlight, though I know that isn't usually true. Chances are she'll do just fine...this is a debate, not an interview.
But oh, if she says something vacuous and stupid I'll be SO vindicated.
Why am I so interested? Because I want to believe that slick, deceptive, and ignorant people are totally naked under a spotlight, though I know that isn't usually true. Chances are she'll do just fine...this is a debate, not an interview.
But oh, if she says something vacuous and stupid I'll be SO vindicated.
I'd Buy Anything By...My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult
I was first exposed to My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult when their "And This Is What The Devil Does" video premiered on City Limits:
I bought and loved their first few albums, but as I grew into an angst-riddled adult I felt betrayed by the band's new direction.
You see, originally they were a Ministry-esque industrial kooks in the classic style with a special fetish for religion, drugs, and sex. With the release of their "Kooler Than Jesus" single, however, they began to move into a more flippant dance style, and when "Sexplosion!" came out -- a collection of cheap disco songs with nary a reference to religion OR drugs, I decided I was much too cool for them...though I've always loved "Sex On Wheels."
It took me many years -- and many subsequent albums -- to realize that I continue to like the band no matter which direction they go. They've experimented with techno, funk, and psychedelia, and while they never COMPLETELY pull anything off -- usually because of their overused set of cheesy synth patches -- they still have enough creativity and panache to make me halfway happy.
I have never seen them live, which is probably a good thing because the YouTube clips are atrocious. But their studio albums remain just this side of worthwhile, and at the very least they remind me of how far I've come since I was a depressed layabout.
Albums to buy: "I See Good Spirits and I See Bad Spirits" (for their dirty industrial sound) and "The Reincarnation of Luna" (for the psychedelic phase). Albums to avoid: "Sexplosion!" (which really DOES suck) and "Hit & Run Holiday" (just monotonous). For fans only: Their "Kult Kollection" DVD, which serves to remind me why I both love AND hate the band.
I bought and loved their first few albums, but as I grew into an angst-riddled adult I felt betrayed by the band's new direction.
You see, originally they were a Ministry-esque industrial kooks in the classic style with a special fetish for religion, drugs, and sex. With the release of their "Kooler Than Jesus" single, however, they began to move into a more flippant dance style, and when "Sexplosion!" came out -- a collection of cheap disco songs with nary a reference to religion OR drugs, I decided I was much too cool for them...though I've always loved "Sex On Wheels."
It took me many years -- and many subsequent albums -- to realize that I continue to like the band no matter which direction they go. They've experimented with techno, funk, and psychedelia, and while they never COMPLETELY pull anything off -- usually because of their overused set of cheesy synth patches -- they still have enough creativity and panache to make me halfway happy.
I have never seen them live, which is probably a good thing because the YouTube clips are atrocious. But their studio albums remain just this side of worthwhile, and at the very least they remind me of how far I've come since I was a depressed layabout.
Albums to buy: "I See Good Spirits and I See Bad Spirits" (for their dirty industrial sound) and "The Reincarnation of Luna" (for the psychedelic phase). Albums to avoid: "Sexplosion!" (which really DOES suck) and "Hit & Run Holiday" (just monotonous). For fans only: Their "Kult Kollection" DVD, which serves to remind me why I both love AND hate the band.
The Universe - FOX News Edition
I'll watch any science DVD that comes my way, and I have a special soft spot for shows about space. Anything that helps me get a grasp of the vastness, complexity, and beauty of the universe is a good thing!
Except for this History Channel program called "The Universe," my disdain for which I cannot put into words.
But let me try.
The program is OFFICIALLY called "The Universe," but I suspect that the full title is "The Universe is Full of Scary Stuff and HOLY SH*T, WE COULD ALL DIE AT ANY MINUTE!" It's produced in the bombastic style generally used for self-serious war movies, full of loaded adjectives and contextual tricks to convey one thing and one thing only: THREAT.
The music -- which never ends -- is of the type used by TV stations to brand military offenses. The announcer's delivery alternates between doomed acceptance and self-referential downplaying...everything he says sounds like the promo for a cheesy TV show. Even when he's describing the atmosphere on Mars, he's saying it in the same tone he would use to say something like "Buffy is 100% man-killing hot stuff, but a bigger enemy is slouching over the horizon...and he could unleash the very powers of hell. On. EARTH."
I knew something was wrong in the very first episode, which was called "Secrets of the Sun" but was really "Secrets of How the Sun COULD KILL YOU." Despite all the overwrought gravitas about the power at its core and the turmoil on its surface -- complete with real disaster footage from earth, as though there was a relevant comparison -- the bulk of the episode was about solar flares and the predictions about the Next Big One.
