Chauncy Winterhaven Oglethorpe XVIII

cwoxviii @ 2007-04-17T12:39:00

2007-04-17T16:41:35Z

You know, you never hear "20 dead in office shooting" or "14 killed in line for bank." It's always schools.

Seems to me that schools are working better than ever. They are designed to drive children insane, and they do. And in a recursive, self-flagellating "response" to these tragedies, schools will tighten security, increase surveillance, and drive children ever more insane, which will of course only increase the frequency and ferocity of these horrible days.

The only comfort I can take is that the system is so self-destructive that ultimately it must implode under the weight of its own constriction. But how many more kids must die in the meantime?

Japan and the Nonart of the Champloo

2005-12-12T06:25:14Z

This is something I wrote freehand in my journal while I was in Rome this past summer after having a conversation with one of my roommates, Erik, about European and Eastern cultures. (Incidentally, Erik was a great guy to talk to because he was a philosophy major at a real school, and he neatly confirmed everything I thought I knew about how terribly real schools "teach" philosophy - not because he exemplified these indoctrinations, but because he was smart enough to see them for himself, and despise them.) I had just finished reading Haruki Murakami's Underground, a documentary of sorts, a collection of interviews with people who had been part of the sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway in 1995 by the bizarre mysticist cult Aum Shinrikyo.

I want to talk about video games, but why this is important will become clear after you read this long dealie. If you just want the links, you vultures, just skip it.

"Haruki Murakami, Underground: The Japanese are the most postmodern people in the world. They are a bizarre mix of total assimilation and absolute isolationism. While anthropologists often speak of cultures 'borrowing' ideas, skipping over the intricate, case-by-case process by which an idea seeps from one nation to another, one man at a time; the Japanese, in early medieval history, literally dispatched expeditions to China to steal Mandarin culture. Without the force of thousands of years of meditation and modification lying at the foundation of these traditions, the Japanese picked and chose those aspects of Chinese culture they found useful and ditched the rest without a second thought. This makes Japanese and Chinese cultures polar opposites: the latter the most steeped in history, the most grounded, of any in the world, and the former almost consciously formed out of elements discovered lying about.

"This means that the Japanese have no sense of history. Until influenced by Western ideologies, monuments were regularly destroyed and replaced by newer, better versions. It never occurred to anyone that the originals would have any value because they were original. Hence the unique Japanese duality of isolationism and blatant cultural assimilation. A land with no history is free to create its own as it sees fit, either by taking in elements that grew up in other cultures naturally or shunning all outside influences to work upon these elements in total privacy.

"This ability - to disassemble cultural phenomena into disassociated elements and recombine them in ways that make no sense in their original, naturalistic (perhaps genetic or memetic?) contexts - is the essence of postmodernism. The resulting phenomena of this postmodern worldview are many:

"-The essence of US-Japan relations: we innovate and they perfect.
"-The oft-noted Japanese "hive mind" mentality, seen most often among corporate salarymen.
"-The proliferation of bizarre game and reality shows, the seed of which was once again born in the States, that are so odd that they seem part of an almost cosmic joke, and yet are beloved by harmless grandmothers and practical-minded, hardworking salarymen alike.
"-The invention of the modern console game. The video game is the most postmodern art medium - its mere fundaments necessitate the shattering of the fourth wall, for the player always knows that he is the one controlling the game.
"-The patchwork, dreamlike construction of postmodern art: almost all anime, Takeshi's and Miike's films, Murakami's novels.
"-Finally to reference Underground specifically: the Japanese susceptibility to mysticism and strict adherence to logic. (Anime both dives far deeper into philosophy and renders more technically the inner workings of machines than any American animation.)

"Many of these things seem contradictions, but the essence of postmodernism is built on contradiction, or perhaps more accurately infinite perspective (observe Murakami's constant desire to respect every viewpoint). It's exactly why I dislike postmodernism, but then, the Japanese geniuses have unlocked its core so perfectly that their invitations are automatically appealing to me, as an intellectual respects the deep contemplation of any sufficiently complicated notion, no matter how flawed. With postmodernism specifically, it is the childish, dreamlike quality that draws me in, that part of me that expects orange penguins that love to eat walnuts to waddle out of a ruined doorway of Hadrian's Villa as I wander its massive grounds alone, despite the fact that I know better."

Facile deconstruction? Probably, yes. Actually, definitely yes. I also neglect to say that a lot of the Japanese's baselessness comes from the period where we forced their emperor to revoke his divinity and occupied their aimless and demoralized land for years while writing their constitution for them and allowing them an army barely big enough to defend the island, which technically isn't even an army but is instead a "Self-Defense Force."

But like I said before, this is really about video games. Following this same distinction, American video games - even the great ones - are thematically solid and have a dramatic narrative line. Half-Life 2 is a perfect example of this. Japanese games, on the other hand, are like Metal Gear Solid 2: based on real situations, but as if it were in a dream, where everything makes sense but for no reason. Sure, it's a typical Tom Clancy kidnapped-President-on-oil-rig, super-secret-agent action story, but there's like, you know, a gay vampire, and a chick that warps the luck field around her, a huge fat dude that rides around on rollerblades planting bombs.

I'll admit it, that last part - that part about the dreamlike quality, recognizable elements but put into weird contexts - I stole that from Tim Rogers. You may remember, a long while back, me writing an entry about New Games Journalism (if you don't, scroll around and find it, lardass). Of course, putting it as such a mission statement, a Declaration of Independence kind of deal, is a Western thing to do; I don't think Tim Rogers would ever acknowledge himself as a so-called "New Games Journalist."

