Summer Reading Season, First Round

Here's a concept: reading books. I lament that it's not something I have a whole lot of time for during the school year. What better time, then, to go on a literary spree than summer? Last summer I hit such highlights as Ken Jennings' Brainiac, and the seventh Harry Potter book (many, many times over). And that's not even to mention the wonderful Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World among others.

This summer, exiled as I am to Alton, Illinois, I decided to continue that fine tradition a step further by packing a backpack full of books and busting them out whenever I had nothing to do. That turned out, and continues to turn out, to be quite frequently. I began actually a bit before the migration started, and now that I'm about halfway through, it's time to discuss the first batch.

John Sanford's Rules of Prey occupied some time in car rides out to Athens (two of them in one week! The horror!) for my cousin's wedding. Definitely an enjoyable book, and highly recommended to fans of the mystery/suspense genres. There wasn't anything hugely literarily significant about it. But like a good episode of CSI, the plot is so cleverly wrought, and the characters are at least interesting enough to string it along, that it's enjoyable the whole way through. Sanford is far from the first author to write about quirky detective-types, and he'll by no means be the last. That said, few if any authors writing today do it better, and I'll make an effort to read more of these books when college affords me the chance.


The Count of Monte Cristo is one of those books you hear an awful lot about, think "yeah, maybe I should read this" and never really work up the motivation. Or perhaps you're forcibly exposed to it through some Honors English teacher. The reason that you're forcibly exposed to it, or that people won't stop talking about it? This book is truly excellent. From the outset, what's not to love about a bunch of French guys getting revenge on each other? The degree of forethought and subtlety in all of the plots, as wrought by both Dumas and his characters, is spectacular.

Some of the side stories are less interesting than the main plot--this is both necessary to keep us wanting to come back to the main plot, and a sign that Dumas is indeed human--and some of the character relationships become a little confusing as the book snowballs on. I might have appreciated a few family trees, a la George R. R. Martin. that told me the given name, the title, and the family name of any given character. (As is common with nobility, at some point, people stop going by their given names and just take on their titular identities.) And I find Dumas' continuous restatement of his thesis, that you must experience sorrow to experience true happiness, toward the end of the book a little heavy-handed. Perhaps I find it heavy-handed because I disagree with it.

But that's not enough to prevent enjoyment of the book, by any means. This book literally "has it all"--intrigue, action, romance, and the religious commentary that's practically required of the Romantic era. Redemption, vindication, treachery, and of course vengeance. Dumas works wonders with character development, both in terms of perceived character development as plots come to light, and in the characters' real development in response to events in the story. The highest praise I can give, though is this: for its daunting volume, most of it clips by at a surprisingly quick speed. Definitely recommended.


Next up on the list was that book-club staple The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, written as a memoir of her childhood. Plenty of peoples' gut reaction to this book is a negative one: "I smell a rat." Maybe it's naivety on my part, but I can't believe someone would make this all up. Why incriminate one's own family so harshly for the purposes of authorship? If she wanted to go through the trouble of writing fiction, then Walls merely could have written fiction. And because she's obviously a proficient storyteller, the resulting tale would have been just as good.

I don't know what reaction Walls was hoping to elicit to the characters in the book. It seems unlikely that she meant to vilify her own family as thoroughly as she does, but I walked away from this book with a sharp dislike for both of Jeannette's parents. Alcoholism is a beast I haven't had to deal with anyone close to me having had, so I'm the least qualified person imaginable to comment on it. But it's very difficult for me to believe that Rex couldn't at least scrape up an ounce of restraint so that he could buy food for his children rather than getting drunk. How Jeannette managed to hold out any respect for the man after that happened--not just once, but time and time again--is beyond me. Not to mention his constant disputes with viable sources of income for the family; getting shunned from jobs just because of an ideological conflict with the boss.

Her mother isn't free from blame either. If you're, say, 26 years old and living by yourself, do whatever you want. Go ahead and say "I know I have experience teaching, but screw it, I want to be an artist. I don't care if that means I only get one meal a day." More power to you. But again, if you're in a situation where people are depending on you for that food, don't condemn them to one meal a day just because you're too obstinate to teach school.

Take home message from this book? Where any number of allegories or propagandas try and convince you that you should appreciate what you have, this book actually succeeds. Reading about some of the absolute destitution that Walls and family end up in, whether it actually happened or not, truly helps you to value that roof over your head and that running water in the sink.


I also hit a book called None So Blind by Joe Haldeman, a collection of science fiction short stories. Most of them are quite good, not going full blown Star Wars level of sci-fi, just altering one aspect of a story to make it paranormal. Perhaps one character has advanced technology. Perhaps there's an alien. Maybe technology has advanced from where we are now, but only significantly in one area, and that's the area Haldeman explores. Most of the time, this turns into very, very good reading. Haldeman's biggest weakness is that he insists on tying his Vietnam experiences into each and every story. There were maybe two stories in the entire book that didn't mention Vietnam at all--there was almost always a character that makes an offhand mention of having been in Nam. Ignoring that, or just taking each story for itself individually, it's a fine collection, and a good choice for sci-fi fans. (Yes, Nick, this is your book that you lent me about four years ago. Yes, you will be getting it back in the fall.)


Finally, we come to a literary giant, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Heretically, I really didn't like it much. That goes against everything I've heard from people who've read it, and everything I'm supposed to believe as an American reading American literature, but oh well. One of the biggest reasons is Steinbeck's dialog. He insists on so closely attempting to match the Oklahoma dialect that he puts an apostrophe in every time a character drops a consonant in every speech. Hell, any given person might say "you and I" and sort of slide off on the d in "and". Or the f in any given "of". Those are understood speech patterns. But every "and" that shows up in the dialog in that book, without fail, is "an' ".

The other huge problem is that Steinbeck loves to have his characters tell stories, and that's fine. But these characters that he's written are not intelligent enough to be able to respond in a coherent conversation to each other beyond a few lines. So you might get one character express some thought, have another character tell a paragraph long tale about some chicken, and then have the first character, who just listened to the story, express the same thought he did before the story started. That's another irritating thing, the characters repeat themselves incessantly. Not repeating thoughts. Repeating what they just said, word for word.

We also see the book turning from simple expose narrative, showcasing the plight of the migrant worker, to a paean to organized labor and socialism at the end of the book. Showing that conditions were really awful for these people is one thing. If Steinbeck were trying to accomplish a social change by affecting people's attitudes toward poor workers, fine by me. That's a good enough cause. I can support him wanting to elicit a reaction akin to "wow, I never realized it, but people really do starve in America. We as a culture ought to do something about that." And this would have had a tremendous impact.

Where I have to stop supporting Steinbeck is when he finally crosses the line and suggests that the government can provide for the citizens much better than the citizens themselves can. And after that point, he entirely denounces the ability of the individual to combat injustice, and throws that responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the collective. "If we are to get anywhere, we must abandon our individualism, and once we have done that, attempt to get the government to fix our problems for us."

Political leanings aside, I thought it left a lot to be desired as a narrative, too. Constantly, every chapter in fact, we go from following the actual plot, to some generalized account of the same thing the story is about. Steinbeck might spend an entire chapter talking vaguely about someone going to pick cotton, somewhere, and communicate a the point that there's really not enough work to go around. Then, the very next chapter, we see the actual story describe the exact same conditions--except in specifics this time, featuring the characters the reader actually cares about. Steinbeck could have omitted essentially every other chapter and told the same story. Between that and the fact that the characters are seemingly unable to talk to each other for longer than a few lines and insist on saying everything they say at least twice (if not three times), it would almost be a good choice of book for an ADD patient--except for the fact that it lasts nearly 600 pages.

Structurally, the story didn't really have a climax and lacked a cohesive resolution altogether. Towards the end, a girl who'd been pregnant the entire book miscarries her baby. Then at the very end, she breast-feeds some dying man she comes across in a barn. Seriously. We've been following this destitute Oklahoma family for going on six hundred pages, and we've finally reached the point where they literally have no money or job, and now a flood has destroyed most of their possessions. The very last scene is this girl breast-feeding some random dude. Then, fin. Infuriatingly unresolved, as if Steinbeck said "ah, to hell with it. Time to go write Cannery Row." I understand the symbolism behind this; that she represents rebirth in the face of adversity, and the fact that even in desperate times, there is some kernel of compassion in humanity. That doesn't make it an entertaining way to end a book. And anytime you let your narrative suffer for the purpose of making a statement, you reduce the quality of your writing.

