tomartin
the unwriting of the subtracted sonnets
For some time I've had a running writing project that I noodle around on at sporadic intervals with varying levels of interest and success. Maybe it's actually an unwriting project. I have a file called "subtracted sonnets". I have downloaded Shakespeare's sonnets from Project Guttenberg and try to create a poem from the sonnet by deleting words and/or punctuation. I can't move or add anything. I can only delete.
So for instance the second sonnet reads:
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter'd weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.
The Subtracted Sonnet, created only by deleting words, reads:
forty
deep trenches in beauty
gazed on
tatter'd small
beauty lies
the treasure of
deep eyes
shame and praise
beauty's use
answer
my count and
beauty
new made
warm
I give myself extra points based on how removed the subtracted poem is from the meaning of the original.
Give it a try!
the generous kroc
I only saved this because of the wildness of this claim. Should they accept the $200 million when it's given based on such a wrongheaded notion? Does NPR even believe this?:
"She loved NPR and its unfiltered presentation of the news. ... It wasn't liberal, and it wasn't conservative. It was as objective as you're going to find."
adventures in a.d. / more fun at mit
A short while back I had an entry about one of the limitation of the MIT opencourseware, namely the difficulty in getting certain class materials. I should say that one class I took had all the texts available online for free. So, I guess the problem is inconsistency of availability of course materials.
Linked below is the "related resources" page of the Technologies of Humanism course ( by the way it seems like MIT shouldn't be confusing the terms humanities and humanism). What it is is a link to a few dozen articles, hypertexts and games that illustrate innovative uses of the internet -- a fun list even if you don't take the whole course!
a little background from nat hentoff
A little bit of background on the Terri Schiavo case (Nat Hemtoff is on fire about this) :
"The husband claims that he is honoring his marriage vows by carrying out the wishes of his wife that she not be kept alive by "artificial means." As I shall show, this hearsay "evidence" by the husband has been contradicted. The purportedly devoted husband, moreover, has been living with another woman since 1995. They have a child, with another on the way. Was that part of his marital vows?
For 13 years, Terri Schiavo has not been able to speak for herself. But she is not brain-dead, not in a comatose state, not terminal, and not connected to a respirator. If the feeding tube is removed, she will starve to death. Whatever she may or may not have said, did she consider food and water "artificial means?"
The media continually report that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state, and a number of neurologists and bioethicists have more than implied to the press that "persistent" is actually synonymous with "permanent." This is not true, as I shall factually demonstrate in upcoming columns. I will also provide statements from neurologists who say that if Terri were given the proper therapy—denied to her by her husband and guardian after he decided therapy was becoming too expensive despite $750,000 from a malpractice suit—she could learn to eat by herself and become more responsive."
terri schiavo in about a thousand words
Everyone deserves at least a thousand words written about them. I found this incredibly moving. What a sweet normal life.
some good ideas.
I've had this link for some time. It is a list of technology used in education. It highlights various projects incorporating some new or emerging technology for educational purposes. It's so much information it's hard to get through. For example, a group of students were given video production equipment and sent to interview WWII Japanese internment camp detainees in the US. They have a thorough description of the project with links to the participants website. It's a great resource, very interesting. I'll probably write more about it when I get through everything. This is just one article on the Techlearning.com website, which is completely amazing!
"In past Top 10 issues, we've profiled emerging technologies and smart technologies. This year we take a look at how these technologies are being applied to implement new and more innovative approaches to learning. It's "technology in action", if you will. Choosing 10 top projects from the hundreds, thousands, and probably millions out there is, of course, nearly impossible. In the end, T&L editors settled on a mix: some are high-end and cutting edge, others are more accessible to novice technology users, and still others are old favorites that have evolved over the years. Despite the somewhat eclectic selection you'll find here, common elements include authenticity, collaboration, the use of critical thinking skills, global implications, in-depth investigations, and a very high student motivation and engagement factor. All in all, we hope you'll find the following projects compelling, worthy of emulation, and exciting examples of ways 21st century technologies are reinventing the concept of "school." -Susan McLester
more fun at mit.
A scientific theorist acts as a consultant to Hollywood, developing plausible explanations for movie storylines -- such as why Bruce Banner turns into a raging green monster when angered. It seems like there are a lot of fun things going on at MIT.
that's not so dumb
I am a huge fan of the ........ for Dummies books. They are a great introduction to almost anything and they have great reading lists. The website is amazing. They have what must be a couple of hundred articles on a wide variety of subjects. If you are reading an article they automatically give you other articles that you might find interesting on the same subject. It also gives you a list of books that you might find interesting -- dummy and non-dummy books. Again, it's best to consider the books an introduction to a course of study, bearing in mind that "when some people learn the tricks of the trade they think they know the trade" -- but they don't -- know the trade, that is. For pay, online courses are also available.
parting words from neil labute
"...But I'm a writer, for better or worse, that's what I do. So I'll throw a little bit more free advice out there and leave it at that. If you want to write, then do it. Don't go to Starbucks with your computer so that people see you typing, just write. A student of mine once called it putting in the "desk time," and I think that's as good a name for it as any. It's a lonely pursuit and it's work and it's hard. You can write anything you want, can sell almost anything you want, but you have to put in the time. I know plenty of people who call themselves writers—I know less who can actually hand me something to read. And it's the same for any job you can mention. If you want to do it, then find a way.