So here we get to the point, and the links: it seems to me that this New Games Journalism thing (whether you want to call it that or not) is split among the same divides as the games themselves are, which makes perfect sense, but I thought I'd just point it out. For examples, you can check out a Western-oriented site, Always Black, or Japanese/console-oriented sites, Insert Credit (which Tim Rogers writes for) and Large Prime Numbers (which is Tim Rogers' personal site). Now, both those latter are written by Westerners-by-birth, but they've become inundated in the Japanese scene and are sympathetic to their viewpoint, especially Rogers, although the other writers suffer an interesting mix of Western reservation and Japanese enthusiasm for the inexplicable.

If you read the articles on those sites, you'll find that they share some fundamental, common attributes. They're about video games. They are subjective and knowingly so. They write about their experiences inside-out, rather than as some kind of numerically delineated buying guide. They are, to coin a phrase, New Games Journalism.

But Always Black is Western in content, and Insert Credit and Large Prime Numbers are Japanese; AB is mostly about computer games, IC and LPN about console games; AB reviews cohere to a narrative point, IC and LPN reviews tend to wander and scatter. I think it's interesting that the Western viewpoint comes out much more strongly in PC games, a market almost untouched by the Japanese, and that the Japanese viewpoint comes out more dominantly in console games, which they perfected (but did not pioneer). Except of course in American console games; witness the lukewarm reception of the XBox in Japan, and on those sites.

The more I think about it, the more this distinction could apply to Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo as well. But that's a story for another time.

I need to write a Half-Life 2 article.

Are you two bad enough dudes to rescue the President?

2005-12-03T00:32:13Z

Go here. Download Bad Dudes.

Proof that a bunch of high school kids with more heart than skill can make a movie that's better than 99% of what Hollywood puts out. Bad Dudes should be required watching for anyone interested in funny things, movies, or anti-ninja legislation.

I have been sleeping twice a day, for about 3-4 hours each, for the past five days or so. It is a horrible idea, and Leonardo daVinci and Edison and all those people who said it was so edifying are all fucking idiots. The horrible part is, I just can't stop myself.

How many months has it been since I last updated? I don't even know. Proof that Bad Dudes is just that great.

Freeman Dyson lecture tonight. I loved flying around inside his sphere, the inner surface of which housed an entire alien civilization powered by the totality of its central sun's radiant energy, and blowing the living bejeezus out of said civilization in Freelancer. Maybe he'll have something to say about Freelancer, but I imagine it'll mostly be about quantum physics or somesuch. That could be fun, too; mass hallucinations always are.

Serenity

2005-10-09T09:09:02Z

The movie was excellent. I'd go so far as to say that it's the Star Wars of a new generation, and all the things that implies. It certainly reeks of the "Han shoots first" rough-and-tumble, good-natured space opera of the Original Trilogy. And it has a better moral lesson, to boot.

I need to hijack Schwartz's Firefly box set now.

I imagine Firefly fans may find this entertaining.

Also: at happy hour at Ram's Head the other night, there was a grizzled old dude that looked exactly like Big Boss, eyepatch and all. And it was a real eyepatch, not some prop cause he was confused about Halloween or a pirate enthusiast. He needed it because he lost an eye.

Science Always Prevails

2005-09-06T21:21:51Z

In response to a general outcry for objective measures of common occurences that are recognized as consisting in spectra, or degrees, the St. John's Working Laboratory has founded a unit on which to build a system of reliable, demonstrable observation of a particular social phenomenon: the Lane.

The need for the Lane arose from a common response to an objective phenomenon: seeming gayness. Called in the vernacular by the indistinct term "metrosexuals", many men are confirmed heterosexuals and yet seem so... gay. Reaching into literary sources and French philology, the SJWL has decided to name this phenomenon FLAMBOYANCE in honor of the Gallic flamboyer, "to blaze", derived from the ancient flambe, "flame."

The measure of flamboyancy is the Lane, defined concretely by how flamboyantly gay Nathan Lane is. This standard has been chosen based on its reliabiltiy and easy reference in all manner of publicly available materials. (We suggest starting with Lane's seminal The Birdcage if one desires to derive the Lane for oneself.)

Some preliminary notes on the Lane:

1. The Lane is abbreviated "LN", as a simple "L" has been reserved by the SI for the liter. Since Nathan Lane is rather flamboyant, most people will weigh in at one Lane or less; thus, it is often helpful to break the Lane into milliLanes, or mLN, for the sake of precision. (Consider the almost unused Bel and its ubiquitous derivation, the deciBel.)

2. To reiterate, the Lane is not a measure of HOMOSEXUALITY, but FLAMBOYANCE. That is to say, it is an anthrocentric (but still objective) measure not of how gay someone is, but how gay they appear. Thus, while Jonathan Coppadge is a confirmed and active heterosexual, he scores an impressive 715 mLN, while Aaron Brager, who in fact is a fag, weighs in at a modest 427 mLN. Measuring homosexuality is a far simpler proposal, most efficiently achieved by asking the subject, "How much do you love the cock?"

3. The Lane is an objective measure of MALE flamboyance ONLY. Female homosexual flamboyance is another matter entirely, with many experts rejecting the notion of "female flamboyance" altogether and replacing it with a female-specific, analogous phenomenon, BUTCH. As such, the scientific community is vying between a few possible methods of measurement, the current foremost of which are the Etheridge and the O'Donnell. It is likely more research will have to be done into the underlying phenomenon before a reliable unit of measurement can be designated for general use.