One of the foremost standards I learned from my high school AP Literature teacher, Mr. Norton, was "keep it f'real". Jokey slang aside, his point is a valid one. Don't claim to like a book simply because it's attained the label of "classic". And The Grapes of Wrath is just one that I can't bring myself to like.


Coming up: Canterbury Tales, Catch-22, The Stranger by Albert Camus, my second go with Pope Benedict's book, and probably some Palahniuk and Koontz to round it out.


Currently listening: "London Bridges" from This is Ivy League's self-titled album

Life's Better With a Giant Turkey Leg

Among my hit parade of getting other people to cook/buy me food was home-cooked dinner courtesy of my mentor and his wife. (Pretty good pasta, too.) Now, before dinner, the afternoon's festivities were a trip out to the renaissance festival, that staple of elementary school field-trippers and counter-culture high schoolers.

There are lots of things at the renaissance festival that anyone can appreciate. For instance, when the falconer is so good that he can attract a bird of prey just by holding out his arm, and then doesn't get taloned in the process... that's impressive Various acts of juggling and swallowing fire. And of course no real day is complete without watching a joust, whether you happen to be nine or ninety.

Of course, a nine-year-old isn't going to have as developed a sense of subtext, observation, and historical relevance as an older viewer. That's why it took my second visit to a renaissance fair to notice something interesting about it. The fair is, necessarily, presented as an artifice. Nobody rides horses at each other with lances for honor anymore. (Well, perhaps that does exist; enthusiasts seem to exist for every conceivable hobby.) There are belly-dancer shows today, but long gone is the notion that a wealthy patron can go up to the show runner with a couple of silver pieces and take one of the dancers home for the night. In other words, though the performers try and maintain a respectable sense of verisimilitude, all the attendees know what a facade they're getting into.

And despite this, I don't think the experience for the average fairgoer is fundamentally different now as it was for a real fair six hundred years ago. In either time, it's not a common event to see a leatherworker or a blacksmith in action. Of course, the reason why is completely different: in the real renaissance, you were probably too poor to afford transportation to the industrial center where those things were being made, instead merely buying them when the traveling merchant decided to show up. Now, it's uncommon because of globalization and industrialization.

At both fairs, you're likely to see wondrous sights that only a few people in the world can perform. Maybe the methods of sword swallowing are more accessible now than they were, thanks to the internet, but that doesn't immediately imply that more people know how to do them. It's still a spectacle. And the entertainers now are no less eager to make a living than they ever were. Whichever ploy they use to try and gain the audience's favor, whether it be flattery, self-deprecation, or merely impressing us with their talent, they're not about to give a free show.

Two things I do wonder about. First, was the S&M pretext as strong at the fairs hundreds of years ago as it is now? Costumes. Leather as far as the eye can see. And more cats o' nine tails than at the "Johnny Vegas Adult Boutique" down the street from my apartment. That's sure as heck something that a nine year old isn't ever going to notice... hopefully.

Second, did it cost the equivalent in florins to eight dollars to get a turkey leg back then? No matter. I'm sure it was every bit as delicious. And no real man would come to a joust without one.


Currently listening: "Cemeteries of London", Coldplay

This makes the Ark of the Covenant killing Nazis look plausible

Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

And boy, that sure is a mouthful. I'll return again to one of my slogans: that I'm not really a movie person, but that I might appear to be one when I go on a movie-reviewing spree. That usually happens thanks to my legitimate movie person friends at two times of the year: the end of the year pre-Oscar season, and the summer blockbuster season. (Count this as the summer blockbuster installment of 2008.) Just to prove how much of a movie person I'm not, let's talk about the Indiana Jones movies. I've only seen the first one once, about five years ago, and I don't really remember what happened in it. I've never even seen the second or third ones. If that's not shirking my duty as a cinema-obsessed American, I don't know what is.

On the bright side, I've been told that if I'm only going to have seen two of the movies, the first and fourth aren't a bad two. And if I pretended to be a little apprehensive about having missed "some critical plot detail" in the second or third ones before I saw the fourth, the Indiana Jones series proves that it's on the other end of the "serial scale" from, say, Lost. I do have at least some modicum of education on the series; enough, for instance, to understand why Dr. Jones has a picture of Sean Connery on his desk.

And if I say that I don't really remember the first movie at all, I at least remember the iconic scene, perhaps one of the defining in American moviemaking, where Indiana shoots the scimitar-wielding Arabic fellow. That, and I remember lightning shooting out from the Arc of the Covenant and killing Nazis. And I remember thinking, up until this point in the movie, it almost seemed plausible. Maybe there really is some hidden Pharaonic staff buried in a tomb that, when placed in the right part of the model of the city, lights up with the rays of the sun, etc. etc. The lightning part was a jump into the idea of "yep, you're going to have some supernatural/paranormal events in this movie." Okay, fine.

The events of the fourth movie idea put that to shame, whether for better or worse. The ending of the movie is so awash in the paranormal that you can't decide whether to be confused or entertained, or merely to start lathering on the Mystery Science Theater. I mean, aliens, all right. The Mayan ruins are actually a spaceship, whatever. But not just a normal spaceship, no, an interdimensional one, that transports matter to other versions of space by sucking them through some hole in the ceiling?

I'm obviously not expecting the most subtly worked, nuanced plot from an action movie, but there's a massive hole in the plot that opens right when Dr. Jones and friends walk into the "bunch of aliens with crystal skeletons" room. So there's this legend that whoever returns the skull to the city gets control over its powers. Cool. Here's the difficulty with that: conquistador guy takes the skull from that chamber in, what, 1500-something? If all it took for the spaceship to get booted up again was for all the parts of all the aliens to be present, shouldn't the chamber already have been sucking stuff into another dimension? And how did that legend get started anyway?

So in terms of "movie that makes you think" you're in the wrong place--unless you want to try and puzzle through that plot hole. As an Indiana Jones movie, I'm not the best person to ask about that, given my relative lack of experience with the rest of the series. But as an action movie, and as an inspiration for adventure stories, it's a lot of fun.

One thing I really don't understand (aside from the entire backstory to the film) is Shia LaBeouf. My dad had seen that this person called Shia LaBeouf was hosting Saturday Night Live, and he asked me if I had any idea who that was. This was before I'd seen the movie, of course. "Nope," I responded. "In fact, I have no idea if that's a male or female." Turns out, of course, it's the guy who plays Jones' sidekick-slash-long lost son, an actor who's shown up in a handful of earlier movies, and someone who's apparently slated to become a huge movie star this year. Good to know.


Currently listening: "Either Way", Wilco

Weezer: A Retrospective

Review: The Red Album

I'm a bad Weezer fan, I admit it. I didn't even know that there was a new Weezer album until I saw some scrappy looking guys on an MTV commercial and thought, "hey, those guys sound sort of like Weezer." Turns out, I was right. They were hyping their third self-titled album in six tries with their oddly named single "Pork and Beans". The first two self-titleds were their greatest successes, spaced roughly seven years apart; why not try it again, seven years later?

My experience with Weezer is an extensive one ranging over that second seven-year period, dating back to when I first figured out what sorts of music I liked. My very first forays into musical taste were Weird Al and baroque. The Weird Al period was fun, and everybody should have one, but I think I sort of outgrew the shtick. And I still like baroque and prefer it to any other classical, but my musical tastes have expanded considerably. Besides, baroque isn't per se a band. Coming into 8th, 9th grade, the first three bands I could consider myself a fan of were Creed, Rammstein, and Weezer. These are entirely different bands—generic rock, bordering on Christian; German "dance-metal"; and geek-rock meets emo—a diversity of taste that I try and still maintain today.

I don’t listen to much Creed anymore, except for when my iPod decides I need to hear "My Sacrifice" or "Faceless Man" on shuffle (the former happened as recently as last week). Then again, with the band's demise a few years ago, it's not like there's terribly much Creed to listen to these days anyway. I still keep up with Rammstein—there's nothing like it if I want some ridiculous driving industrial. Over the years, though, I've found there's less and less keeping me coming back to Rammstein—where I'm usually content with a band doing the same thing over several albums (as long as it stays good), Rammstein has been doing the same thing for so long that they might benefit from a drastic change. Or maybe it's just that I listened to Mutter so many times in the year 2002 that I finally reached some sort of saturation years down the road.