HOLY COW, WHAT'LL HAPPEN?!? Show us footage of stuff on fire, and rioting, and mass chaos! More CGI of violent solar winds and snapping magnetic force lines! ARGH! ARRRRGH!
But wait...here are the BRAVE NASA TECHNICIANS who tirelessly scour the sky in order to predict these solar storms! Thank goodness these selfless soldiers of the stars are there to protect us, with their fingers always on the button that...well, puts satellites to sleep for a few hours until the storm passes. BUT THAT'S REALLY BRAVE!
Then, of course, all the stuff about the sun eventually expanding and burning the earth "like a charcoal briquette." End of episode.
I kid you not. Any bits of actual, scanty SCIENCE is trampled by the whiz-bang visuals and endless depictions of disaster. The sun is even scarier than TERRORISTS!
I figured I'd give the show a chance and watch the second episode -- "Mars: The Red Planet" -- because I figured they couldn't make Mars frightening. WAS I EVER WRONG! The surface used to have this HUGE VOLCANO, and that volcano might have RIPPED A GIANT CHASM RIGHT ACROSS THE PLANET! And do you know what would happen if you visited Mars? YOU'D DIE! YOU CAN'T BREATHE THERE! How did Mars turn into such an inhospitable place? BECAUSE THE VICIOUS, DEADLY SUN RIPPED AWAY ITS ATMOSPHERE! AND ONCE PEOPLE THOUGHT THERE WERE EVIL ALIENS THERE, WAITING TO INVADE! MARS IS TERRIFYING!
You can imagine how the third episode -- "The End of the Earth" -- turned out, with its killer asteroids and exclusive focus on "The Big Rip" (SO much more scary than any of the other hypotheses), and don't forget about the VICIOUS, DEADLY SUN, and the same handful of earnest science-guys explaining that we're all gonna die...though probably not for another 50 billion years, shhhh.
As usual, though, there are Fearless American Scientists protecting us, "cosmic bounty hunters" who "refuse to be bullied by the asteroids." Jesus RETCH!
The fourth episode was "Jupiter: The Giant Planet." I managed to sit through fifteen minutes because I wanted to know how Jupiter was gonna kill us. Fortunately it doesn't appear that Jupiter -- "a giant ball of intrigue" -- is out to murder our babies and steal our freedom, but -- here you go -- it tends to draw asteroids into its own orbit...ASTEROIDS THAT WOULD OTHERWISE HIT EARTH AND DESTROY CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT! Cue disaster footage again, and CGI images of disintegrating buildings and fifty-foot tidal waves.
What the f*ck is wrong with people? Can we only engage with things if we consider them to be threats? Are events only interesting if they involve violent turmoil? Maybe I'm so disgusted because I grew up on a diet of Carl Sagan, for whom the universe was a big and comforting pair of breasts, but most of the problem is that I have NEVER seen an emotionally-manipulative, fear-mongering science show about SPACE before. I'd understand if the show was PROMOTED as such, but it's not.
I can't tell you about the atrocities in the rest of the show, but the episode list gives a few hints. Seriously, if I didn't know better I'd think this was a joke:
EPISODE SIX: "A survivor of one of the most violent 'neighborhoods' in the universe, learn how earth was created and discover what creatures hold clues to how life began. What evil forces threaten the demise of Earth?"
EPISODE SEVEN: "Scorched by their proximity to the sun, Mercury and Venus are hostile worlds; one gouged with craters from cosmic collisions and the other a vortex of sulfur, carbon dioxide and acid rain. Prime examples of planets gone awry, do they serve as a warning for ominous scenarios that might someday threaten Earth?"
EPISODE TEN: "Ignited by the power of the atom, burning with light, heat and wrath [?], stars are anything but peaceful. They collide, devour each other, and explode in enormous supernovas--the biggest explosions in the Universe."
EPISODE TWELVE: "Super massive black holes can figuratively 'lasso' the Earth out of the solar system. A clash between two galaxies can result in a barbaric ritual called 'galactic cannibalism' in which the dominant galaxy's super massive black hole eats the weaker one. Magnetars are a cosmic magnetic force so strong it could wipe out data on every credit card on the planet."
And on and on and on. These people should be ashamed of themselves.
Except for this History Channel program called "The Universe," my disdain for which I cannot put into words.
But let me try.