4. There is no such thing as a zero or negative value for flamboyance; the Lane represents an absolute scale of flamboyance measurement. This means that all men contain some degree of flamboyance, no matter how manly they may appear. While this is an important technical distinction that has significant ramifications for flambodynamic theory, it is only of passing note to the casual, everyday user of the Lane. While we may say that an object at 1 degree K still retains some heat, any reasonable person, speaking from an anthrocentric perspective, would say it is pretty fucking cold. Similarly, a man at 1 mLN, while still retaining some flamboyance, is still pretty fucking gritty.

5. The measuring process invovles the use of a few easily obtained scientific instruments, chief among them the Gaydar, created in 1874 by the German aristocrat and philanthropist Hans Geyden in order to, according to the compilation Geyden's Letters newly released in 2005 by the Green Lion Press, "identify and eradicate these unholy miscreants in the name of Science and God." Although his prejudicial sentiments are now recognized as distasteful cultural biases, his instrument remains a valuable tool in the continuing march of science. It would take a few years of concentrated study and the insightful genius of Oxford don Norby Billingsthilly to discover that the quantities measured by the Gaydar were flamboyance, linked to homosexuality but not a strict measure of that underlying phenomenon as such.

Modern Gaydars are quite easy to obtain and simple to use, though they are easily miscalibrated by stunted social interactions on the part of the user. This is why multiple independent verifications are needed before a given flamboyance reading can be taken as fact.

We at the St. John's Working Laboratory are certain that this new unit of measurement will come as great service to those seeking to navigate the treacherous waters of modern sexual identity. We will continue to work towards a greater understanding of our beautifully multifaceted cosmos and provide interested laymen the theoretical tools necessary to operate practically in the modern-day world.

I Want My MTV

2005-08-19T04:11:02Z

Some observations gleaned from watching late-night MTV (you know, when they actually get around to playing music videos):

1. It's hilarious how Nick Steiner of all people can predict music trends about a year ahead of time. Two years ago he was all about Modest Mouse, then last summer Float On was a big single. Then last year he was all about My Chemical Romance, now they're busting into the mainstream. Too bad that the bands aren't any better mainstream than they were when they were relatively unknown (sorry, Nick).

2. Speaking of My Chemical Romance, the biggest problem with all these emo (post-emo? whatever the fuck they're calling themselves these days) bands is that they have no sense of pace. The beginning is little more than studio-altered noodling and the end is anemic, and the whole middle is just one long verse/chorus/bridge wall of sound that is so soaring and so epic that they only thing it can do to get more epic in the chorus is drop into half-time. These people need to listen to some more GNR to learn how to make songs, rather than a couple of catchy 20-second blocks of music stitched together.

3. Green Day has a video out for the song Wake Me Up When September Ends. The beginning has a young boy and girl being all cute and shit and they're totally like in love, then he joins the Army and gets shot at a bunch while his girlfriend sits alone at home looking very concerned. While I suppose the core subject matter - that soldiers are real men with real lives whose sacrifices cannot be underestimated - is something that bears reminding for every generation, in its own words, I don't think a band whose previous specialties were masturbation and weed smoking are the ones to do it. Even worse is Green Day's lame leftist sentiments that the boy's sacrifice is a waste, and even worse than that is the fact that the song really, really sucks. They don't even have the balls to show the guy getting killed. In fact, some other dude gets shot while our noble hero hides behind a wall and looks scared. Fuck you, Green Day, for using images of our brave soldiers to force-feed us your pathetic, facile, Screen Actor's Guild leftist psuedopolitical agenda with your shitty, shitty song.

4. 50 Cent is an ignorant, vicious, crude thug. Also he is a dumb nigger.