I discovered Weezer in a Newsweek article that was about the band's resurgence in producing the Green Album, the second self-titled (the first was the Blue). The article described what sorts of things the band sang about: the X-Men, playing roleplaying games in their basement, going on vacation, wishing they could drop everything to go surfing, and most importantly what they'd love to, but can't, find in a girl. Clearly, these are all things that a somewhat geeky fifteen year old can relate to. So in 2001 I decided to buy both the Blue and Green albums. (The article also touched on Pinkerton, Weezer's second album, which vanished into obscurity between the Blue and Green. But it didn't have very nice things to say about either the album itself or fan reactions to it, so I decided to pass on that one.)

And they were really, really good. Blue was a bit grittier, a nice helping of angst along with distorted guitar riffs, and it was where Weezer first established its unabashed geek-rock base. Green was peppy, on the verge of pop, and it couldn't help but make you think of nice, warm things like summer and the beach (especially when they started talking about Islands in the Sun). Despite those distinctions, they very much sounded like the products of the same band, so much so that I began to associate the two in my mind into one aggregate idea of "what Weezer sounds like". And over the next several years, I couldn't get enough of it.

A couple years later, 2003 saw the release of Maladroit, a heavier, louder take on the concept established in the first couple CDs. I didn't like it at first. I had that idea of what the band was supposed to sound like, and Maladroit conflicted with it. However, sometime since then, maybe around 2005, that album grew on me. Though I don't hold it in as high esteem as the Blue or Green, I recognize it today as a good CD. I say "maybe 2005" because that's when we got Make Believe, undoubtedly the worst in the discography. Upon figuring out how bad it was, I think I decided to re-evaluate my stance on Maladroit. As for Make Believe, between the strained efforts of the radio-overplayed "Beverly Hills" and the proclamation that "We Are All on Drugs", I started to wonder if Weezer might be too.

Despite their stances on whether Blue or Green was better, or if Pinkerton was any good at all, a huge majority of listeners held the opinion that Make Believe wasn't worth the CD it was burned onto. After a couple-year hiatus, Weezer returned to the strategy that had already paid dividends seven years earlier: return to a colored self-titled album. And so in 2008 we get the Red Album.

A lot has changed for this band since their would-be Buddy Holly days. Sleeve-worn hearts, black-rimmed glasses, and four guys standing around against a monochromatic background have given way to lyrics about being old, weird trucker hats, and… four guys standing around against a monochromatic background. "We're a whole lot different now," the band seems to say, "but hey, we're still just four guys playing some rock music. And you like us for that."

The important question, though, is what sort of rock music? From the onset of the album, it's clear that Weezer isn't out to please anyone. It's obliquely hinted to when the first track is called "Troublemaker". It's thematically obvious when you hear the second, "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived". And it's finally explicitly stated in the third, "Pork and Beans", when Weezer says outright that they're not out to please us.

It's become a rock band cliché to release a "this is an album that we wrote for us" album after they've reached a certain veteran status. In fact, it's become such a cliché that I can't think of any examples of them. But you know what I'm talking about. A band is known for doing one thing, and doing it well. Suddenly, it takes a complete change of course on the latest album. When confronted with criticism from fans or the media, the band casually replies "we just decided to make this a project that we wanted to do, and we hoped our fans would like it too." This raises a question: has the band been doing something it didn't really want to do for all these years?

So whether us fans like it or not—literally—we're stuck with this album that Weezer clearly intended for Weezer. It might work for Weezer, but does it work for a fan or listener? As an album, not really. The songs are disjointed, and there's really no common stylistic theme that unites them all. I'm not asking for "Weezer does concept album" here, merely for "Weezer writes eleven songs that sound good together." They've done that before, several times. One of the oddest parts of the album is when other members of the band besides Rivers Cuomo insist on singing—I'd remind them only that the Beatles fell apart after Ringo started to sing.

Of course, no discussion of the Red Album is complete without more talk about "The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived". This is Weezer's shot at theme and variation, and it's a doozy. It starts with Rivers trying some white boy rap, features several generic-rock sections and a few overly-dramatic snare drum sections, and even includes a contrapuntal vocal thing about halfway through. When writing theme and variation, the most important consideration is "are out variations distinct and interesting enough that you want to listen to all of them?" In this song, the answer isn't always yes. But I at least have to give major points for creativity.

Elsewhere in the album, it seems like Weezer has chosen to do a retrospective of themselves. There's Blue Album grit, Green Album pop, and Maladroit distortion. They pay tribute to some of their favorite rock songs (and presumptive influences) in "Heart Songs", and with that comes an irony I can't help but pounce on. That Newsweek article I read, the one that introduced me to Weezer in the first place, praised the band for "looking like Buddy Holly when everyone else wanted to look like Kurt Cobain" and being okay with that conception of themselves. "Heart Songs" has a prominent section dedicated to none other than 1991's seminal grunge album In Utero. No way Weezer did that on purpose; doubtful that any of the band remembers that statement in the article anyway. I'll again give some credit to Weezer, this time for unabashedly acknowledging their influences, whether they be from seventeen or thirty-seven years ago.

The Red Album has songs that would have felt in place on any of Weezer's previous albums. It has some that are right at home on the Red Album. And it has a few that are simply out of place, no matter where you put them. That's especially true when the album gets way too dark and fatalistic in the last few tracks and starts talking about death. While it's definitely not an instant hit, a la the Blue and Green Albums, it's not an instant failure a la Make Believe either. I can see it growing on me like Maladroit or fading like Pinkerton. And it should be interesting to see how I remember the Red Album next time the occasion comes around to do a Weezer retrospective.


Currently listening: "Canzon A 12", Giovanni Gabrieli

2008: A fine year to go Experimental

Review: Viva la Vida

A few weeks ago, my mom asked me what I thought of Coldplay. Now, my mom is definitely a product of the 60s and 70s, but certainly a product who lived through those decades and has musical taste. At the very least, she completed the greatest musical task set forth to baby boomer parents: impress upon the youth the immense significance of the Beatles. It was through my mom that I first came across the thesis that everything good about any music after 1970 is in some way attributable to the Beatles. It sounds radical, but I'm more or less inclined to agree with it.

So when she asked me what I thought of Coldplay, I was naturally a bit surprised. "How come?" I asked. She had seen the iTunes commercial with the new Coldplay song, and she said she never knew she actually liked that band. "Coldplay's all right," I told her. "Some of their stuff is boring. But there's a lot of music that, given a choice between Coldplay and it, I'm picking Coldplay." Now, at this point, I had not seen the iTunes commercial in question—credit to my mom for picking up something technological and musical before I got there.

Several days later, I saw the iTunes commercial for myself. This is the one featuring the title track from Viva la Vida. Yes, I thought, mom's right, this is good. Perhaps I should check out the new Coldplay CD for myself. I did. If I thought the newest Death Cab CD was going in some strange directions… let's just say I wasn't prepared for Viva la Vida. This is some sort of odd "Coldplay does experimental rock". We're talking pentatonics, mixed meter, innovative orchestration. And the baffling thing is, on almost every level, it works.

I'll go farther than that, in fact. This album has done something remarkable. Something that Parachutes seemed dead-set against, that A Rush of Blood to the Head wanted nothing to do with either, and that X&Y flirted with and almost broke through to in a few spots. This album has made Coldplay interesting. And it's easily my favorite Coldplay CD.

Now, as a disclaimer, this is coming from the guy who liked X&Y, quite a bit. I wouldn't go so far as to call X&Y one of my favorite CDs, but it's definitely something that I listen to on purpose. I've been told from people who know far more than I do about songwriting and popular music appreciation that I'm really not supposed to like it that much. The lyrics are flat, they complain. There's almost no trace of creativity. Yeah, maybe that's true, I admit. But it's good to listen to.

