Alien acrobats in human skins
Not much to report from Planet Seattle. My wife and I are seeing Cirque du Soleil tonight, thanks to free tickets I got from my work. Granted, I do have a soul-deadening job, but sometimes the perks make it all worth it. If I didn't have free tickets, my wife and I would have passed on the $200 entry fee for us to go in and see a group of highly talented superhumans bend in ways not even CGI can render. It's not that we don't like CdS. We've already caught one of their shows as well as attempted to get in to one of their many spectacles in Las Vegas (either the water one or the sex one, we can't recall).
It's just that about a year ago, "Cavalia" came through town. For those of you who don't know, "Cavalia" was a CdS offshoot that featured horses and humans performing the CdS-brand of "I'll never be able to bend like that in a thousand years of diet and yoga training" dexteries. After you see a couple of people get all double-helixy with each other on a moving stallion (good lord, the sexual imagery alone), the normal CdS seems kinda tepid. After all, the people can train for years in to be in that CdS limber franca. You add a horse, a thousand-pound animal that could go nuts and stampede at any moment, and the danger-voyeur level in the crowd is elevated. Of course, tonight, my wife and I will clap and be awestruck, but CdS does need to bump it up a notch. We're thinking something with monkeys and chain saws, or the Dr. Evilesque sharks with laser beams.
Now, that's entertainment.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Monday, May 01, 2006
Radar Scope
Noticed something over the weekend. For the first time that I can remember, there's nothing that I excited to see as far as summer blockbusters go. I can pass by Tom Cruise, the X-men, and every animated film coming my way. I can wait for them to come to Netflix in 6-8 months, but there's nothing I need to see. Same for upcoming video game releases (although E3 in eight days might change that). Nothing's coming on my radar that's got me genuinely in the "I so need that" category. I know have a few titles on reserve at my local game store, but I'll be damned if I can remember more than one.
No pinpoint on the cause, but I get the feeling that for movies, I can wait for the aforementioned Netflix release. For the price of a going to a movie once a month, I can get a DVD sporting better picture and sound quality than the theaters. I can pause when I want, rewind, watch special features, or listen to commentary. When I'm done, I'll send the movie back and get another one. Lather, watch, eject, rinse, put in return mailer, repeat. I've grown into the patience of an adult to see marketing hype for what it is. I don't need to stand in line anymore for a movie. I know it'll be there tomorrow, playing five times a day, seven days a week. I also know that big budgets don't lead to greater enjoyment. Explosions and other eye-candy may have dazzled me as a youngin', but there's a law of diminishing returns with the wonder of technology. With CGI, I'm less dazzled than I was before. For as shiny and sensational the new Star Wars movies looked, they were as sound story wise as a Faberge egg. Same goes for the remake of King Kong, which lingered close to Uncanny Valley. The humans looked hollow and the effects were delicious.
Add to this, the general avoidance static I feel at movie theaters. I'm not comfortable in the chairs, waiting through 30 minutes of ads without the benefit of a mute button. Being ad-free by getting into sneak previews and watching DVDs have spoiled me. I'm not huge around crowds, and I'm getting to a point where I like being control of the media instead of it being blasted into my face as if Dick Cheney wielded a multimedia weapon. I can start and stop a video game at my choosing. I can put down a book when the phone rings. I can pause DVDs, TV, and my iPod. All of which makes me wonder if I'm an outlier or part of a growing crowd who isn't into the communal experience of cinema, popular for most of the 20th century.
As for games, I suppose I'm wading in the desert here, a drought common between the start of the calendar year and up to E3 in nine days. E3, that video game wonderland held in Los Angeles, is like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, where Santa Claus arrived at the end and it's officially the start of the holiday shopping season. E3 marks the clock for new releases between now and, well, whenever. It's an orgy of marketing, a blender of hype and lights and swag and the id run amok. It's for kids and kids who are in their late 30s and barely able to fit their pudge into their stretch-waist khakis. It's where millions are spent in a full Zerg rush to colonize the minds of boys and men to buy whatever Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft tells them they have to buy. It is to us testosterone vessels what beauty and fashion magazines are to the XX set. Without the latest sequels to First Person Shooter X or Generic Sports Title, the menfolk in this country are nothing, and without the latest consoles, you might as well hand in your penis at the Man Desk upfront.