Nother dumb survey

2005-08-19T04:01:52Z

1. Go here.
2. Pass it on.

1.~How did you meet sing_of_blake? When he wandered onto the St. John's campus looking for beer. He found a whole lot more. The only middie who's cool enough to be an honorary Johnny.
2.~What would you do if you had never met mightyrikimaru? What an odd question.
3.~What do you honestly think of hektoreborn? He's a funny, well-meaning guy, but far too wussy and tolerationist.
4.~Would or did taoofashnod and jimothyrawks go out? I think I would cry.
5.~Have you ever liked noachoc? In a "I *like* you" way? No.
6.~If jpmcintyre died tomorrow, what is one thing that you would need him/her to know? That I really don't just use him for his computer games, and actually find him to be a great person.
7.~Would jwv and taoofashnod make a good couple? Hahahahahaha think of the children!
8.~Describe ishalltriumph in 3 words: Intelligent, thoughtful, misguided.
9.~Do you think egyptgirl42 is hot? Nope. De gustibus non est disputandum.
10.~Would jpmcintyre and lelia19 make a lovely couple? I think jp's a little too bitterly sarcastic for her, but I think they'd make a decent couple.
11.~What do you think of when you see jimothyrawks? Kung fu.
12.~Tell me something humiliating about taoofashnod: He was so drunk once he pissed on the floor from his bed.
13.~Do you know any of getaaron's family members? No.
14.~What's taoofashnod's favorite color? Jesus, I have no idea. Blue?
15.~On a scale of 1-10 how cute is taoofashnod? -1, oh shnap!
16.~What would you do if radanax just professed their undying love for you? Never play melee again.
17.~What language does taoofashnod speak? He speaka the English.
18.~Who is taoofashnod going out with? No one? I think.
19.~Is apollyon888 a boy or a girl? Manly man.
20.~Would taoofashnod and radanax make a good couple? These questions just keep getting worse.
21.~Who do you think thedennisbarton would be great with from this list? There's only a few girls on here, and all of them would be horrible for him.
22.~When was the last time you talked to egyptgirl42? Personally? School.
23.~What is noachoc's favorite band? Hmmmm. I don't know. I'll guess... the Beatles.
24.~Does jwv have any siblings? Yep, a younger sister named Emily, who is only one year older than MY younger sister named Emily.
25.~Would you ever date getaaron? HE would date ME.
26.~Would you ever date ishalltriumph? No sir.
27.~Is thedennisbarton single? Nope.
28.~What is taoofashnod's last name? Oh my God. Mind blank.
29.~What is taoofashnod's middle name? I never knew.
30~What is hektoreborn's fantasy? To be a rock 'n roll star. (Too easy.)
31.~Where does apollyon888 live? Funkytown.
32.~Would you make out with sing_of_blake? I think I already have. Not by my own will, though.
33.~Are mightyrikimaru and getaaron best friends? Hah, no. Although riki can pretty much be friends with anyone.
34.~Does ishalltriumph like taoofashnod? I doubt it.
35.~How did you meet taoofashnod? He lived across the hall from me freshman year. We had some good times, most of them inside video games. (Freelancer anyone?)
36.~Is egyptgirl42 older than you? I don't know. Certainly we're around the same age.
37.~Is lelia19 the sexiest person alive? Close!

The Eternal City

2005-06-13T16:35:59Z

By the way, I don't know how many of y'all knew this, but I'm in Rome right now, and have been for the last three weeks. I have three more weeks in the Eternal City before I head home.

It's incredible. I'll write about it later.

War & Peace

2005-06-13T16:28:09Z

Purchased: Wednesday June 1, 1:00 PM
Finished: Sunday June 12, 7:00 PM

Put that in your book pipe and smoke it.

I've Got a Bad Feeling About This

2005-05-10T21:59:42Z

The original trilogy is a myth. This point has been rehashed (not the least by Lucas himself, to gain himself literary credibility) a million times, but it bears repeating: it is a new myth for a new age. The Farm Boy, the Princess, the Rogue and the Wizard must fight against the Evil Emperor and the Black Knight to end evil in the Galaxy. It's a timeless formula and it's still good, or rather still was good in the 70's when Star Wars debuted.

What makes this particular retelling of the story so compelling is its details, and there are a lot of them. The archetypes have personalities on top of them, personalities that, while closely linked with the archetypes, are distinct in their own way. Han Solo isn't just Han Solo, he's Harrison Ford playing Han Solo, which makes all the difference the in the word. The original trilogy was witty; it was charming; it was friendly. Much has been made of Star Wars' "boilerplate" aesthetic, the fact that all these super-duper future spaceships look beat the fuck up, like they've been around forever. The Milennium Falcon is the Flash Gordon equivalent of your uncle's old Camaro. The aliens are puppets, they are gritty and real it feels like you can touch them. Star Wars brings the myth alive, and that's why it's so good. BUT: it is still, at its heart, a myth. The details are just that.

The problem with the new trilogy is that the details have become the movie, and the myth has become the trappings. Yeah yeah, sure, there's the story of a man's fall from the light, but check out all those cool lightsabers! Where the original trilogy was concerned with the dynamics of a few interesting people who happen to hold the fate of the Galaxy in their hands, the new triolgy is concerned with politics, separatist groups, senates, votes of no confidence... if the original trilogy is the American myth, the new one is the American machinery. If the original is AMC, the new is C-Span.

All of that homey feel - part detail, part familiarity with the story - is gone. The new trilogy is stark, slick and foreboding. Gone are witticisms like "Your Highnessness", gone are all the believable puppet aliens, gone are the Camaro spaceships. Instead all the aliens ooze 3D elastic perfection, the ships gleam like they were all just rolled out of the factory in time for shooting, and the dialogue is like a seventh grader trying to read Antigone. Lucas' new Galaxy seems to have what scientists call the Shininess Problem, where even the disgusting skin of a blue space-Jew curmudgeon is reflective enough to shave in.

ALL of the problems people find with the new trilogy - unconvincing, overwhelming special effects, lifeless dialogue, wooden acting (crew on the set of Episode I sniggeringly called Jake Lloyd "Mannequin Skywalker"), senseless overcomplex plot - can be traced to this single principle. Lucas has forgotten what made his original trilogy so great, and he's taken the heart and soul of the thing, ripped it out, and used it to merely dress up what was only dressing to begin with. He wants to make his myth into a gleaming, beautiful monument of literary importance, an Apollinian monolith. He wants his Buck Rogers to become an Iliad, and he has killed his universe to do it.

Just look at the scrolling titles. New Hope: "It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire." Short. To the point. You know who is good and who is evil, and what must be done to see that the Light carries the day. Phantom Menace: "Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlaying star systems is in dispute. Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo." Wait - what? Can I rewind those and reread them? Blockades? Shipping routes? Taxation disputes, for fuck's sake? Is this the beginning of an epic? What happened to my myth?

Q&A from bastardzero

2005-05-09T23:09:43Z

1- Describe the gameplay of your dream shootemup game.