All of this has made me realize something about my personal criteria for good music. Forced to make a choice, I'm going to pick the thing that sounds nice over the thing that has meaningful words behind it almost every time. If you can do both, a la the Shins, then you're (finally) golden (boy). Other bands can do it too, like the Decemberists, Eisley, Rilo Kiley, and Sufjan Stevens; these are artists I would legitimately call my "favorites". There are exceptions, like Neutral Milk Hotel, which has a certain indelible intellectual charm about it despite the fact that Neutral Milk Hotel wouldn't know "in tune" if it hit them in the proverbial jug. But this is precisely why I don't listen to Bright Eyes, Radiohead, and Modest Mouse—regardless of how good the words are, it just doesn't sound very pleasant.

Most of X&Y did. Again, not that Parachutes and A Rush of Blood to the Head didn't. They were just bland in their not-unpleasantness. Maybe they were a plate piled high with white rice. There's nothing wrong with rice, and given the choice between rice and starvation (or the Brussels sprouts of most modern popular music), I'm taking the rice. Maybe X&Y was rice subtly flavored with saffron. It doesn't change the fact that it's still rice, and plenty of people are going to criticize it for trying to pretty itself up and mask its shortcomings.

That makes Viva la Vida gumbo. There's still rice there, and it’s not that you even have to look very hard to find it. But this time there's much more going on: more flavors, more colors, and more to keep you coming back even after you've had a plate. Now, suppose you like your rice plain. Saffron would be a little off-putting, and chicken, sausage, and okra are going to turn you away completely. And suppose you were sort of expecting something drastically different, but you would have preferred a helping of cashew chicken mixed into that rice. Then Viva la Vida might be very disappointing indeed.

The fact remains that, for better or worse, it's different. I think it's good different. And I can see this experimental album being one of those that creates a schism in Coldplay's listener base: some fraction swearing off the band as sellouts and another fraction embracing the experiment. I'm very much in the latter.


Currently listening: "Harry Truman", Chicago

What Matt has been doing in suburban St. Louis

Among other things, getting taken out to dinner by co-workers trying to make a good impression on the Intern. Reading, a bit. Finally getting the internet! (Yesterday marked that momentous occasion.) Watching all sorts of trash on MTV--I'm so up to date on A Shot at Love that it pains me. I've also "acquired" the first two seasons of The Office, which everyone tells me that I'm supposed to love. I'm just scratching the second season now, and yeah, I see where the hype comes from. This is probably the driest comedy that the American market can tolerate, but that's entirely a good thing so far. That also means that it's downright slapstick compared to the British version that inspired the American one, which is also a good thing. Some Britcom is funny, but I get the idea that The Office was probably the driest thing to hit English television in some time. This means most American fans--myself included--are going to be turned off from it. Bottom line: if you're among the perhaps dozen or so people who have told me that I needed to watch this show, good call, and I'll update more as I get further into it.

This week also marked the return of The Mole, which is certainly my favorite reality/competition show of all time, and probably breaks into the top ten or fifteen overall. The premise, in case you're unfamiliar: a group of people is shipped off to an exotic locale and made to do ridiculous things in the name of money. Every time someone wins a challenge, money is added to the pot, and whoever wins the show gets the pot. Now, the catch: one of this group is trying to sabotage the rest of it. This can't be blatant abuse, like knocking down a tower if the challenge is to build a tower; then, people would catch on. It's subtleties, like "oh, goodness, I missed that clue buried in the sand. Oops." It's intelligent in a way that nearly no other reality show comes close to, and it's engaging to the viewer, as you yourself try and figure out who the Mole is.

Also, writing. I'm about to embark on a Super Secret Writing Mission at the request of a friend who shall remain nameless. As a warm-up exercise, I wrote the last half of a short story I'd had in the works for some time called "Ashlanders". I described this to my friend Samantha as "half trivial satirical social commentary and half weird Lost-inspired love story". The premise is based off a story one of my favorite high school teachers once told me about a game he and his college buddies used to play: go to the library on a Friday night, and find the white kid. This is really nowhere as racist as it sounds, I promise. You can read "Ashlanders" here.

Coming up next: reviews of the new Indiana Jones movie, the new Coldplay and Weezer CDs, and a discussion of the renaissance festival.


Currently listening: "Strawberry Swing," Coldplay

Ironically, my last post was number 108

The irony here is that this is yet another Lost-themed post. 108 is of course immediately significant to fans of the series as the sum of the numbers. At this point in the series, a mere two weeks before the season 4 finale, I feel the need once again to summarize some theories I've had about the show's intrigue and mysteries. As usual, I can't take credit for all these theories myself, but I've compiled existing theories and added my opinions.

About the Monster, aka Cerberus:

• The monster, as we know, is named Cerberus, an allusion to the three-headed dog that guarded Hades in Greek myth.


• The monster can, and regularly does, appear as a cloud of black smoke. This is one of Cerberus's "heads".


• The monster has also appeared to Mr. Eko as Yemi. (This was confirmed by the producers.) This suggests that the monster can appear as people. This is the second of Cerberus's "heads".


• In a podcast, the producers referred to both Yemi and Christian Shepherd as "undead".


• But they've also referred to Christian Shepherd as "dead".


• We know for a fact that on Lost, if you die, you're dead. The island can heal you miraculously, but even it can't resurrect.


• So the Christian Shepherd that we've seen is another Yemi-like manifestation of the second of Cerberus's heads


• Maybe this explains some of the mystery behind Richard Alpert, too. If the Richard we see is a manifestation of the monster, then there's no reason that it would ever get any older.

Questions raised and unanswered by this theory:

• We've seen Richard Alpert three separate times, as well as Christian once, off the island. This would suggest that the monster can escape the island, which we have no evidence of it being able to do.


• Can the monster only appear as dead people? As humans? As one thing at a time, or more than that?


• The producers also referred to Kate's horse as "undead"; is the horse another manifestation of Cerberus's second head?


• What is Cerberus's third head?


• Maybe this is what Locke saw when he "looked into the eye of the island" way back in season 1?


• We've seen that Ben has apparent control over at least the "smoke monster" manifestation; can he control either of the others?


• Does the sonic fence stop all three heads or just the smoke monster one?


• Maybe Mikhail's mysterious return at the end of season 3 was a smoke monster manifestation?


• How in the hell did this thing get on the island, and who put it there? Why?

Theories about Widmore and finding the island:

• We know that Widmore is looking for the island. Also, we know that Widmore and Hanso have collaborated in the past through the Widmore Corporation.


• Widmore may have had some connection with the DHARMA Initiative specifically; chances are good he at least had heard of it.


• Additionally, Ben tells us that Widmore wants the island for his own. He is currently looking for it by means of the freighter.


• Widmore has probably looked for the island before.


• The boat race around the world and whatever Widmore did with the Black Rock's ledger were almost certainly his prior attempts to find the island.


• Rousseau's science expedition and Henry Gale's balloon flight could be other efforts by Widmore to find the island in the past.


• According to the producers, Ben and the real Henry Gale "had words". If Ben knew Gale was from Widmore, he would react a lot more hostly toward him.


• And remember, Henry Gale's balloon had a Widmore logo on it.


• Why would Ben be so interested in raising Rousseau's daughter as his own? So he could have some leverage over Widmore.


• The only reason that this expedition, as opposed to any Widmore had sent over the last 25 years, was successful, is that the electromagnetic anomaly surrounding the island and controlled by the hatch is not in play anymore.

Questions raised and unanswered by this theory:

• What exactly does Widmore intend to do with the island?


• What prior history do Ben and Widmore have? And what are these mysterious "rules"? If the theory concerning Rousseau is anywhere close to correct, then the relationship has been hostile for at least sixteen years.

Theories about the freighter and the wreckage:

• There exist two similar, but non-identical and mutually exclusive, sets of orders for various teams on the freighter:


• Keamy's team of mercenaries is to apprehend Ben Linus and kill everyone else.


• Naomi's team is supposed to extract Ben Linus.


• Overwhelmingly, the evidence points to Widmore as sending Keamy's team.


• Matthew Abaddon sent Naomi's team; before the introduction of Keamy's men, it made sense to assume that Widmore was the man behind Abaddon's team also.


• But it doesn't make sense for Widmore to have sent both teams.


• So it appears Abaddon is working for someone else.


• It makes sense that that "someone else" is DHARMA.


• DHARMA knows about the Purge, and wants revenge on Ben Linus for orchestrating it.


• It's "metagaming", but we know that both the Initiative and the freighter people (Faraday, Charlotte, and Miles) are going to be increasingly important in Season 5.