So get to it. Shut up already and make it happen. Get on out there and do whatever it is you want to do or be. Don't forget to spend time with your children—they're the greatest gift that this earth ever dreamed up—and turn your damn computers off once in a while. Don't worry, they're not going anywhere."
....and the bad news about generation 'y'
"We are a thankless generation.
I may sound like a pessimist, but my premise is basically positive. My generation is materially blessed beyond what any other generation before us has ever had.
A typical, middle-class 18-year-old is endowed with a fairly new car with a fancy stereo system, a cellphone, his own television, a college education paid for by his parents and the government, access to fast food 24 hours a day, a laptop computer with Internet access, a ticket to the R-rated movie on Friday night, cultural license to engage in gratuitous sex, political license to attain an abortion, and social independence whereby he or she can easily avoid the constraints of organized religion...."
reading anna outloud
Factory workers are read Anna Kerinina as they roll cigars and someone wrote a play about it. The play won a Pulitzer.
"If you’re looking for a little less flash and a little more smoke (of the richly scented, long-lingering cigar type), you may want to check out this new drama from Nilo Cruz. Little-known before he snagged the Pulitzer, his characters speak a deeply felt poetry, bridging impossible situations with lyric words. In this drama, a “lector” hired to read Anna Karenina to cigar factory workers risks an adulterous affair with the unfulfilled wife of the factory’s owner.............."
the zombie within: christof koch and the science of consciousness
L.A. Weekly has an interview with Christof Koch on the nature of consciousness. "The Zombie Within" refers to auto-pilot activities that we perform throughout our daily lives - the activities which cannot be performed successfully unless we go into an altered state of consciousness. He seems to refer to himself as a philosopher and has a sort of modern boutique degree -- cybernetic information processing or something.
An interesting thoughtful article.
"If our minds don’t notice things that do occur, they can also invent things that don’t. Koch pulls up another image, a simple black screen speckled with slow-moving blue dots and a couple dozen bright-yellow spots. He asks me to stare at the screen and tell him what happens. After about a minute, some of the yellow spots begin to wink on and off. Wrong, Koch tells me. Nothing happens. All the spots remain on the screen; my mind has just invented the flashing......"
the rolling stone top 500 albums --
A great rock album list. Sgt. Pepper is the number one album. All the great Bob Dylan albums appear in the top twenty. Pet Sounds is number 2. There seems to be a few boutique choices such as the Velvet Underground in the top ten, I believe, and some old blues albums that seem a little political in their selection.
The page also has some accompanying articles and quizzes. The panel who selected the titles is also fairly interesting.
getting reacquainted with an old friend -- of sorts
Maybe twenty years ago I had done a great deal of reading of the works of Francis Schaeffer and the attending footnotes and historic references. I also read the very funny and cross little books of his son Frankie. It was a formative time for me and reading the attached article I am reminded of both men's influence on my thinking.
I recall one day calling a radio show asking him if it was okay to read the sex parts of the novels of Walker Percy. I had heard he was now Greek Orthodox and thought he had simply dropped out. He did not and apparently I have some catching up to do with Schaeffer the younger.
neil labute's online diary - a week in the life of a writer
Neil Labute is a totally disturbing artist. Totally affecting. Some of his scenes are the most memorable for their perceptive portrayal of human evil. A practicing Mormon, one of his short plays portrays the nonchalant murder of a homosexual in Central Park and the casual discussion of the event with his fiance. The Company of Men is a study in human cruelty. He's writing the guest diary at Slate this week.
loathing and cowardice in the Midwest
"It took 10 years for Eva Mozes Kor, a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp, to open a museum in Terre Haute dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust. It took just minutes for it all to go up in flames, thanks to what Kor thinks was arson."I have had better days in my life," she said Tuesday. "And, unfortunately, I have had worse."
Kor got a call early Tuesday, just after midnight, from the Fire Department. She raced to the building, along with her husband, Michael Kor. At the scene, they were told a glass door had been broken and an accelerant had been used to start the fire.
An official determination of the cause had not been made by Tuesday afternoon, but Vigo County Prosecutor Bob Wright said the fire is being investigated as arson. There also was this phrase, spray-painted on the outside of the building: "Remember Timmy McVeigh.""
ronald reagan mini-series script link
What the media seem to have a hard time getting their head around is the idea that Ronald Reagan was a beloved president. Things went pretty well while he was in office. He defeated communism (most people don't like communism because it causes so much human suffering. It's not just different, it's evil). If you say bad things about him people won't like it.
Also, when a television network volutarily pulls a show because so many people complain about it, that is not censorship.
You can follow this link and download a PDF file of the mini-series script. You may need to get a free one day membership to Salon to download the file. Warning: the script is an uncivilly long 220 pages.
the hard work of randomness
The graphic method of 'greeking' text - adding nonsensical greek/latin-like words to dress up as real copy- has been updated by a text generator that uses Italian opera and other texts.