I've been playing video games for 25 years, and I think I've reached that point in the timeline where I can see the patterns in the industry. Shooter games, sports games, Japanese fantasy RPGs, movie licenses as games, and the weird eclectic stuff that are like foreign films: You know they are interesting but are too out there for mainstream (read: American) consumption. Looking over the gaming horizon, there's little that's innovative or exciting. Like with CGI-laden movies, there's lots of eye-candy but little fun to be had. The two things that register on my radar is "Lego Star Wars II," which is a sequel to last year's title which put a cute spin on the Lucas universe using the durable plastic blocks. The second is the new Nintendo console, unfortunately still named Wii. Moniker aside, the abilities it promised, from backwards compatibility to a gyroscope, motion-sensitive controller, could make for gaming to be what it should have always been: an aside to life's activities, not the central core. Gaming has gotten far too serious and demanded far too much loyalty and cash from consumers to make them feel as if they are on the inside of the cool clubhouse.
No, sorry, it's a hobby. It's an option. It's meant to be fun, an enjoyable time-waster, not some status symbol that miraculously enforces someone's masculinity. Not so long ago, I got over the need to frag aliens, zombies and Nazis. Once you move beyond that, a lot of gaming becomes invisible. Once you decide you don't need to hunt and kill, trample or conquer, humiliate and swagger, there's little left to actually play. Times like this, I think about my wife, who has gotten more into gaming the longer we've been married. I wonder how an industry like video games can still make money when it primarily chases one gender every year. Maybe that's Massive Multiplayer Online titles do so well with women, where the emphasis is on communication and community and not fragging each other.
Maybe MMOs are the answer to the question the gaming industry is avoiding: Has the video game generation grown up? For us in our 30s, we are the first full-fledged generation born and raised with video games on the market. We grew up in the neon lights of the arcade and wasted hours in front of the blue glow of Atari, Odyssey, Intellivision and further down the line to now. We've play countless versions of shooters, rpgs, sports titles, and more. As we get older, we like the idea of a virtual watering hole to play, to talk, to flirt, and maybe adventure. Us older folks look out at the valley below, where the sounds and flash from E3 make an artificial media storm of hype, and we shrug. It's a high school now, where the cool kids determine what you have to play to be in. We grimace at what's behind us, and then we turn back to our online sudoku, our guilds, our Second Lifes or Warcrafts. We bid adieu when dinnertime or bedtime happens in our real world. We play on our terms now, because we're old enough to understand the truth. It's just a game, and important stuff happens outside of the screen.
Noticed something over the weekend. For the first time that I can remember, there's nothing that I excited to see as far as summer blockbusters go. I can pass by Tom Cruise, the X-men, and every animated film coming my way. I can wait for them to come to Netflix in 6-8 months, but there's nothing I need to see. Same for upcoming video game releases (although E3 in eight days might change that). Nothing's coming on my radar that's got me genuinely in the "I so need that" category. I know have a few titles on reserve at my local game store, but I'll be damned if I can remember more than one.
No pinpoint on the cause, but I get the feeling that for movies, I can wait for the aforementioned Netflix release. For the price of a going to a movie once a month, I can get a DVD sporting better picture and sound quality than the theaters. I can pause when I want, rewind, watch special features, or listen to commentary. When I'm done, I'll send the movie back and get another one. Lather, watch, eject, rinse, put in return mailer, repeat. I've grown into the patience of an adult to see marketing hype for what it is. I don't need to stand in line anymore for a movie. I know it'll be there tomorrow, playing five times a day, seven days a week. I also know that big budgets don't lead to greater enjoyment. Explosions and other eye-candy may have dazzled me as a youngin', but there's a law of diminishing returns with the wonder of technology. With CGI, I'm less dazzled than I was before. For as shiny and sensational the new Star Wars movies looked, they were as sound story wise as a Faberge egg. Same goes for the remake of King Kong, which lingered close to Uncanny Valley. The humans looked hollow and the effects were delicious.