• This explains Charlotte's excitement at finding the DHARMA polar bear in Tunisia.


• Perhaps Faraday, Charlotte, and Miles (possibly Naomi and Lapidus, too) are themselves former DHARMA as well:


• That explains why Abaddon would select a "ghostbuster" and a "headcase" for the mission: they know something about what's going on, if only a little.


• This also explains why all the freighter people are so dismayed to see that the wreckage of 815 had been found: it suggests proximity to the island, and DHARMA sure doesn't want knowledge of the island to be floating around.


• Alternately, Abaddon could be working for Oceanic Airlines:


• This could be off-base, but I seem to remember the guy Lapidus spoke to on the "Oceanic Hotline" as sounding a lot like Abaddon.


• Oceanic would have a lot to gain from being able to manage nicely exactly where the plane went and who survived.


• That's also a motivation for Oceanic to have staged the wreckage in the Sunda trench.


• Tom seems to think that Widmore placed the wreckage in the trench.


• That's plausible, but Widmore doesn't want knowledge of the island to get out any more than DHARMA would.

Questions raised and unanswered by this theory:

• How far is the Sunda trench from the island? The closer it actually is, the less likely Widmore was to have put it there.


• If Abaddon works for Oceanic, why does his team know about and care so much about Ben?


• Regardless of who Abaddon works for, how did he get his team onto the freighter that obviously had different orders?


• How does Abaddon know to speak to Locke about the Walkabout?

I won't bother trying to speculate on the Orchid, because all of that will be revealed in a couple of weeks anyway. Finally, if you want a ridiculously detailed and comprehensive conspiracy theory about time travel on the show, then check out the time loop theory. (I had no part in making this.) A lot of it is very convincing, and it does touch on a variety of the show's mysteries. My only criticism is that it talks a lot about "fate" as a motive force, which seems awfully abstract compared to the rest of the show's very real--if unexplainable--circumstances. And that I really, really hope time travel doesn't play this huge a role in the overall mythology--that would just be a cop-out.


Currently listening: "March" from Second Suite for Military Band, Holst

How Narrow are your Stairs!

Review: Narrow Stairs

"Unquestionably the best thing Death Cab has ever done" from music writers; "I heard it was really bad" from music listeners. One thing's for sure: we're not on Barsuk anymore. This is apparently Death Cab's seventh studio CD, or sixth, depending on what you consider a "studio CD". (I think that's akin to giving an adequate definition for "indie" or "alternative", so we're going to ignore the question for now.) Indie kids were all abuzz over The Photo Album and Transatlanticism--I can never keep these two straight, but they're both good. Then came the dreaded Major Label Debut of Plans, where droves of indie kids started whining, because "Soul Meets Body" was played on mainstream radio airwaves. Talk about an infraction.

They'd of course argue that they weren't complaining about that, they were lamenting the decline in quality associated with Being on a Major Label. Except, you know, there wasn't a real decline in quality. In fact, the album sold a million copies--which, in retrospect, probably didn't help in the eyes of those hardcore indie kids either. No, Plants was not the same record as Transatlanticism, but if it were the same, there would be complaints about that too.

Oh, to hear the indie kid reaction now.

If Plans isn't the same record as the previous ones were, then Narrow Stairs isn't in the same dimension. I've talked already about the album's influences and what about it made me sort of scared. I remarked specifically about the CD sounding like 1960s wind band music, and thankfully it does not. It does, however, sound like whatever-decade prog-rock, a direction that I was not at all expecting the album to go in. It's not per se bad, except when the songs get too absorbed in their own progginess to seem like Death Cab anymore.

"Gee, Mr. Gibbard! Is that a B3 rock organ I hear on 'You Can Do Better Than Me'?"
"Yes, it is, clever listener! Did you hear it anywhere else?"
"Now that you mention it, at the end of 'Grapevine Fires'! And I thought it really interesting how you included not real strings, but synthesized strings in 'Your New Twin-Sized Bed'."
"Right, that gave it a completely unique sound. But can you guess what my favorite random instrument to throw in was?"
"Easy! The tabla on 'Pity and Fear', of course."

All of the positive reviews I've already read have said things like Death Cab has traded in their brightness for something dark and brooding, a process which we saw beginning on Plans and that's continued into Narrow Stairs. And they say this as if it made the CD significantly better. If dark and pessimistic is your cup of tea, then you'll get along with this album splendidly. See "No Sunlight" as an immediate example of this mood.

For those of us that like a little more sunshine in our music, "Long Division" sounds happy enough, and ironically "No Sunlight" does too. I agree with just about every other reviewer out there in that "Cath..." is the best song on the album, no matter what mood you expect to get out of Death Cab. And "The Ice is Getting Thinner" is probably the weakest track in both energy and storytelling--shouldn't the otherwise lyrically adept Death Cab be able to come up with some better metaphor than thin ice?

On a whole, don't let terms like "sludgy" and "dissonant" and "lunar" scare you. Narrow Stairs doesn't turn into any of the horror that it conceivably could. While it's not as good as Plans or Transatlanticism, at no point did I ever ask aloud, "Death Cab, what in the hell are you doing?" Maybe a few "?" thought to myself, but that's going to arise anytime something takes a new direction, regardless of if that direction turns out be good or bad. Here, it turns out to be mostly decent, with a few missteps. Not "the best thing they've ever done" by a long shot, but after the disappointment I'd been bracing myself for since February, something of a pleasant surprise.


Currently listening: "We Are What You Say," Sufjan Stevens

Who Is Pretty (and Matt's Top Five)

A constant quandary that seems to spring up in all sorts of discussion venues is the notion of the Top Five. If you're unfamiliar with this concept, it's the mostly-facetious list of five totally unattainable people that you'd really like to get with, and that your spouse/partner/significant other would actually allow if the opportunity presented itself. Generally, this is actors, musicians, or otherwise celebrities. Something like "the guy who brings our UPS packages" or "the girl two doors down" is against the spirit of the Top Five.

So who's in my Top Five? (Note that you're still allowed to have a Top Five even in the absence of a significant other.)

Ever since I've known that I liked girls, I've had a thing for Natalie Portman. I suspect that a lot of other Star Wars fanboys feel the same way. She seems to be fairly universally recognized, if not a member of a given man's Top Five, as a respectable choice nevertheless.

A tribute to Eva Longoria is that she made it socially acceptable for men to say they watch Desperate Housewives. "I dunno, my mom/sister/girlfriend/wife had it on." "Yeah, so leave the room." "Right, I was about to, then Eva Longoria came on." "Oh."

If she didn't want to be prominent on Top Five lists, then Kate Beckinsale should have stopped inserting herself into guy movies--and geek guy movies, at that. Underworld and its sequel, Van Helsing, and goodness knows what else have catapulted her into virtually all of my friends' Top Fives.

Now, for a bit of an unconventional turn, I'm going to go with Kristen Bell. I never watched Veronica Mars, nor have I gotten into Heroes even though I've been told time and time again that I'm supposed to. Oh, and she's a vegetarian, which is a little weird. But I'll let it slide.

Finally, if Kristen Bell is a little unconventional, Tina Fey blows convention out of the water. Her literate presence and sharp wit go a long way here. Granted, her Weekend Update interpretation didn't exactly top Norm MacDonald's, but whose did?


So what prompted this? Magazines like to push lists of people we're not as attractive as onto us. One recent choice offered as a cover shot was Kate Hudson. This got me thinking, "yes, good job magazine, this woman is legitimately attractive." Usually it's some crap like Angelina Jolie or Katherine Heigl. Now, let's talk a little about Angelina Jolie. During one outing where friends and colleagues were grilling me about my Top Five, someone (a girl) asked "so really, no Angelina Jolie? You don't think she's sexy?" To this, I honestly responded "no, she's more scary than sexy." And sorry, Ms. Heigl, a successful chick flick and a crappy primetime hospital drama does not earn you any respect.

Who else might make the list, given its expansion? Evangeline Lilly would be toward the top--coming from a diehard Lost fan, this should be no surprise. Keira Knightley has dropped several places now that she's looking more and more like a stick every day. The female half of the band Eisley should go without saying. Taking a Wikipedia trail from Kristen Bell -> Heroes -> Hayden Panettiere, she's now up there too. I like both Olivia Wilde and Jennifer Morrison from House, the second best show currently on television.