I can extend the look of my posting by inserting a custom made block of text and pasting it in right here:
Trono vicino al sol Celeste Aida forma. RAMFIS Sì corre voce che. Mistico raggio di luce e fior ecc. Splendor Il tuo bel cielo vorrei redarti Le dolci, redarti Le dolci brezze del patrio suol Un regal serta sul crin posarti; tuo bel cielo vorrei redarti Le dolci brezze del patrio suol Un, Mistico raggio di luce e fior ecc. Posarti Ergerti un trono vicino al sol .
some non news items
1. When a G.I. complains about being on active duty, that is not news.
2. When a G.I. complains about being used, that is not news.
thinking about thinking
I thought this was a pretty good article on the Classical education. This article also links two other great articles.
the kids are alright
The generation 'Y'-ers (born between 1977 and 1994), at 78 million, are the largest birth grouping in American history. Does this sound like you and your friend's kids?:
"They are family oriented, viscerally pluralistic, deeply committed to authenticity and truth-telling, heavily stressed, and living in a no-boundaries world where they make short-term decisions and expect paradoxical outcomes."
And the good news:
"In addition to millennials' closeness to their parents, statistics on sexual activity, violence, and suicide rates are down, and concern with religion and community are up. Evidence on drinking and drugs is more mixed, but smoking, drinking, and drug use among eighth, 10th, and 12th graders fell simultaneously in 2002 for the first time."
greed and avarice in the nhl .......i think.
At last I'll be able to live my lifelong dream of seeing the home team in dark jerseys on home ice. (Does the Village Voice have a sports uniform columnist?):
"The big news in the NHL this season is that teams are wearing their colored jerseys at home and white on the road, a reversal of the rule that's held sway since 1970. The league says teams "wanted to give a new generation of fans the opportunity to see dark jerseys on home ice," although this is almost certainly code for "Colored-jersey merch sales have been lagging." In any case, the bigger question is why the NHL switched from its original colored-at-home rule back in 1970 to begin with...."
infinity and beyond per david foster wallace
Everything and More: A Compact History of ∞ by David Foster Wallace
I want this book for my birthday. Even though I don't usually, on principle, read books with symbols in their titles. Was the symbol necessary? Couldn't we have just spelled out the word "infinity". Foster is a great writer. It is a history of the concept of infinity. An idea which has, ironically, not been around forever. There is another review in the New Yorker. I'll post that when I find it. Maybe I'll write my own review of it when I read it!
Note: possible contest - see who can go insane first by meditating on the concept of infinity.
corporate giving
The bright side of corporate greed -- all the generosity. Forbes has a chart indicating the most generous companies. It seems money is usually given by people that have it.
http://www.forbes.com/maserati/cx_aw_1023giving.html
fyi: everything we know about mary of magdala -- your welcome, abc
All references to Mary Magdalene in the New Testament:
References to Mary of Magdala During Jesus' Ministry
Luke 8:1-3: Afterward [Jesus] journeyed from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. Accompanying him were the Twelve and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their resources.
References to Mary of Magdala During the Crucifixion
Mark 15:40: There were also some women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome.
Matthew 27:56: Among them was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
John 19:25: But standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
References to Mary of Magdala After the Crucifixion
Mark 15:47: Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were looking on to see where He was laid.
Matthew 27:61: And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the grave.
Matthew 28:1: Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave.
Mark 16:1: When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Him.
References to Mary of Magdala At the Resurrection
John 20:1: Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb.
Mark 16:9: Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons.
John 20:18: Mary Magdalene came, announcing to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord," and that He had said these things to her.
Luke 24: But at daybreak on the first day of the week [the women] took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, "Why do you seek the living one among the dead?
He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day." And they remembered his words.
Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others.
The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles, but their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them.
when did madonna become a rabbi?
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach bemoans the fact that Madonna has become the public face of Kabbalah. He extols the rather obvious value of quiet righteousness over high profile immorality in promoting religious/moral belief. He also expresses regret about his high profile friendship with Michael Jackson.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/133/story_13393_1.html
all tomorrow's party-ing
An interview with Simpson's creator Matt Groening. He is organizing the All Tomorrow's Parties Festival this weekend. He discusses modern life and just how boring things have gotten. An eclectic musicologist who is extremely disappointed in the lack of progress in the music world. He programs an eclectic and fringey music festival this weekend.
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/51/features-payne.php
mighty thor and the lutherans
The Lutheran Church in Denmark (the official state religion) is officially recognizing a sect which worships the old Norse Gods - Tur, Odin, Thor, Friga and associates. The state will now recognize marriage ceremonies performed by these sects. We name the days of the week after them - namely Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
http://beliefnet.com/story/135/story_13544_1.html
lunatic despot of the week
Any country that has an army that goosesteps should probably be invaded. Any country that threatens to bathe America in fire should probably be made the 51st state. Read Philip Gourevitch's Letter From Korea titled Alone in the Dark.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030908fa_fact4
abc asks - did jesus have a girlfriend?! (...um...no)
"Doesn't it seem amazing that ABC is more nervous about investigating potentially nasty stories about Bill Clinton than they are about potentially nasty stories about Jesus Christ? ABC would not accept Bill Clinton was an adulterer until all the DNA testing was complete. ABC absolutely refused to make any attempt to broadcast the extraordinary claims of Juanita Broaddrick that President Clinton had raped her before he ascended to the White House. But the Jesus-bashers get an hour in prime time to bash the Son of God. Talk about confusing the sacred and the profane!"