Dream Shmup? Freelancer, except ten times bigger in its current incarnation, along with the ability to land on any planet and get out and walk around, mine/harvest resources after purchasing land rights (or simply taking them), the ability to get out and walk around in any of the spaceports and space stations FPS/pseudo-RPG style (think Deus Ex), making contacts, fighting pirates and bounty hunters, hiring crew, etc, and the ability to create your own stations modularly (buy a granary and stick it on there for food production, weapons factory to supply your own ammo/guns, smelter for the ore you're mining on-planet, etc). As it stands, Freelancer's a good base, but much too limited.

Now, if we're talking ANY game with shooting, and not just the technical Shmup category, then I'd have to describe the FPS originated by a friend of mine and then refined between the two of us. Imagine this: a city, 10km square, fluid, no loading times. Co-op only, multiplayer only. The mission is: rescue the President from an alien army. The team is split into tactically diverse, and required, roles... probably a four or five man team minimum would be needed to complete the mission successfully. Enter any building, hotwire any abandoned vehicles. The city map would always be the same, but alien populations/patrol patterns would change randomly, and respond dynamically the to players' actions. Also, the President would always be fortified in a different area. Much of the gameplay would center around pinpointing where she actually is within the 10sqkm area, by hacking files, leaving alien commanders alive and beating it out of them, etc. Also, you have to remove the hostage (and your team) after he's found, which means finding an extraction point. This may mean leaving the edge of the map, or destroying a couple AA batteries so that a dropship can pick you up at a designated LZ, which of course you'll have to clear... many, many details. Perhaps I'll write them all up if I'm bored one day.

Too bad neither of us can really program. Or have any (visual) artistic skills.

2- You're gonna be turned into a zombie! It's a hellish mindless existence but you're allowed the option to kill yourself if you like. What do you choose, and if suicide, how do you do it? If with a gun, specify what gun and how.

Death is better than undeath. What gun? Doesn't matter, not in the zombie movie aesthetic. Guns for them are tools, not fetishes. In fact, you can often tell the difference between a zombie movie (Romero) and an action movie with zombies (Resident Evil) by how they treat the guns. For John Woo, guns are beautiful, objects of affection, like a chivalric knight's sword. Think how much time the Arthurian legend spends on Excalibur. Real, honest-to-God zombie movies aren't about the beauty of combat and the perfection of its instruments; they're about mere, gritty survival. As such, the kind of gun doesn't matter. The HOW, though: the HOW is, after spending all but one round making sure I take some of the unnatural sons of bitches with me. "I always save one bullet, for my enemy, or myself."

3- Uh... that's all I can think of for now, we need to talk more! More questions to follow.

I'm waiting. Also, am I supposed to hit you back on this, or what?

Poke, Poke, Poke, Poke, Poke

2005-04-25T02:08:13Z

I fucking hate these cute autogenerated meme things, BUT:

That is a damn good haiku.

Ted K-O-Double P

2005-03-02T04:11:02Z

Go here.

HILARIOUS.

Russian Roulette meme

2005-02-19T00:56:55Z

Comment and ask me 6 questions about myself, anything you wish to know about me, random, crazy, deep, personal, anything, and I MUST answer truthfully. In return you post this and see what people ask you.

New Games Journalism

2005-02-08T04:15:31Z

For those of you who consider video games a legitimate art medium - and that should be everyone on my friends list, at the very least - you may be interested in this manifesto on New Games Journalism, a method of games writing that will simultaneously reflect the legitimacy of games' artistic merit and grant them legitimacy to the critical, but as yet unconvinced eye.

On the same page where the manifesto is hosted is an article entitled "Bow, Nigger", the best example of NGJ that I can find, about the struggle of Good vs. Evil that can arise out of a simple game of Jedi Knight II multiplayer dueling. (I prefer an epic match of Jedi Academy myself, but then the article was written before that game was released.) Also, at the bottom of that article is linked this article on Eve Online, an MMOG (Gilbert, I hope you're paying attention). For that last one, you'll probably want to right-click and download to your HDD before reading; PDFs are notoriously slow when viewing them through your browser.

I hope to find some more of these articles online, or even write some myself. It seems obvious to me that they are integral to the credibility of games as viable art medium. I'm toying with the idea of writing an NGJ piece on Half-Life 2; it certainly deserves one as the incredible work of art that it is. And besides, all this recent Kant reading has gotten me interested in subjectivity, the heart and soul of the NGJ manifesto.

What is it like to BE Gordon Freeman?

Bad News For People Who Love Good News

2005-02-03T18:38:35Z

(This was a comment written in response to the typical observation that there is so much bad news in media, and that the cause must be a perverse pleasure on the part of those media's audiences.)

I don't know what it is with bad news, but I'm not sure it's just perverse pleasure. More that people are so frightened of their safety that they NEED to know EVERY bad thing that happens in order to keep themselves scared and therefore alert. Or, you could do it the other way and say that since every media outlet of consequence in the entire country is owned by one of five megacorporations, they feed fear into the news media specifically in order to scare people into being good corporate citizens. After all, they have to buy all their deadbolts and security systems and guns and gas masks and duct tape and bottled water from somebody.

And the craziest thing is, it's not just that there's a greater proportion of bad news than there used to be, there's a greater proportion of bad news shown AND actual crime and other bad things have gone down! It's a double increase of the bad news:actual events ratio. Bizarre.