And now that it's socially acceptable, Emma Watson can join this list. An ending poll, fueled from countless conversations with my roommate last year: what's the youngest a woman can be before you'd feel creepy thinking she's attractive? Obviously, this doesn't apply to guys younger than 18. After 18, I think this is still a function of age, though less strongly. My personal opinion is 16, and I have reasoning to back that up: if she's old enough to go places by herself, she's fair game. My roommate (who, granted, is a year and a half younger than I am) says 15, while our friend and fellow PL Alex says 17. His roommate Jeff says 12, though he's kidding. Hopefully.


Currently listening: "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright," Simon and Garfunkel

Bière je t'aime

This post is not entirely about alcohol. In fact, rather little of it is. I recognize that college kids are going to drink, and I'm not going to go puritan and say "Now, children, drinking alcohol is bad for your studies." I will express a preference for generally not wanting to get drunk, and I'll act according to that preference. And thus follows one of my biggest pet peeves: people who have little to talk about except for alcohol. Lest I think this is confined only to my experience, the Onion video podcast (highly recommended) a few weeks ago reported that "80% of roommates got 'so wasted' last night."

It's common knowledge that I'm a budding wine snob, or at least I'd like to think of myself as being one. Something about the wine culture and the implied pretentiousness is just amusing to me, yet there has to be something material there if such a developed following of this beverage has existed for thousands of years. In most cases, beer just doesn't have the same sophisticate appeal. What's classier? Drinking a glass of pinot noir, or a can of Miller Lite? More importantly, which tastes better?

The problem with beer, I've come to realize, is that the floor is a lot lower. There's bad wine, to be sure. Take the 1.5 Euro bottle I drank some of over last summer. Horrible. But most wine in the "average" price range of $10-$15 is going to be at least drinkable. The "average" beer is defined less by a specific price and more by popularity--granted a popularity that probably comes from a low price. In other words, the perception of the "average wine" to most people is something along the lines of a $10 or $15 bottle--not necessarily exquisite, but no reason it can't still be delicious. And "average beer" is going to be your Budweisers, your Millers... which to me (and a lot of legitimate sophisticates) are utterly undrinkable.

There is good beer out there, though. It's just harder to find. Hofbrau, Hoegaarden, Leffe, Guinness, and how many others I first had over last summer? So enter Epsilon Upsilon, a friend's plan for a fraternity. Here's the premise: we drink the same obnoxious amounts of beer as any other fraternity, but the critical distinction is that it's good beer. Armed with $50 that may or may not have been from a Housing reimbursement from a fake program, I set off to Whole Foods and bought enough to last a couple months. And I experienced the high-class implementation of this beverage.

This got me and my roommate thinking. We're always looking for ideas for a Campus Movie Fest short film. We actually had a quite good one last year but never got it off the ground. Our latest idea is "Bière je t'aime", a film directed in pretentious foreign-film style but about frat boys drinking beer. This is an obvious reference to "Paris, je t'aime", which I've never actually seen, but I imagine to be in some sort of pretentious foreign film style of its own. We're not entirely sure whether to use English or French, but the line "Ou est le Icehouse?" has to show up at least once.

Our other idea, which I thought was quite good, is as yet untitled. It deals with camping in front of Brittain dining hall, waiting for it to open, in a parody of people camping in front of the stadium for football tickets. The characters in the film would be extremely enthusiastic so they could be the first in line to get the morning's pancakes, be disappointed because there were no bananas... and of course make bright, happy conversation with the Brittain employees.

One final over-the-top artsy fiction setting developed by me and my roommate is this one. Say, in the future, there's a way to induce limited long-term memory loss. In this state, you could remember what you ate for lunch yesterday, but not any of the significant events from your life's past. It would be turned into a game. You'd have this procedure done, be deposited in a site that you could connect to something significant, and win if you found out that significance before the procedure wore off. For instance, pretend there's a man from Atlanta who has just been married. He'd be dropped off in Atlanta, have to ask people to figure out where he was, slowly retrace some of the steps of his life, and if he found his new wife, he'd win the prize.

The idea here is that coming across certain milestone locations would trigger some of the blocked long-term memory. The house where you grew up in is the obvious choice, but also say your high school or college, the place you got married, or even something traumatic, like where you'd gotten into a fight as a kid. As the person successfully traced his way through these places, certain memories would open, leading him eventually to his current life. Significant people would have to be in on it, too... if this guy finds his brother's house, the brother is supposed to be a trigger, not say "hey, you're in this game, go to this address to win."

That's the premise. The conflict comes in when, inevitably, the process goes wrong. Maybe it fails to erase memories of itself, so when the contestant wakes up, his last memory is some people he doesn't know performing a mysterious operation on him. He then ignores his supposed goal of finding his wife and instead seeks revenge on these enigmatic people for destroying his memory. Or possibly it fails to work altogether, leaving an enterprising young man able to do whatever he wishes under the guise of memory loss. It's very Jason Bourne, except a bit more cerebral (and sadly with fewer explosions).


Currently listening: "Saint Simon", the Shins

O GRE, Harbinger of Doom

Coincidence, that "O GRE" spells out "ogre"? I think not.

Most of my peer group is done with this standardized test business by this point in their lives. It probably began fifteen years ago with some nice Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, progressed through all manners of state- and local-mandated curriculum based assessments, a Gateway test to see if you're really ready for the rigors of... 8th grade! Then the PSAT shows up, which really has no bearing on anything except whether or not your college feels like giving you a thousand dollars a year for free.

By that time, you're ready to face the granddaddy of them all, the SAT. Or maybe you're up against his brother, the ACT. Either way, no single test is as critical to so much of the populace as these college-entrance exams. Maybe the driving test, come to think of it. But the DMV doesn't care how many times you have to try before you get a license. Countless hours and dollars go into preparation for the SAT, such that by the time you're ready to take it, there's no way you won't know what's coming. No guarantees as to how you'll do, what score you get, or what super-elite establishments you may have the credentials to join once you take it. But you've at least met the guy before.

My impending endeavor is the GRE. If the SAT is the granddaddy of standardized tests, and to extend the metaphor way too far, the GRE is that guy who's vaguely related to your family somehow. You call him "uncle" despite the dubious at best evidence for blood relation. Maybe by the time you're twenty, twenty-two, you start to ask around about this guy. Your cool uncle Stan (short for Stanford Binet, naturally) pulls you aside and tells you what's up. "Uncle GRE? Sure! He's really a lot like your grandfather, but he's harder to get to know, so a lot of people never bother talking to him in the first place. Such a shame..."

I decided it was high time to orient myself and at least pull together some modicum of preparation for my last test. (Not true, really. I still have plenty of exams, and of course the dreaded Quals once I actually get into grad school. But it's the last standardized test I think I'll ever have to take.) And honestly... this is like the SAT over again, but with harder words. Still two sections that count, verbal and quantitative, plus a writing section that nobody cares about.

Naturally, I assume that the quantitative section matters to me more as an engineer. The one piece of advice I get, common among literally everyone I talk to about the GRE, is "don't fret the math section. If your major at all involves math, there's no way you won't do great on it." That's solid advice; everyone gets the same GRE. Doesn't matter if you're intending to study spectral field applications of tensors in grad school, or if you're pursuing degrees in medieval literature. But I started to get the kernel of doubt: well, I deal with a bit of calculus in my major, and a lot of plug and chug into correlations to calculate dimensionless quantities, but how much straight up math do I know?

When I saw the section in a GRE book about "the two special right triangles in geometry", I knew exactly how little I should worry.

The words are a different matter. I don't think, realistically, that a low verbal score would hurt my chances to get into grad school. I mean, look at the demographics of who exactly becomes engineering grad students, and English isn't even the first language for probably a majority of them. My quantitative score should be high, my grades are good, and I've done some decent research, so I'm probably in okay shape. But as long as I'm taking this test, I'm not going to embarrass myself and completely bomb it. So I invested in a GRE word book.

Some of them, I straight up don't know, like "contumacious", which has such a mess of prefixes and suffixes that there's no way I could have found the root and figured out it meant "rebellious". But I was impressed on an initial skim with the number of words that I did know, from unlikely geeky sources.