Brent Bozell re: ABC'c Search for Jesus
For the entire column:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/bb20031105.shtml
saint johns college - further adventures in autodidacticism
I was talking with someone who was considering attending this college. There is a chart that shows the whole four year curriculum - (read this book on this date etc.) The list is extremely broad and varied and includes a lot of science, which some of these lists exclude. Seems like a great little college. I'm not sure what kind of jobs people get when they graduate, but they must be quite smart.
http://www.sjca.edu/resources/seminar
congatulations dave
Letterman's a father:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/2003-11-04-letterman-baby_x.htm
emmy-nominated writer's discussion
Televisions 'A' listers at a Writer's guild event. A transcription of the event. A good read. (Rated R)
"Comedian Dennis Miller deadpanned at the audience who packed the WGAw Theater on September 17: "We're riffing here -- sometimes it gets ugly."
Calling it a night to explore "the story behind the story," Academy of Television Arts and Sciences CEO Bryce Zabel introduced WGAw President Victoria Riskin to kick-off Sublime Primetime, an absorbing evening for Emmy-nominated writers to share their writing experiences and discuss their acclaimed scripts.
The panel included Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing), Terence Winter (The Sopranos), Mike Royce (Everybody Loves Raymond), Robb and Mark Cullen (Lucky), Hugh Whitemore (My House in Umbria), Jane Anderson (Normal), and Matt Warburton (The Simpsons). Presented by the WGAw, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Writers Guild Foundation, and WGAw Media Relations Committee, proceeds from the standing-room-only event, which Riskin called "a celebration of excellence in writing," benefited the Writers Guild Foundation....................................."
And so on according to set pattern. Interesting/funny. Check it out.
http://www.wga.org/craft/interviews/Sublime2003/sublime2003.html
good ol' lists (television)
Combining my love of lists and the rescources of the MIT OpenCourseWare program:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Literature/21L-432Understanding-TelevisionSpring2003/ViewingList/index.htm
One of the television courses - a history of television course - illustrates some of the problems with the program, namely, acquiring course materials. Frequently reading assignments include obscure articles from large expensive books that a student is not likely to find in his or her local library. The above link is of a viewing list. If one were attending MIT they could attend a class where all these seminal television programs were being shown in their entirety. And, I would assume, could rewatch them in a media library.
That said, a casual user of the site can get a survey the television era. I recognized most of the shows on the list and saw over half of them. It's a good list:
It starts with early shows such as Milton Berle and Amos 'n' Andy, moves up to The Goodyear TV Playhouse version of Marty (which I believe starred Ernest Borgnine), the Vitameatavegeman (sp?) I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners.
Than comes the era when I started watching TV - Dick Van Dyke, The Twilight zone, Andy Griffith, Fugitive, Beverly Hillbillies, I Spy, That Girl.
The great CBS Saturday night - Mary Tyler Moore (I just happened to watch this show last night), MASH, All in the Family.
A chapter of Roots, Mary Hartman, Cheers, Roseanne, Ellen (coming out episode).
On the final viewing session of the class everyone sits around and watches Sopranos, the Sheild and the woman who makes me wish I was a cartoon -- Daria.
The BBC is uploading all their programs they've ever produced on their website for free. Maybe the American networks will do that too. ;)
tangential governor arnold tie in
I remembered reading this article and thought it a fitting tribute to our new governor. Any article by Wallace has to include the copious footnotes:
F/X PORN
David Foster Wallace
Waterstone's Magazine
Winter/Spring 1998
What's the difference between a Hollywood special-effects blockbuster like "Terminator 2" and a hard-core porn film? Very little, claims novelist, essayist and footnote fetishist David Foster Wallace.
1990s moviegoers who have sat clutching their heads in both awe and disappointment at movies like "Twister" and "Volcano" and "The Lost World" can thank James Cameron's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" for inaugurating what's become this decade's special new genre of big-budget film: Special Effects Porn. "Porn" because, if you substitute F/X for intercourse, the parallels between the two genres become so obvious they're eerie. Just like hard-core cheapies, movies like "Terminator 2" and "Jurassic Park" aren't really "movies" in the standard sense at all. What they really are is half a dozen or so isolated, spectacular scenes -- scenes comprising maybe twenty or thirty minutes of riveting, sensuous payoff -- strung together via another sixty to ninety minutes of flat, dead, and often hilariously insipid narrative.