Add to this, the general avoidance static I feel at movie theaters. I'm not comfortable in the chairs, waiting through 30 minutes of ads without the benefit of a mute button. Being ad-free by getting into sneak previews and watching DVDs have spoiled me. I'm not huge around crowds, and I'm getting to a point where I like being control of the media instead of it being blasted into my face as if Dick Cheney wielded a multimedia weapon. I can start and stop a video game at my choosing. I can put down a book when the phone rings. I can pause DVDs, TV, and my iPod. All of which makes me wonder if I'm an outlier or part of a growing crowd who isn't into the communal experience of cinema, popular for most of the 20th century.
As for games, I suppose I'm wading in the desert here, a drought common between the start of the calendar year and up to E3 in nine days. E3, that video game wonderland held in Los Angeles, is like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, where Santa Claus arrived at the end and it's officially the start of the holiday shopping season. E3 marks the clock for new releases between now and, well, whenever. It's an orgy of marketing, a blender of hype and lights and swag and the id run amok. It's for kids and kids who are in their late 30s and barely able to fit their pudge into their stretch-waist khakis. It's where millions are spent in a full Zerg rush to colonize the minds of boys and men to buy whatever Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft tells them they have to buy. It is to us testosterone vessels what beauty and fashion magazines are to the XX set. Without the latest sequels to First Person Shooter X or Generic Sports Title, the menfolk in this country are nothing, and without the latest consoles, you might as well hand in your penis at the Man Desk upfront.
I've been playing video games for 25 years, and I think I've reached that point in the timeline where I can see the patterns in the industry. Shooter games, sports games, Japanese fantasy RPGs, movie licenses as games, and the weird eclectic stuff that are like foreign films: You know they are interesting but are too out there for mainstream (read: American) consumption. Looking over the gaming horizon, there's little that's innovative or exciting. Like with CGI-laden movies, there's lots of eye-candy but little fun to be had. The two things that register on my radar is "Lego Star Wars II," which is a sequel to last year's title which put a cute spin on the Lucas universe using the durable plastic blocks. The second is the new Nintendo console, unfortunately still named Wii. Moniker aside, the abilities it promised, from backwards compatibility to a gyroscope, motion-sensitive controller, could make for gaming to be what it should have always been: an aside to life's activities, not the central core. Gaming has gotten far too serious and demanded far too much loyalty and cash from consumers to make them feel as if they are on the inside of the cool clubhouse.
No, sorry, it's a hobby. It's an option. It's meant to be fun, an enjoyable time-waster, not some status symbol that miraculously enforces someone's masculinity. Not so long ago, I got over the need to frag aliens, zombies and Nazis. Once you move beyond that, a lot of gaming becomes invisible. Once you decide you don't need to hunt and kill, trample or conquer, humiliate and swagger, there's little left to actually play. Times like this, I think about my wife, who has gotten more into gaming the longer we've been married. I wonder how an industry like video games can still make money when it primarily chases one gender every year. Maybe that's Massive Multiplayer Online titles do so well with women, where the emphasis is on communication and community and not fragging each other.
Maybe MMOs are the answer to the question the gaming industry is avoiding: Has the video game generation grown up? For us in our 30s, we are the first full-fledged generation born and raised with video games on the market. We grew up in the neon lights of the arcade and wasted hours in front of the blue glow of Atari, Odyssey, Intellivision and further down the line to now. We've play countless versions of shooters, rpgs, sports titles, and more. As we get older, we like the idea of a virtual watering hole to play, to talk, to flirt, and maybe adventure. Us older folks look out at the valley below, where the sounds and flash from E3 make an artificial media storm of hype, and we shrug. It's a high school now, where the cool kids determine what you have to play to be in. We grimace at what's behind us, and then we turn back to our online sudoku, our guilds, our Second Lifes or Warcrafts. We bid adieu when dinnertime or bedtime happens in our real world. We play on our terms now, because we're old enough to understand the truth. It's just a game, and important stuff happens outside of the screen.