First, Latin: I didn't know what "peccadillo" meant, except that it was probably Spanish. But... "pecavi" is Latin for "I have sinned", so maybe it means something about sin? Yep. "Impecunious" clearly reflects the Latin root "pecunia" for money. "Meretricious" needs no introduction except for the Latin "meretrix", prostitute. (For the love of etymology, this further comes from "merere", to earn; literally, a meretrix is a female who earns.) Thank you, Dale Buff.

And second, role-playing games: "augury", "glibness", and "hoary" are "prediction", "quick-tongued", and "elderly white" respectively. Wouldn't have known those without a bit of D&D.


Currently listening: "Fall: Allegro" from The Four Seasons, Vivaldi

Everyone needs an excuse to use the phrase "Wii Wheel" in conversation

And now we all get one!

Review: Mario Kart Wii

A motif that's developing in Nintendo's big flagship first-party games is a near-reverence for its old big flagship first-party games. It makes a deal of sense, really. If it got them this far, why not milk every drop out of each and every series? They've turned out brilliant games a decade ago (Ocarina of Time, Mario 64) and brilliant games within the past year or two (Twilight Princess, Mario Galaxy).

And it's the duty of Nintendo's multiplayer party game trinity--Mario Kart, Mario Party, and Smash Brothers--to tie all these games together. In past generations, they've been content to incorporate Nintendo characters and settings and thematic elements in general. But in the Wii incarnations of these games, we get not only the Wii interpretation of the Nintendo stock history, but the Wii renditions of previous interpretations of Nintendo's annals.

That's usually a good thing. Previous games has shown what's worked and what hasn't. That makes the later version doubly good, as it can use the elements that do work for its original content, and it can appropriate the best of the old content. And that's exactly what Mario Kart Wii has done. To date, every Mario Kart game has invented sixteen new levels. Most of these levels were entirely new content, and each game featured a remake of two iconic Mario Kart levels: Bowser's Castle and Rainbow Road.

The Wii version does the same thing: fourteen completely original levels, some of them rooted in the larger Nintendo culture and some of them made up for the game, plus the obligatory Bowser's Castle and Rainbow Road. But Wii doesn't stop there. We get sixteen of the best levels from Mario Karts past--including, yes, two Bowser's Castle incarnations. So from the start, Mario Kart Wii succeeds in exactly the same place that Smash Brothers Brawl did: in evoking a nostalgia and appreciation for the old days of Nintendo gaming. I played Mario Kart on the SNES when I was 8 yeard old and first got a game console, so I'm on the tail end of the gamers that would actually appreciate each and every one of the references in the game, from the lowly SNES Ghost Valley 2 to the grand and storied DK Mountain from the Gamecube version.

The biggest, most apparent addition to this game is the inclusion of bikes--and tricks. I was skeptical of the bikes at first--after all, this is Mario Kart, not Mario BMX or something like that. They grew on me, and fast. It adds a sliver of complexity to the game that it didn't per se need, but turns out to enhance it a lot. New characters, excellent as always: I'm a Dry Bones fanboy myself, and Funky Kong is another nice throwback to the SNES glory days. And the aforementioned Wii Wheel may never be used in another Wii game again, but it's what the Wii is supposed to be: clever and intuitive.

Pursuant to the Nintendo tradition, of course, were a few missteps. I'll never understand why a sequel to a game should ever be worse than the original, or fail to include elements from the original that made the original so good in the first place (eg, Oblivion). Here, there's a bizarre turn on the battle system, where it's not the last-man-standing that we've become accustomed to from the previous games. But that's not even the problem. The real issue here is that there were incredibly fun modes of battle from the Gamecube version (I was a huge fan of the "bomb the crap out of everyone" mode) that were merely left out of the Wii version.

Finally, it's good marketing to allow the use of the Gamecube controller in these multiplayer games. After all, if someone has, say, two Wiimotes but a lot of friends who may want to play, this person may get discouraged from buying a game that mandates the use of the Wiimote. But a considerable fraction of the people who own a Wii are also going to own a couple Gamecube controllers... problem solved! The place where this becomes a problem is in the ultra-hardcore gamers, the ones who care enough to test every controller configuration and are willing to sacrifice the spirit of the game (and the console for that matter) for a few extra seconds' speed. These people have way too much time on their hands anyway; the least Nintendo could do is level the online playing field by standardizing a controller configuration.

All in all, Mario Kart Wii is an excellent game, absolutely recommended for a fun multiplayer game. If you're a casual gamer, don't expect too much out of the online mode except for last place, but that's the beauty of the Wii: the ability to simultaneously appeal to anyone from the most apathetically casual to the most obsessive hardcore gamer.


Currently listening: "Joggin Gorgeous Summer", Islands

It's May, and everyone knows what that means

The Summer Blockbuster, of course. Or rather, the first of many. This year promises wonders like a new Indiana Jones movie, and all manner of big comedies with huge stars. First on this summer's list, though, was Iron Man.

Review: Iron Man

How in the heck many superhero movies have we been subjected to over the past few years? Three Spidermans, three X-Mens, a Hulk and a Batman with more of each coming this summer, a Catwoman (that most people would perhaps rather forget), a Superman, and doubtless others that I'm neglecting to mention. Add Sin City and 300 and V for Vendetta if we want to extend the category to "comic book and/or graphic novel movies".

Most of them are decent. Not excellent, not hideous, but entertaining. And that's what you expect. The Spiderman movies and the X-Men movies have both gotten worse as the series have dragged on, but let's face the fact that most people interested in this sort of movie aren't going to fashion themselves into playing movie critic.

So with a healthy dose of skepticism, I followed those Movie People friends of mine into a theater to see the latest in the flood. And to my surprise, I actually could play movie critic on this one and not have it destroy my opinion of the movie. The characterization was excellent, especially with respect to Tony Stark himself. Nearly every other superhero movie features either 1) some emo guy who accidentally acquired superpowers and has Internal Conflicts about how to use them (eg Spiderman), or 2) some mystical, otherworldly Force of Good must battle Forces of Evil to save men (eg X-Men). Tony Stark is neither.

In fact, he's something of a douchebag. Billionaire weapons dealer, doesn't give a crap about anyone but himself, and downright hilarious to watch. When he's captured by al Qaeda-esque terrorists, he naturally becomes a lot less of a douchebag--though his personality doesn't immediately and completely swing to implausibility. The best part, though, is that his superhero status doesn't emerge as the result of any powers. It's his own cunning that allows him to become Iron Man. And that's a refreshing shift from "ooh, I have superpowers, but I don't know how to handle them, whine whine whine."

Of course, Stark goes to exact some revenge on the terrorists, the leader of whom bears a striking resemblance to any number of 24 villains, but not before he realizes that... guess what? His "loyal number 2 guy" has been in league with the terrorists the whole time. Okay. Just once, is is too much to ask for the "loyal number 2 guy" to be legitimately loyal? That has to be the most overused plot device in the history of storytelling: the hard working protagonist eventually attains success, only to be betrayed by his deputy. In a slight variation on the theme, the protagonist comes to deal with an honorable guy in charge, only to be rebuffed by the guy-in-charge's vizier, who of course happens to be not only evil but also diametrically opposed to the protagonist's goals.

And like in every other story, in the Climactic Battle, Tony Stark defeats his betrayer, manages to survive himself, and maybe learns a lesson from it? Another distinction from your run-of-the-mill superhero movie, though, is the obligatory "love interest" subplot. In the majority of other superhero movies, you'd have to lump "gets with the girl he's been after the whole time" in with the list of climactic plot devices. Not here.

The one scene that sticks out in the movie is Stark's interaction with his half-love interest and half-assistant Pepper at a party. It's appropriately awkward, with both Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow cutting each other off at exactly the right time to make it seem unscripted. Making the two of them get together at the end of the movie would have been disappointingly cliche enough to devalue the believable predicate that the movie had worked hard to achieve to that point. Fortunately, it didn't. Superheros, like the rest of us, have relationships with shades of gray to them.

And I have to give credit to the writers for the delayed gratification of not having Stark utter the line "I am Iron Man" until the very end, and having the possibly-eponymous Black Sabbath song roll over the credits. Any earlier in the movie would have been unnecessarily cheesy.