"T2," one of the highest-grossing movies in history, opened six years ago. Think of the scenes we all still remember. That incredible chase and explosion in the L.A. sluiceway and then the liquid metal T-1000 Terminator walking out of the explosion's flames and morphing [1] seamlessly into his Martin-Milner-as-Possessed-by-Hannibal-Lecter corporeal form. The T-1000 rising hideously up out of that checkerboard floor, the T-1000 melting headfirst through the windshield of that helicopter, the T-1000 freezing in liquid nitrogen and then collapsing fractally apart. These were truly spectacular images, and they represented exponential advances in digital F/X technology. But there were at most maybe eight of these incredible sequences, and they were the movie's heart and point; the rest of "T2" is empty and derivative, pure mimetic polycelluloid.
It's not that "T2" is totally plotless or embarrassing -- and it does, admittedly, stand head and shoulders above most of the F/X Porn blockbusters that have followed it. It's rather that "T2" as a dramatic narrative is slick and cliche and calculating and in sum an appalling betrayal of 1984's "The Terminator." "T1," which was James Cameron's first feature film and had a modest budget and was one of the two best U.S. action movies of the entire 1980s [2], was a dark, breathlessly kinetic, near-brilliant piece of metaphysical Ludditism. Recall that it's A.D. 2027 and that there's been a nuclear holocaust in 1997 and that chip-driven machines now rule, and "Skynet," the archonic _diabolus_ ex_ machina_, develops a limited kind of time-travel technology and dispatches the now classically cyborgian A. Schwarzenegger back to 1984's Los Angeles to find and terminate one Sarah Connor, the mother-to-be of the future leader of the human "Resistance," one John Connor [3]; and that apparently the Resistance itself somehow gets one-time-only access to Skynet's time-travel technology and sends back to the same space-time coordinates a Resistance officer, the ever-sweaty but extremely tough and resourceful Kyle Reese, to try desperately to protect Ms. Sarah Connor from the Terminator's prophylactic advances [4], and so on. It is, yes, true that Cameron's Skynet is basically Kubrick's HAL, and that most of "T1"'s time-travel paradoxes are reworkings of some fairly standard Bradbury-era science fiction themes, but "The Terminator" still has a whole lot to recommend it. There's the inspired casting of the malevolently cyborgian Schwarzenegger as the malevolently cyborgian Terminator, the role that made Ahnode a superstar and for which he was utterly and totally perfect (e.g. even his goofy 16-r.p.m. Austrian accent added a perfect little robofascist tinge to the Terminator's dialogue [5]). There's the first of Cameron's two great action heroines [6] in Sarah Connor, as whom the limpid-eyed and lethal-lipped Linda Hamilton also turns in the only great performance of her career. There is the dense, greasy, marvelously machinelike look of "The Terminator"'s mechanized F/X [7]; there are the noirish lighting and Dexedrine pace that compensate ingeniously for the low budget and manage to establish a mood that is both exhilarating and claustrophobic [8]. Plus "T1"'s story had at its center a marvelous "Appointment-in-Samarra"-like irony of fate: we discover in the course of the film that Kyle Reese is actually John Connor's father [9], and thus that if Skynet hadn't built its nebulous time machine and sent back the Terminator, Reese wouldn't have been back here in '84, either, to impregnate Sarah C. This also entails that meanwhile, up in A.D. 2027, John Connor has had to send the man he knows is his father on a mission that J.C. knows will result in both that man's death and his (i.e. J.C.'s) own birth. The whole ironic mess is simultaneously Freudian and Testamental and is just extraordinarily cool for a low-budget action movie.
Its big-budget sequel adds only one ironic paradox to "The Terminator"'s mix: in "T2," we learn that the "radically advanced chip" [10] on which Skynet's CPU is (will be) based actually came (comes) from the denuded and hydraulically pressed skull of "T1"'s defunct Terminator...meaning that Skynet's attempts to alter the flow of history bring about not only John Connor's birth but Skynet's own, as well. All "T2"'s other important ironies and paradoxes, however, are unfortunately unintentional and generic and kind of sad.
Note, for example, the fact that "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," a movie about the disastrous consequences of humans relying too heavily on computer technology, was itself unprecedently computer-dependent. George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic, subcontracted by Cameron to do "T2"'s special effects, had to quadruple the size of its computer graphics department for the T-1000 sequences, sequences which also required digital-imaging specialists from around the world, thirty-six state-of-the-art Silicon Graphics computers, and terabytes of specially invented software programs for seamless morphing, realistic motion, digital "body socks," background-plate compatibility, congruence of lighting and grain, etc. And there is no question that all the lab work paid off: in 1991, "Terminator 2"'s special effects were the most spectacular and real-looking anybody had ever seen. They were also the most expensive.