The program is OFFICIALLY called "The Universe," but I suspect that the full title is "The Universe is Full of Scary Stuff and HOLY SH*T, WE COULD ALL DIE AT ANY MINUTE!" It's produced in the bombastic style generally used for self-serious war movies, full of loaded adjectives and contextual tricks to convey one thing and one thing only: THREAT.
The music -- which never ends -- is of the type used by TV stations to brand military offenses. The announcer's delivery alternates between doomed acceptance and self-referential downplaying...everything he says sounds like the promo for a cheesy TV show. Even when he's describing the atmosphere on Mars, he's saying it in the same tone he would use to say something like "Buffy is 100% man-killing hot stuff, but a bigger enemy is slouching over the horizon...and he could unleash the very powers of hell. On. EARTH."
I knew something was wrong in the very first episode, which was called "Secrets of the Sun" but was really "Secrets of How the Sun COULD KILL YOU." Despite all the overwrought gravitas about the power at its core and the turmoil on its surface -- complete with real disaster footage from earth, as though there was a relevant comparison -- the bulk of the episode was about solar flares and the predictions about the Next Big One.
HOLY COW, WHAT'LL HAPPEN?!? Show us footage of stuff on fire, and rioting, and mass chaos! More CGI of violent solar winds and snapping magnetic force lines! ARGH! ARRRRGH!
But wait...here are the BRAVE NASA TECHNICIANS who tirelessly scour the sky in order to predict these solar storms! Thank goodness these selfless soldiers of the stars are there to protect us, with their fingers always on the button that...well, puts satellites to sleep for a few hours until the storm passes. BUT THAT'S REALLY BRAVE!
Then, of course, all the stuff about the sun eventually expanding and burning the earth "like a charcoal briquette." End of episode.
I kid you not. Any bits of actual, scanty SCIENCE is trampled by the whiz-bang visuals and endless depictions of disaster. The sun is even scarier than TERRORISTS!
I figured I'd give the show a chance and watch the second episode -- "Mars: The Red Planet" -- because I figured they couldn't make Mars frightening. WAS I EVER WRONG! The surface used to have this HUGE VOLCANO, and that volcano might have RIPPED A GIANT CHASM RIGHT ACROSS THE PLANET! And do you know what would happen if you visited Mars? YOU'D DIE! YOU CAN'T BREATHE THERE! How did Mars turn into such an inhospitable place? BECAUSE THE VICIOUS, DEADLY SUN RIPPED AWAY ITS ATMOSPHERE! AND ONCE PEOPLE THOUGHT THERE WERE EVIL ALIENS THERE, WAITING TO INVADE! MARS IS TERRIFYING!
You can imagine how the third episode -- "The End of the Earth" -- turned out, with its killer asteroids and exclusive focus on "The Big Rip" (SO much more scary than any of the other hypotheses), and don't forget about the VICIOUS, DEADLY SUN, and the same handful of earnest science-guys explaining that we're all gonna die...though probably not for another 50 billion years, shhhh.
As usual, though, there are Fearless American Scientists protecting us, "cosmic bounty hunters" who "refuse to be bullied by the asteroids." Jesus RETCH!
The fourth episode was "Jupiter: The Giant Planet." I managed to sit through fifteen minutes because I wanted to know how Jupiter was gonna kill us. Fortunately it doesn't appear that Jupiter -- "a giant ball of intrigue" -- is out to murder our babies and steal our freedom, but -- here you go -- it tends to draw asteroids into its own orbit...ASTEROIDS THAT WOULD OTHERWISE HIT EARTH AND DESTROY CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT! Cue disaster footage again, and CGI images of disintegrating buildings and fifty-foot tidal waves.
What the f*ck is wrong with people? Can we only engage with things if we consider them to be threats? Are events only interesting if they involve violent turmoil? Maybe I'm so disgusted because I grew up on a diet of Carl Sagan, for whom the universe was a big and comforting pair of breasts, but most of the problem is that I have NEVER seen an emotionally-manipulative, fear-mongering science show about SPACE before. I'd understand if the show was PROMOTED as such, but it's not.
I can't tell you about the atrocities in the rest of the show, but the episode list gives a few hints. Seriously, if I didn't know better I'd think this was a joke:
EPISODE SIX: "A survivor of one of the most violent 'neighborhoods' in the universe, learn how earth was created and discover what creatures hold clues to how life began. What evil forces threaten the demise of Earth?"
EPISODE SEVEN: "Scorched by their proximity to the sun, Mercury and Venus are hostile worlds; one gouged with craters from cosmic collisions and the other a vortex of sulfur, carbon dioxide and acid rain. Prime examples of planets gone awry, do they serve as a warning for ominous scenarios that might someday threaten Earth?"