Diversion tactics
Last night, I finished a self-imposed dare, if I could write 30,000 words for a new novel in 30 days. I don't know what triggered the mad race for words. I have suspects: my lagging on my earlier novel, a general feeling of not being able to write on command, a growing inertia of creativity. I needed something new, something I didn't have a lot invested in. I've been working on the first novel, the serious one, for almost two years on and off. At that point, it becomes a Byzantine maze, growing darker and more muddled every time you turn a cold, marble corner until you feel the walls pitilessly closing in on you.
About six weeks ago, I broke out of my low-grade novel terror with an idea that seemingly sprung out of my head, Athena-style, with my poet friend Cori. Never felt an experience like that before, everything rushing out as I messaged her. Imagine a soothing electrical shock wrapped in an orgasm tortilla and it begins to cover it. I remember writing "electric blue Jesus in my veins" to her as I typed down details, history, primary conflicts, and within an hour I had the basic concept of the character. Within 24 hours, still peaking on the creative dosage in my veins, I had the feel of the novel, as well as solid, evolving plot.
I put the serious novel, which loomed over me like a buzzard, off to the side and decided to see if I could hold my own mini-NaNoWriMo, but set the goal for 30,000 words, instead of 50,000. 30 days in April, 1,000 words a day. No outline, but a gist of the course. I found I need some kind of deadline in order to produce something, even if I don't know just what I'm doing. It's a sense that "You need to get this done by X." All in all, it was exciting in that rollercoaster-terrifying way to see what bubbled up in the primordial ooze. I reckon I could most of it, and pieces will need to be altered or swapped around for consistency. I embarrassingly forgot the name of the lead character's boyfriend several times, inventing a new one as I went. Oh, at least there'll be some fun in the rewrite.
So, I'm writing again, albeit on a different project. I'm taking the next few days to scan what I've written, acknowledging that it's time to figure out how to break all this down by chapter. I'm a bit mushy on the middle, but then that's the biggest challenge for writers (and why it's called a "mushy middle"). At the same time, the first novel is calling me again. With my juices going, I feel like I can return to the bigger maze I built and hammer that thing into shape and get it to my former writing teacher to review. I've blown off an informal deadline already, and I would like to get it to her before August at the latest. Hrm. I sense another deadline in the making.
Last night, I finished a self-imposed dare, if I could write 30,000 words for a new novel in 30 days. I don't know what triggered the mad race for words. I have suspects: my lagging on my earlier novel, a general feeling of not being able to write on command, a growing inertia of creativity. I needed something new, something I didn't have a lot invested in. I've been working on the first novel, the serious one, for almost two years on and off. At that point, it becomes a Byzantine maze, growing darker and more muddled every time you turn a cold, marble corner until you feel the walls pitilessly closing in on you.
About six weeks ago, I broke out of my low-grade novel terror with an idea that seemingly sprung out of my head, Athena-style, with my poet friend Cori. Never felt an experience like that before, everything rushing out as I messaged her. Imagine a soothing electrical shock wrapped in an orgasm tortilla and it begins to cover it. I remember writing "electric blue Jesus in my veins" to her as I typed down details, history, primary conflicts, and within an hour I had the basic concept of the character. Within 24 hours, still peaking on the creative dosage in my veins, I had the feel of the novel, as well as solid, evolving plot.
I put the serious novel, which loomed over me like a buzzard, off to the side and decided to see if I could hold my own mini-NaNoWriMo, but set the goal for 30,000 words, instead of 50,000. 30 days in April, 1,000 words a day. No outline, but a gist of the course. I found I need some kind of deadline in order to produce something, even if I don't know just what I'm doing. It's a sense that "You need to get this done by X." All in all, it was exciting in that rollercoaster-terrifying way to see what bubbled up in the primordial ooze. I reckon I could most of it, and pieces will need to be altered or swapped around for consistency. I embarrassingly forgot the name of the lead character's boyfriend several times, inventing a new one as I went. Oh, at least there'll be some fun in the rewrite.