"T2" is thus also the first and best instance of a paradoxical law that appears to hold true for the entire F/X Porn genre. It is called the Inverse Cost and Quality Law, and it states very simply that the larger a movie's budget is, the shittier that movie is going to be. The case of "T2" shows that much of the ICQL's force derives from simple financial logic. A film that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make is going to get financial backing if and only if its investors can be maximally -- _maximally_ -- sure that at the very least they will get their hundreds of millions of dollars back [11] -- i.e. a megabudget movie must not fail (and "failure" here means anything less than a runaway box-office hit) and must thus adhere to certain reliable formulae that have been shown by precedent to maximally ensure a runaway hit. One of the most reliable of these formulae involves casting a superstar who is "bankable" (i.e. whose recent track record of films shows a high ROI). The studio backing for "T2'''s wildly sophisticated and digital F/X therefore depends on Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger agreeing to reprise his Terminator role. Now the ironies start to stack, though, because it turns out that Schwarzenegger -- or perhaps more accurately "Schwarzenegger, Inc.," or "Ahnodyne" -- has decided that playing any more malevolent cyborgs would compromise the Leading Man image his elite and bankable record of ROI entails. He will do the film only if "T2"'s script is somehow engineered to make the Terminator the Good Guy. Not only is this vain and stupid and shockingly ungrateful [12], it is also common popular knowledge, duly reported in both the trade and the popular entertainment media before "T2" even goes into production. There's consequently a weird postmodern tension to the way we watch the film; we're aware of what the bankable star's demands were, and we're also aware of how much the movie cost and how important bankable stars are to a big-budget movie; and so one of the few things that keeps us on the edge of our seats during the movie is our suspense about whether James Cameron can possibly weave a plausible, non-cheesy narrative that meets Schwarzenegger's career needs without betraying "T1"'s precedent.
Cameron does not succeed, at least not in avoiding heavy cheese. Recall the premise he settles on for "T2": that Skynet once again uses its (apparently not all that limited) time-travel device, this time to send a far more advanced liquid metal T-1000 Terminator back to 1990s L.A., this time to kill the ten-year-old John Connor (played by the extremely annoying Edward Furlong [13], whose voice keeps cracking pubescently and who's just clearly older than ten), and that the intrepid human Resistance has somehow captured, subdued, and "reprogrammed" an old Schwarzenegger-model Terminator -- resetting its CPU's switch from TERMINATE to PROTECT, apparently [14] -- and then has somehow once again gotten one-time access to Skynet's time-travel technology [15] and sent the Schwarzenegger Terminator back to protect young J.C. from the T-1000's infanticidal advances. [16]
Cameron's premise is financially canny and artistically dismal: it permits "Terminator 2"'s narrative to clank along on the rails of all manner of mass-market formulae. There is, for example, no quicker or easier ingress to the audience's heart than to present an innocent child in danger, and of course protecting an innocent child from danger is heroism at its most generic. Cameron's premise also permits the emotional center of "T2" to consist of the child and the Terminator "bonding," which in turn allows for all manner of familiar and reliable devices. Thus it is that "T2" offers us cliche explorations of stuff like the conflicts between Emotion and Logic (territory already mined to exhaustion by "Star Trek") and between Human and Machine (turf that's been worked in everything from "Lost in Space" to "Blade Runner" to "Robocop"), as well as exploiting the good old Alien - or - Robot - Learns - About - Human - Customs - and - Psychology - From - Sarcastic - and/or - Precocious - but - Basically - Goodhearted - Human - with - Whom - It - Bonds formula (q.q.v. here "My Favorite Martian" and "E.T." and "Starman" and "The Brother From Another Planet" and "Harry and the Hendersons" and "Alf" and ad almost infinitum). Thus it is that the 85% of "T2" that is not mind-blowing digital F/X sequences subjects us to dialogue like: "Vhy do you cry?" and "Cool! My own Terminator!" and "Can you not be such a dork all the time?" and "This is intense!" and "Haven't you learned that you can't just go around killing people?" and "It's OK, Mom, he's here to help" and "I know now vhy you cry, but it's somesing I can never do"; plus to that hideous ending where Schwarzenegger gives John a cyborgian hug and then voluntarily immerses himself in molten steel to protect humanity from his neural net CPU, raising that Fonziesque thumb as he sinks below the surface [17], and the two Connor hug and grieve, and then poor old Linda Hamilton -- whose role in "T2" requires her not only to look like she's been doing nothing but Nautilus for the last several years but also to keep snarling and baring her teeth and saying stuff like "Don't fuck with me!" and "Men like you know nothing about really creating something!" and acting half-crazed with paramilitary stress, stretching Hamilton way beyond her thespian capacities and resulting in what seems more than anything like a parody of Faye Dunaway in "Mommy Dearest" -- has to give us that gooey "I face the future with hope, because if a Terminator can learn the value of human life, maybe we can, too" voiceover at the very end.
The point is that head-clutchingly insipid stuff like this puts an ever heavier burden of importance on "T2"'s digital effects, which now must be stunning enough to distract us from the formulaic void at the story's center, which in turn means that even more money and directional attention must be lavished on the film's F/X. This sort of cycle is symptomatic of the insidious three-part loop that characterizes Special Effects Porn --
ONE: Astounding digital dinosaur / tornado / volcano / Terminator effects that consume almost all the director's creative attention and require massive financial commitment on the part of the studio;
TWO: A consequent need for guaranteed megabuck ROI, which entails the formulaic elements and easy sentiment that will assure mass appeal (plus will translate easily into other languages and cultures, for those important foreign sales...);
THREE: A director -- often one who's shown great talent in earlier, less expensive films -- who is now so consumed with realizing his spectacular digital vision, and so dependent on the studio's money to bring the F/X off, that he has neither the leverage nor the energy to fight for more interesting or original plots / themes / characters.