If you want a rational, unbiased, informed and eloquent voice in the news, check out Christopher Hitchens (thanks rinku for mentioning him all those months ago). He often finds himself on the Bush side of many political arguments, but certainly it is not from some neoconservative party-line bias. After all, he used to be one of the shining stars of The New Republic, was a staunch anti-Vietnam protestor, lambasted Reagan in his obituary, and is a practicing atheist and secularist. In other words, he is a liberal when the liberals are right (mostly, in the 70's) and a conservative when the conservatives are right (occasionally, presently, but certainly more often than the liberals at this point).

P.S. That link goes directly to Hitchens' scathing rebuttal of Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's carnival of deceit. It is probably his best-written article, at least on Slate. You can find his other articles from there.

Re: the so-called "Counter-Inauguration"

2005-01-22T22:23:59Z

Get fucking jobs, you hippies.

Or, use your political fire and zeal for change to ensure that someone like George W. Bush is never elected again, instead of wasting it on useless gestures of reticence against a decision that cannot be reversed.

"Turn your backs on Bush." Yeah, THAT'S a good one. I'm sure the weaselly bumpkin is crying himself to sleep every night.

Also, it snowed like ass today.

Requesat in pace

2005-01-22T22:19:49Z

TNF is dead.

Although the decision will come as no surprise to those of you who read this journal, since it's been in effect for a couple weeks now, the Tuesday Nite "Fites" are no more. They may return one day, but not any time soon. Rest assured that the discussion was long, excruciating, and heartbreaking, and basically came down to the fact that the Archons could not continue unless the Fites were compromised, and compromising the Fites would be far worse than having none at all. When you go out, go out strong.

In memoriam (and partially in celebration of the fact that I've found my notebook, or more properly Kate found my notebook), I'm going to post the Primary "Fite" Theorems, culled from the magical mix of tradition-out-of-coincidence and hardcore reason that was TNF's unique claim on philosophy. I'll list them in order of importance, even though they were written as they occured to me, and later out of careful consideration with other hardcore Fiters. Hopefully, this will ensure that the legend will not die - and perhaps, in the far future, that some bright young philosophers will resurrect "the people's philosophical voice".

The Primary Voting Theorem:
DO WHAT YOU DO, BUT THINK IT THROUGH.

The Primary "Fite" Theorem:
All fites boil down to
Flavor v. Tradition; or
SUPERIOR v. PRIOR
First Corollary: People will not consistently vote for Prior or Superior.
Second Corollary: Fites that move farther from the Prior-Superior dichotomy are proportionately more interesting.

The Pointless Romanticism Theorem:
Almost all off-campus voters (and most underclassmen) will always vote for romantic bullshit.
IT'S NOT A FUCKING CANDY SHOPPE.
The Alex Claxton Corollary: FIRST PRINCIPLE of ROCK.

The Ordinal Fite Theorem:
1st: TITLE (in caps)
2nd: The 2-Hole
3rd: Brian Jones Fite
4th: Seminar Fite

Words and Music

2004-12-08T07:39:33Z

Music and lyrics are always at war. They cannot take center stage at the same time, and any song that incorporates both truly beautifully (say, Blackbird) makes compromises on both ends. The first rule of rock music is: you don't sing during the guitar solo. A song with true poetry for lyrics (say, Dylan songs) usually have nothing but a guitar strumming on a few chords in the background, while some of the most poignant music ever (say, orchestral music, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn) has no words at all. This is extremely clear in opera: the plot is played out in recitatives against a background of simple piano chords and a kind of "sing-talking" style, while the musically beautiful arias are always on a few phrases, typically extrapolating on the feelings or disposition of the character, as opposed to more straightforward intellectual plot advancement. This is true to such an extent that the more words in an aria, the more "mistaken" it usually is. Overexplanatory arias miss the point.

This isn't to say that the compromise music and lyrics must make precludes poignancy. On the contrary, their very compromise is meaningful in itself. Both together creature understanding. But it takes one or the other, alone, to create rapture.

The more examples I think of, the more I find direct correlations. Arguably the most moving piece of the St. Matthew Passion, "Erbarme dich", has maybe thirty words for six minutes of music. Palestrina's most beautiful pieces are musings on literally one phrase, so distended and extracted that the words are nothing but syllables on which to sing - so much so that it disconcerted the Church hierarchy by leading them to believe that people liked the music, a creation of Palestrina's, more than the words, supposedly a creation of God. They actually forced a resolution to make his pieces LESS complex, so the words were more comprehensible. Most great headbanging metal songs, songs that lose you in the rapture of power and anger, have no words, or they are incomprehensible, which has the same effect - in other words, it makes the voice into an instrument and makes the words not "count", if that makes any sense. That's why I always scoff at people when they say that metal lyrics are ridiculous. Of course they are, I respond, because they don't matter. They usually don't get it.

There is no poem like Stravinsky's "Firebird," nor is there a piece of music like Shakespeare. That's why setting poetry - real poetry - to music always sounds lame. You can't take "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and make a little chorale out of it. It's the ultimate case of missing the point.

Another dumb test

2004-12-05T21:11:55Z

Jung Explorer Test
Actualized type: ENTJ
(who you are)

ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.

Preferred type: ENTJ
(who you prefer to be)

ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.

Attraction type: ENTJ

(who you are attracted to)

ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.

Take Jung Explorer Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

*

Well, at least I'm consistent.

Drowning in materialism

2004-11-30T07:06:49Z

I have 249 items on my Amazon wish list. I tend to think of it less as a practical wish list that will one day be completed and more of a running list of everything I want, which I suppose makes it more of a true wish list after all. The artistically minded will be happy to note that every single thing on there is either a movie, album or video game, so I suppose it's not so much a mark of my materialism as my voracious hunger for art.