So, I'm writing again, albeit on a different project. I'm taking the next few days to scan what I've written, acknowledging that it's time to figure out how to break all this down by chapter. I'm a bit mushy on the middle, but then that's the biggest challenge for writers (and why it's called a "mushy middle"). At the same time, the first novel is calling me again. With my juices going, I feel like I can return to the bigger maze I built and hammer that thing into shape and get it to my former writing teacher to review. I've blown off an informal deadline already, and I would like to get it to her before August at the latest. Hrm. I sense another deadline in the making.
Friday, April 28, 2006
Short notes
1) Apparently, Nintendo chose "Wii" as its new name because "Revolution" is unpronounceable in Japan. Begs the questions: Why did a Japanese-based company go with "Revolution" for so long then. How did they talk about it during board meanings? How did the techs in the Japanese labs confer with each other on the project? How did marketing discuss it? The code-name "Revolution" has been circulating for more than a year. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has called it by name in speeches. Being Japanese, I reckon he found a proper word for it. And in the year or so since Revolution has been floating around, I can't recall seeing gaming news from Japan being stridently against the name.
So, what gives? Well, for starters, the name "Wii" won't. The name is final, according to IGN.
Favorite snippet
IGN Wii: Why announce the final name now and not at E3 2006?
Perrin Kaplan (Nintendo of America's VP of corporate affairs): Why are we doing it now? Well, let me just say that if you look at how much time people have spent online talking about it today and paying attention to it today, it really, I think, required that kind of attention and seeping in for people to let it settle a little bit. It would be really, really easy to lose that at the show. Also, I think it's important for us to go into the show with people knowing what we're talking about.
In shorter words: Nintendo knew that if they dropped "Wii" as the name at E3, the gamers and journalists would have rushed the stage and tore apart Iwata, Kaplan and anyone else in the way. Now, they have a couple weeks to have it dissipate in the public sphere before E3, and I'm guessing based on the reaction, Nintendo's hoping something bigger comes along to distract the public from this botching of nomenclature: Namely, the US nuking Iran.
2) I got myself a copy of Massive Attack's "False Flags" last night, which is available as an extra song on the "Live with Me" CD single and on Disc 2 of the band's new "Collected" greatest hits package. I have to admit that I was less than legal in getting my copy of "False Flags." Still, I got it and listened to it, if iTunes can be believed, about a dozen times. It's a chilling, brilliant, angry little song and I highly recommend it.
Lyrics here
1) Apparently, Nintendo chose "Wii" as its new name because "Revolution" is unpronounceable in Japan. Begs the questions: Why did a Japanese-based company go with "Revolution" for so long then. How did they talk about it during board meanings? How did the techs in the Japanese labs confer with each other on the project? How did marketing discuss it? The code-name "Revolution" has been circulating for more than a year. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has called it by name in speeches. Being Japanese, I reckon he found a proper word for it. And in the year or so since Revolution has been floating around, I can't recall seeing gaming news from Japan being stridently against the name.
So, what gives? Well, for starters, the name "Wii" won't. The name is final, according to IGN.
Favorite snippet
IGN Wii: Why announce the final name now and not at E3 2006?
Perrin Kaplan (Nintendo of America's VP of corporate affairs): Why are we doing it now? Well, let me just say that if you look at how much time people have spent online talking about it today and paying attention to it today, it really, I think, required that kind of attention and seeping in for people to let it settle a little bit. It would be really, really easy to lose that at the show. Also, I think it's important for us to go into the show with people knowing what we're talking about.
In shorter words: Nintendo knew that if they dropped "Wii" as the name at E3, the gamers and journalists would have rushed the stage and tore apart Iwata, Kaplan and anyone else in the way. Now, they have a couple weeks to have it dissipate in the public sphere before E3, and I'm guessing based on the reaction, Nintendo's hoping something bigger comes along to distract the public from this botching of nomenclature: Namely, the US nuking Iran.
2) I got myself a copy of Massive Attack's "False Flags" last night, which is available as an extra song on the "Live with Me" CD single and on Disc 2 of the band's new "Collected" greatest hits package. I have to admit that I was less than legal in getting my copy of "False Flags." Still, I got it and listened to it, if iTunes can be believed, about a dozen times. It's a chilling, brilliant, angry little song and I highly recommend it.
Lyrics here
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