-- and thus yields the two most important corollary formulations of the Inverse Cost and Quality Law:
(ICQL(a)) The more lavish and spectacular a movie's special effects, the shittier that movie is going to be in all non-F/X respects. For obvious supporting examples of ICQL (a), see lines 1-2 of this article and/or also "Jurassic Park," "Independent Day," "Forrest Gump," etc.
(ICQL (b)) There is no quicker or more efficient way to kill what is interesting and original about an interesting, original young director than to give that director a huge budget and lavish F/X resources. The number of supporting examples of ICQL (b) is sobering. Have a look, e.g., at the difference between Rodriguez's "El Mariachi" and his "From Dusk to Dawn," between DeBont's "Speed" and "Twister," between Gilliam's "Brazil" and "Twelve Monkeys," between Bigelow's "Near Dark" and "Strange Days." Or chart Cameron's industry rise and artistic decline from "T1" and "Aliens" through "T2" and "The Abyss" to -- dear Lord -- "True Lies." U.S. entertainment media report that Cameron's new "Titanic," currently in American release, is (once again) the most expensive and technically ambitious film of all time. Doubtless, Britons have been pricing trenchcoats and lubricants in anticipation of its arrival in the UK.
FOOTNOTES
[1] (Actually defined in the film as "mimetic polyalloy," whatever that's supposed to mean.) [back]
[2] The 1980s other B.U.S.A.M. was Cameron's second feature, the 1986 "Aliens," also modestly budgeted, also both hair-raising and deeply intelligent. [back]
[3] (Whose initials, for a prophesied saviour of humanity, are not particularly subtle.) [back]
[4] The fact that what Skynet is attempting is in effect a retroactive abortion, together with the fact that "terminate a pregnancy" is a pretty well-known euphemism, led the female I first saw the movie with in 1984 to claim, over coffee and pie afterwards, that "The Terminator" was actually one long pro-choice allegory, which I said I thought was not w/o merit but maybe a bit too simplistic to do the movie real justice, which led to kind of an unpleasant row. [back]
[5] Consider, for example, the now famous "I'll be back" line took on a level of ominous historical resonance when uttered by an unstoppable killing machine with a _German_ accent. This was chilling and brilliant commercial postmodernism at its best; but it is also what made "Terminator 2"'s in-joke of having Ahnode repeat the line in a good-guy context is so disappointing. [back]
[6] It is a complete mystery why feminist film scholars haven't paid more attention to Cameron and his early collaborator Gale Ann Hurd. "The Terminator" and "Aliens" were both violent action films with tough, competent female protagonists (incredibly rare) whose toughness and competence in no way diminish their "femininity" (even more rare, unheard of), a femininity that is rooted (along with both films' thematics) in notions of maternity rather than just sexuality. For example, compare Cameron's Ellen Ripley with the panty-and-tank-top Ripley of Scott's "Alien." In fact it was flat-out criminal that Sigourney Weaver didn't win the '86 Oscar for her lead in Cameron's "Aliens." Marlee Matlin indeed. No male lead in the history of U.S. action films even approaches Weaver's second Ripley for emotional depth and sheer balls -- she makes Stallone, Willis, et. al. look muddled and ill. [back]
[7] (There is a ponderous, marvelous built-looking quality (complete with ferrous clanks and/or pneumatic hisses) that -- oddly enough -- at roughly the same time also distinguishes the special effects of Gilliam's "Brazil" and Paul Verhoeven's "Robocop." This was not cool only because the effects were themselves cool, but also because here were three talented young tech-minded directors who rejected the airy, hygenic look of Spielberg's and Lucas's F/X. The grimy density and preponderance of metal in Cameron's effects suggested that he was looking all the way back to Méliès and Lang for visual inspiration.) [back]
[8] (Cameron would raise the use of light and pace to near-perfection in "Aliens," where just six alien-suited stuntmen and ingenious quick-cut editing resulted in some of the most terrifying Teeming Rapacious Horde scenes of all time. (By the way, sorry to be going on and on about "Aliens" and "The Terminator." It's just that they're great, great, commercial cinema, and nobody talks about them enough, and they're a big reason why "T2" was such a tragic and insidious development not only for 90s films but for James Cameron, whose first two films had genius in them.)) [back]
[9] (So actually I guess it would be more like "Luke Skywalker's Appointment in Samarra" -- nobody said this was Art-Cinema or anything.) [back]
[10] (Viz. a "neutral net processor" based on an "uncooled superconductor," which I grieve to report is a conceit ripped off from Douglas Trumbull's 1983 "Brainstorm.") [back]
[11] The industry term for getting your money back plus that little bit of extra that makes investing in a movie a decent investment is ROI, which is short for Return on Investment. [back]
[12] Because Schwarzenegger -- compared to whom Chuck Norris is Olivier -- is not an actor or even a performer. He is a body, a form -- the closest thing to an actual machine in the history of the S.A.G. Ahnode's elite bankable status in 1991 was due entirely to the fact that James Cameron had had the genius to understand Schwarzenegger's essential bionism and to cast him in "T1." [back]
[13] It augurs ill for both Furlong and Cameron that within minutes of John Connor's introduction in the film we're rooting vigorously for him to be Terminated. [back]