Of course, the theoretical nature of the list in no way precludes anyone from buying some of that shit and sending it straight my way. I mean, I wouldn't turn my nose up at it.

I find myself unable to type out all my current impressions of the world, mostly because I just lost my moleskine mininotebook in which I kept them all and it depresses me that I'll probably never find it. I suppose I could buy another and start over, but the idea crushes the spirit. I had all my TNF votes in there, too. And the Primary Fite Theorems! That's a God damned shame. I don't know if I can make up the loss.

America: FUCK YEAH!

2004-10-11T04:39:40Z

Team America: World Police.

Of course, it's a topical piece of political satire that employs its own extreme humor as a foil to the social extremism that currently persists on all ends of political spectra. Team America destroys a half dozen priceless landmarks in order to kill one jeepful of terrorists, but Michael Moore is a crazed communist suicide bomber wearing a dynamite vest, detonator in one hand, hot dog in the other. (Where a more traditional terrorist wacko might have a telltale scar, Moore has a dribble of mustard running down his chin.) Kim Jong Il is hilariously presented as a whining, insecure totalitarian nihilist, and brings to mind nothing more than Parker and Stone's own rendition of Saddam in their other comedy, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. When he croons, full of melancholy, "I'm ronery," you know what movie you're in. Liberal Hollywood is ripped from stem to stern, placed opposite the curiously absent American government as represented by the smug, chaingunning Team America.

Really, it's the sight gags combined with the music that do it. When the main character goes on a depressed, drunken binge, every stream of vomit he spews in a dirty back alley is accompanied by a dramatic crescendo from the orchestra.

That leads right into what is probably the best thing about the movie, politics notwithstanding: its loving homage to bad action movies. When terrorists bomb the Panama Canal, the floating corpses of innocent civilians are shot in slow motion, with wordless, quasi-Middle Eastern wailing in the background a la every epic action soundtrack in the last five years. There's a training montage complete with a song about training montages ("Every scene, you get a little bit better..."). What would be an unnecessarily complex martial arts scene in a typical movie is represented by two marionettes smashing inarticulately into each other. Lines are shamelessly stolen verbatim from big-budget extravaganzas of varying quality, from Armageddon to The Matrix, as well as one-liners so archetypical that they simultaneously belong in no and every action movie: "Hey terrorist! Terrorize this." BLAM!

Accompanying the visual and verbal humor are the hilarious musical send-ups I've come to expect of Parker and Stone ever since their magnum opus that is South Park. Everything from your pro-America, metaphorically obtuse post-9/11 country song ("Freedom isn't free... if you won't chip in your buck oh five, who will? Oh, freedom's worth a buck oh five...") to the hit song from the breakout alternative musical Lease, which features such lyrics as "AIDS AIDS AIDS, AIDS, AIDS, AIDS AIDS, AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS."

The question isn't whether or not to go see it. The question is, are you a dick, a pussy, or an asshole?

Wouldja like ta take a surr-vey?

2004-09-17T03:50:41Z

1. Spell your first name backwards - Rehpotsirhc. Some kind of Klingon curse, I guess.
2. The story behind your livejournal name- Chauncy Winterhaven Oglethorpe the XVIII was invented by my bizarre half-friend Henry Meeker back in middle school. He (Chauncy) was a Jamaican midget, originally conceived for a D&D game. I absconded with the name and use it online.
3. Where do you live- At home.
4. Words that sum you up- Fuck if I know.

DESCRIBE YOURSELF-
5. Wallet- Nice leather Fossil one, with a folded-up newspaper article inside whose headline reads "Puxatawney Phil's Home at Gobbler's Knob for Sale". HAHAHA! I mean, Jesus Christ, Gobbler's Knob?
6. Hairbrush- It's shitty pink plastic, I think I stole it from my little sister years ago.
7. Toothbrush- Reach. (Big mouth.)
8. Jewerly worn daily- If the pimp-ass watch my girlfriend gave me counts, then... the pimp-ass watch my girlfriend gave me. This probably counts even less, but also the pearl-handled pocketknife my pleasantly redneck Texan uncle gave me for graduating high school.
9. Pillow cover- One blue, one striped.
10. Blanket- Blue comforter I've had since 5th grade.
11. Coffee cup- I don't drink coffee.
12. Sunglasses- Since they have to be perscription, and those little flip dealies are a pain in the ass, none.
13. Underwear- Generic boxers.
14. shoes- Merrell light hiking shoes for sneakers, sandals, formal black shoes, and heavier black Sketchers for work.
15. Handbag- Yeah. No.
16. Favorite top- Uh, guys don't call them "tops".
17. Cologne/perfume- Old Spice High Endurance Original Scent. Deodorant, but it's so damn good it might as WELL be cologne. Actually, Erikk my freshman year used Right Guard deodorant and then Old Spice cologne... I thought that was pretty hilarious.
18. CD in stereo right now- None, but the mp3 playing is a remix of Wild Arms music. (What a gem, that game!)
19. What are you wearing now- My "Life is Full of Important Choices" drum T-shirt, jeans.
20. Makeup- Nnnnnope.
21. In my mouth- Doritos.
22. In my head- Paradise Lost.
23. Wishing- For some real fucking food.
24. After this- Sleeping, to awake at 6:45 A fucking M for work.
25. Talking to- Myself.
26. Eating- What's "In my mouth".
27. Fetishes- Big Booty Bitches.
28. Person you wish you could see right now- Allyse.
29. Favorite movie- Jesus, I hate these fucking questions. Kill Bill, Hero, Hard Boiled, Citizen Kane, Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Indiana Jones, The Fifth Element, Star Wars, South Park, Leon, The Road Warrior, Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Rush Hour, and Six String Samurai, to start the list off.
30. Something you're looking forward to in the upcoming month- Oktoberfest.
31. Something that you are deathly afraid of- The Uncanny Valley.
32. Do you like candles- Not particularly.
33. Do you like incense- Depends on what it smells like.
34. Do you like the taste of blood- I don't think I'm supposed to.
35. Do you believe in love- I believe in a thing called love; just listen to the rhythm of my heart.
36. Do you believe in soul mates- I don't think so.
37. Do you believe in love at first sight- Not at "first sight", but at "first real meeting", which I think is what most people mean by the expression.
38. Do you believe in heaven- I don't really see a reason, but there's no reason there couldn't be one.
39. Do you believe in God- I see something more in this concept, but I'm still undecided.
40. What do you want done with your body when you die: Take everything you can use, burn the rest. My loved ones can treat the remains in whatever way they feel is most effective for their grief. I mean, I don't really care; I'll be DEAD.
41. Who is your worst enemy: The willfully ignorant.
42. If you could have any animal for a pet- Ferret, but like a cool trained one that can steal the jailer's keys when you get thrown in the lockup and stuff.
43. What is the latest you've ever stayed up- 48 hours, maybe more?
44. Ever been to Belgium- For an afternoon, to go to this really awesome, humongous playground. Even though I was in 8th grade, it was still incredible.
45. Can you eat with chopsticks- Absofuckinglutely.
46. What are 5 places you wouldn't mind relocating to-
1. The Netherlands, probably Maastricht or Utrecht
2. Edinburgh
3. China, after its inevitable fall from Communism
4. Chicago
5. Hawai'i, the Big Island