EPISODE TEN: "Ignited by the power of the atom, burning with light, heat and wrath [?], stars are anything but peaceful. They collide, devour each other, and explode in enormous supernovas--the biggest explosions in the Universe."
EPISODE TWELVE: "Super massive black holes can figuratively 'lasso' the Earth out of the solar system. A clash between two galaxies can result in a barbaric ritual called 'galactic cannibalism' in which the dominant galaxy's super massive black hole eats the weaker one. Magnetars are a cosmic magnetic force so strong it could wipe out data on every credit card on the planet."
And on and on and on. These people should be ashamed of themselves.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
The Real Reason for the Death of Laserdiscs
There are a lot of reasons why Laserdiscs never caught on. They were bulky, they couldn't hold more than about thirty minutes of video a side, they tended towards glitchiness, and you couldn't record on them. Videotape was bound to win out in the consumer market.
But ever since I've discovered this 1977 article about "Videodiscs" I'm convinced that the REAL reason Laserdiscs failed was because they were being promoted by a guy named Alfred Bork, and he looked like this:
Crazy Sasquatch! Considering the rigid standards of cleanliness required during the manufacture of laserdiscs, his Rasputin beard and woolly-mammoth arms must have sent scientists and technicians fleeing their laboratories.
All that said, however, I do have a point to make about computer technology in the '70s...they were so darn obsessed with the EDUCATIONAL potential of computers, in the same way that everyone was ga-ga about the educational applications of laserdiscs. Even in the 1980s, the manufacturers of home computers were insisting that their personal computers had the best quiz and tutorial programs, even though the children forced to PLAY those programs ran like scientists from a tech-guru's beard.
As computers got smaller and more affordable they entered schools and homes for the first time, and I imagine that educators and parents had to convince themselves that they weren't buying toys, they were buying TOOLS, and the companies were more than willing to play along. Jeez, remember all those awful exercise and recipe-storage programs they used to try to sell us, and all those "educational games" to teach you touch-typing?
Eventually it sank in that playing games WAS a great reason to buy a computer, and as the price of memory decreased the home computer became a viable business facilitator as well. Nowadays I suppose most people buy computers so they can use the internet and get email, which makes me wonder if the PC will be supplanted by the Smartphone someday.
I'm just happy as long as we never see software like this again:
But ever since I've discovered this 1977 article about "Videodiscs" I'm convinced that the REAL reason Laserdiscs failed was because they were being promoted by a guy named Alfred Bork, and he looked like this:
Crazy Sasquatch! Considering the rigid standards of cleanliness required during the manufacture of laserdiscs, his Rasputin beard and woolly-mammoth arms must have sent scientists and technicians fleeing their laboratories.
All that said, however, I do have a point to make about computer technology in the '70s...they were so darn obsessed with the EDUCATIONAL potential of computers, in the same way that everyone was ga-ga about the educational applications of laserdiscs. Even in the 1980s, the manufacturers of home computers were insisting that their personal computers had the best quiz and tutorial programs, even though the children forced to PLAY those programs ran like scientists from a tech-guru's beard.
As computers got smaller and more affordable they entered schools and homes for the first time, and I imagine that educators and parents had to convince themselves that they weren't buying toys, they were buying TOOLS, and the companies were more than willing to play along. Jeez, remember all those awful exercise and recipe-storage programs they used to try to sell us, and all those "educational games" to teach you touch-typing?
Eventually it sank in that playing games WAS a great reason to buy a computer, and as the price of memory decreased the home computer became a viable business facilitator as well. Nowadays I suppose most people buy computers so they can use the internet and get email, which makes me wonder if the PC will be supplanted by the Smartphone someday.
I'm just happy as long as we never see software like this again:
Daily Pepys: January 18th, 1661
Samuel Pepys was certainly a man of his time. He had no problems beating his servants and lackeys, so it should come as no surprise that he also beat his monkey.
The Captains went with me to the post-house about nine o'clock, and after a morning draught I took horse and guide for London; and though some rain, and a great wind in my face, I got to London at eleven o'clock. At home found all well, but the monkey loose, which did anger me, and so I did strike her till she was almost dead, that they might make her fast again, which did still trouble me more. Took Mr. Holliard to the Greyhound, where he did advise me above all things, both as to the stone and the decay of my memory, (of which I now complain to him) to avoid drinking often, which I am resolved, if I can, to leave off. Took home with me from the bookseller's Ogilby's Ó”sop, which he had bound for me, and indeed I am very much pleased with the book.
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