[14] A complex and interesting scene where John and Sarah actually open up the Terminator's head and remove Ahnode's CPU and do some further reprogramming -- a scene where we learn a lot more about neural net processors and Terminative anatomy, and where Sarah is strung out and has kind of an understandable anti-Terminator prejudice and wants to smash the CPU while she can, and where John asserts his nascent command presence and basically orders her not to -- was cut from the movie's final version. Cameron's professed rational for cutting the scene was that the middle of the movie "dragged" and that the scene was too complex: "I could account for the Terminator's behavior changes much more simply." I submit that the Cameron of "T1" and "Aliens" wouldn't have talked this way. But another big-budget formula for ensuring ROI is that things must be made as simple for the audiences as possible; plot and character implausibilities are to be handled through distraction rather than resolved through explanation. [back]
[15] (Around which the security must be shockingly lax.) [back]
[16] That's the movie's main plot, but let's observe here that one of "T2'''s subplots actually echoes Cameron's Schwarzenegger dilemma and creates a kind of weird meta-cinematic irony. Whereas "T1" had argued for a certain kind of metaphysical passivity (i.e., fate is unavoidable, and Skynet's attempts to alter history serve only bring it about.) "Terminator 2"'s metaphysics are more active. In "T2," the Connors take a page from Skynet's book and try to head off the foreordained nuclear holocaust, first by trying to kill Skynet's inventor and then by destroying Cyberdyne's labs and the 1st Terminator's CPU (though why John Connor spends half the movie carrying the deadly CPU chip around in his pocket instead of just throwing it under the first available steamroller remains unclear and irksome). The point here is that the protagonists' attempts to revise the "script" of history in "T2" parallel the director's having to muck around with "T2"'s own script in order for Schwarzenegger to be in the movie. Multivalent ironies like this -- which require that film audiences know all kinds of behind-the-scenes stuff from watching Entertainment Tonight and reading Premiere magazine -- are not commercial postmodernism at it's finest. [back]
[17] (His hair doesn't quite catch on fire in the molten steel, though, which provokes intriguing speculation on what it's supposed to be made of.) [back]
[The author of the novel "Infinite Jest," David Foster Wallace has been called by The Guardian's James Wood "a superb comedian of culture." His new book, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," is a collection of sharp, playful and humorous essays that touch on everything from David Lynch to the equivocal relationship between novelists and television. Full of astonishing verbal dexterity, impish wit and off-the-wall analysis, the is fresh, funny and hugely entertaining.
"A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" is published in paperback by Abacus on 5 February at £6.99]
a fathom online seminar
I just took a Fathom online seminar called Beyond the Internet: Predicting the Future of Computing Technology. I took about an hour. The seminar included a half dozen clips - all less than 2 minutes in length. I had a little bit of trouble running the clips. I can't imagine I missed much.
There is a handy learning objectives section at the beginning of all the seminars.
• Define what scientists refer to as ubiquitous computing.
• Predict possible future technologies and their uses.
• Consider how radiofrequency tags on products might affect how you shop, cook and recycle.
• Recognize how MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) might be used to affect environmental monitoring and satellite sensing.
• Learn how a future autonomous e-market might work.
• List possible downsides to a future where computing and technology are pervasive.
Startling thing I learned:
"The international consulting firm Ernst & Young predicts that by 2010 there will be nearly 10,000 telemetric devices (meaning devices that transmit or receive data) for every person on earth. Managing connectivity on a scale like this will be too difficult for humans to do on their own. In the future, network management will be partially delegated to software programs called agents that learn about their users and act autonomously on their behalf. The way humans interact with computers will also change profoundly. Instead of typing commands into a passive box, humans will use speech and physical gestures to communicate with computers much as they do with anyone else. Computer networks will in turn be adaptive, intelligent, and self-organizing."
Did I mention this was a free seminar?
Here's the link for the course.
http://www.fathom.com/seminars/10701043/
britney waxes philosophical
In keeping with my policy to mention Britney Spears as often as possible I cite the following from beliefnet and follow up with the Newsweek interview:
But an interview in Newsweek this week makes us wonder if it might be safer if the pop star stays away from the divine. Spears shared with Newsweek that she's "been into a lot of Indian spiritual religions." But when asked if one of them was Hinduism, she replied, "What's that? Is it like kabbalah?" Asked about the effect her steamy performances might have on children, Spears explains, "I'm here right now ... because I dreamed of these moments. Kids need that. If they don't dream, they have what? That's what makes you feel spiritual, connected with God."
http://www.msnbc.com/news/984647.asp?cp1=1