47. What are some of your favorite pig out foods- I never eat without pigging out. But specifically, Snyder's Sourdough Pretzels, buffalo wings, any and all Chinese, Indonesian Satay.
48. What's something that you wish you could understand better- The nature of the universe. (Is this a trick question?)
49. Anyone you miss that you haven't seen in a long time- Denny, I guess Allyse counts (I don't know if it's really been a "long time"), my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Paul and their kids.
50. When was the last time you had a fight with a friend- With a friend? Not sure. I might've never had a REAL fight with a friend. At least, I can't think of one off the top of my head. Now, with a GIRLfriend? Pick a day! ('Course, I wouldn't trade it for the world.)

Chaaaaaain Interview.

2004-09-02T03:06:54Z

Questions courtesy of radanax. If you want 5 questions from me, just drop a comment bomb.

1. What do you think about smoking?

Kate once put it to me this way: "Imagine wanting something more than anything else in the world, and getting it over and over again." Of course, wanting a cigarette more than anything else (like, say, virtue) is contestable in itself, not to mention all the medical problems that can arise from tobacco use. I think smoking's best uses are contra-idleness; if you're standing around outside waiting for something, you're just waiting. But if you light up during that time, you're not doing nothing, you're smoking. Reminds me of a Shadowrun site I used to visit where the author wrote a little treatise from his character's point of view on the equipment he always keeps with him in order to be professional; one of those things was cigarettes, because if you're just waiting it makes people nervous. If you're smoking, on the other hand, people will ignore you.

In the end, it's too expensive for my wallet and my lungs. But if it weren't deadly or otherwise physically handicapping, I think I'd love to.

2. What stops you from being interested in martial arts more actively?

Complete and utter sloth. There's really no prettier answer. Physical repetition, for whatever reason, cannot captivate me in the same way as mental repetition (read: video games, more or less). And the end goal - i.e., being badass - is much too far away for my innate desire for instant gratification.

3. What's the most important aspect of a video game if it's to hold your attention?

Constant challenge. If I'm not playing uphill, so to speak, I lose interest quickly. Although I have much more tolerance for stretches of inactivity, or net inactivity (lateral motion, if you will), in video games than I do in real life (cf. the above question).

4. Why St. John's...? :/

Where else? It seems to me that St. John's is the only educational institution in this country that is interested in teaching its students, instead of merely inculcating them. The vast, vast majority of colleges are nothing more than High School +. All St. John's does is treat you like a thinking, mature man and let great men speak for themselves in their own words, while grouping you with other people that appreciate such a purely forward approach to learning. It's an intellectual matchmaker, if you will. Pretty much everything I like about St. John's (the tutorial structure, the enablement process, the student body's willingness to learn) is a consequence that falls naturally out of this fundamental fact.

5. If you had to not have read one of the books from seminar (freshman, sophomore, and junior so far) to date, which one would it be? Why?

Now this is tough. Contrary to most people, I really think everything we read in seminar is valuable, for one reason or other; far from pruning the list, it can only be expanded. Four years is too short a St. John's term, not too long. That being said, I suppose if forced I would have to exclude Epictetus, since he is more of an interesting sidenote in the philosophical course of Western civilization that we follow in the seminar curriculum than a main stopping point. That, and I don't really like him: I respect many aspects of the Stoic worldview, but he ultimately defines man far too narrowly, in my opinion, to qualify the range of ethical thought and action.

Done and done.

The Basement

2004-08-25T19:36:26Z

Campbell 3. Not third floor; just 3.

Be there, or be square.

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