Currently listening: "Sweet and Low", Augustana

Revamping the Freshman Experience

First week of my mini-summer vacation, and I have lots to talk about. First, an update about what's going on with me. Two and a half weeks from now, I head to lovely Roxana, IL to, as I put it, refine the crap out of some oil. I really have no idea what to expect... first internship, first chance to do some real chemical engineering.

"Wow, sounds interesting. What are you actually going to be doing?" Answer: "operations". You have as good an idea as I do about what that means.

"Ooh, big oil. Really?" Answer: yep. I'm not sold on working for oil for a career--though I'd have to think it's better than working in some Lyondell plant--but it's experience, and they're paying my a crap ton of cash. Seeing as how I do not have a degree in anything as this point, that's all I can ask for.

"What do you do in Roxana?" Answer: ...well, I don't really have one. If anyone knows the St. Louis area, I'd love some input on this.

Before I go, I have a lot to talk about. This first one is a carryover from the school year, and a bit of a reflection on the housing job that I've had for the past two years, and I'm finally retiring from now that this year is done. The biggest question that people ask me is if I liked the job, or if I'd recommend it to others. I don't know if I can give that a straight answer. It's too complex, and it's been tied too directly to my Tech experience, to answer with a mere yes or no.

A better answer is something along the lines of "it takes a very specific person to do this job well." I'm not one for small talk. I don't know if I necessarily want to compare myself to Hu Jintao, but I read an article about him in a Time magazine as I was waiting for the dentist today. It remarked that Hu doesn't make small talk either, because his knowledge of relevant subject material is so masterful. I won't go so far as to make that claim myself, but given the choice I would much rather talk about something rather than nothing.

The point here is that this is actually a critical aspect of the job that you don't necessarily find out about until you're already in over your head. You need to be both willing and able to chat with your residents about whatever degree of irrelevancy they want. That usually surpasses Seinfeld in terms of sheer "nothing" potential. There's nothing wrong with this, or at least there ought not to be if you're doing this job. I found myself with less and less patience for this sort of thing as my two years ran on, which is one of the important reasons I needed to leave.

I could sit here and complain about training, and the facilities, and the unfortunate responsibilities you find yourself having to exercise. But that's not going to change anything. There are, however, two areas that I can offer material and useful insight on: resident assignment and the Freshman Partner program.

One of the primary challenges in any housing environment is diversity. Maybe that can mean racial/ethnic/national diversity, but I don't think that ever presents a big problem at Tech. I find international students among the biggest attendees of programs, the most conscious about following directions, and the most excited about Georgia Tech in general. Besides, I've always said that ethnicity is but one dimension of diversity, and probably the least important one. A much more important measure is diversity of thought and belief. And along that axis, Tech is relatively homogeneous anyway.

A significant subset of the population that does exhibit this diversity, however, is the Greek community. That's PC for "frat boys". Doesn't matter what nationality they are, these are simply a different sort of resident than non-Greeks. Much less willing to be part of the hall, to come to programs, and to care about anything outside the fraternity. Obviously, this doesn't apply to everyone who's in a fraternity, and I would guess that it's more prevalent among freshmen than anyone else. And plenty of fraternity people do contribute a whole lot to the hall. But it is frustrating as a staff member when your perceived relative success is partially a function of not your own skill, but of who you happened to get in your section.

My answer for this, developed in conjunction with my friend Alex (a fellow staff member), is to have designated Greek and non-Greek housing. Or, more to the point, exclude future Greeks from the Freshman Experience. Add a simple question to the housing application for entering freshmen: "Do you intend to participate in IFC rush with the goal of joining a fraternity?" (I say fraternity and guys simply as a reflection of the population of Tech, but the principle applies to girls as well.) People who say yes still get housing with student staff, but it's not as elaborate as the FE.

Yes, it smacks of segregation. And no, there's no way to enforce this. Maybe you rush and want a bid, but don't get any. Maybe you get bids but don't like where you got them from. On the other hand, maybe you rush for the free food and don't have any intention of pledging, but meet a bunch of guys you really get along well with. But this would accomplish at least three goals. First, it would allow staff in freshmen dorms to have a better chance of getting residents who actually cared. Second, it would relieve some of the burden on housing, as the residents who lived in "pledge housing" would require less attention than the normal FE. Finally, it would allow staff who were themselves Greek or were particularly comfortable dealing with Greeks to interact with residents they liked.

The other fix is to entirely remove the Freshman Partner program. The goal here is to make some sort of connection between Tech academics and Tech residence life. That's admirable. But somewhere along the line, it turned into "get some yahoo who works in the Global Learning Center to come to the cheesy post-Convocation Caribbean party." Residents don't necessarily care about this initiative, either. The Assistant Dean of Students came to Glenn last month to talk about demographics at Tech, which was actually a reasonably informative talk. The only thing keeping residents in the room? The free Quizno's.


In coming attractions: opinions on who is pretty, and reviews of Iron Man and Mario Kart Wii.


Currently listening: "Summer House", the Lady Sails

Spring Sports Update

A mere few weeks into the Atlanta Braves season, and we're already seeing some patterns emerge. "Patient" is the word one day, as in hitters are too eager to swing at the ball. Then it's "depth", looking at whether the bullpen can sustain enough innings. (This was a horrible issue last year.)

Everyone's always said baseball is a game of statistics. It used to be benign things like ERA and batting average. Within the past few years, OPS has become a staple of analysis. That stands for on-base plus slugging percentage, and it somewhat intuitively gives a picture of total offensive power of a player. However, whenever the formula to calculate a statistic includes "hit by pitch" not once but three times (see Wikipedia if you don't believe me) then it's far too complicated. Now, with the advent of the internet, we've got wonderful things like "this guy has a .402 average with runners in scoring position when there are less than two outs and his team is playing a night game at home." Utterly ridiculous.

That being the case, I'll stick with things that make sense. Braves starters are among the league best in ERA and home runs allowed, but among the worst in innings pitched. That shows that we need to get more innings out of these guys... and more innings out of Smoltz and Glavine and Hudson is never a bad thing. Oh, and how about this Jair Jurrjens guy? Before the season started, the only thing I knew about this guy was a particularly insightful comment from my mom, who pondered whether Jurrjens might be Dutch. (He's not; he's from the Islands, but that probably means he has some Dutch in him somewhere.) Now he's one of the team's most promising starters. And is there any way this guy can pitch more?

An announcing theme I've had to sit through lately has been "feast or famine", as in, why is the offense so wonderful during wins and so horrendous during losses? That may not seem like any huge insight, but it is remarkable how a team that scores seven runs one day and gives up four can score two runs the next--and still give up four.

Finally, speaking of announcing, I really miss Skip Caray. He's only on the radio now (except for a slim few on Peachtree TV), and seeing as how I always watch the games on TV, I never get to hear Skip anymore. This move toward "neutral broadcasting" is complete crap. If he's my team's announcer, he gets to root for my team, plain and simple.


Last weekend, I went to see the T-Game, which is the traditional spring football game for Georgia Tech. It was rough. I want to say a dozen fumbles, but that might be an exaggeration. Or, it might be a conservative estimate, because I was hiding my head in my hands so much. The first half had about ten points scored in it, total, which has both positive and negative implications. Of course, it speaks well to the defense; the very best thing I saw was the defense, true to Tenuta's legacy. Michael Johnson looked wonderful and had some excellent plays. But can this offense score points?

More critically, is it interesting to watch? There's a bias in the viewership of football in general against running offenses. We want to see pass plays, exciting Calvin Johnson-style ones. "Three yards and a cloud of dust" is just not that much fun. That's not what our new coach, Paul Johnson, uses per se, but I'm afraid that's what it might turn into. And that's not to say that the running game can't be exciting. Lucas Cox, Mike's younger brother, looked decent. Dwyer is underrated. But we just don't have Tashard anymore, and that's going to hurt.

And that touches on the biggest problem that Tech football is looking at in 2008. Our best players all graduated, with the exceptions of Johnson and Dwyer. But look who's gone... Tashard Choice, who netted thousands of yards for Tech. Mike Cox, one of the best college fullbacks I've ever seen. Durant Brooks, the nation's best punter last year. Travis Bell, a solid kicker for Tech for several years. Philip Wheeler, an all-around amazing linebacker. Let's hope we can scrape together some talent and whip it into a respectable team.


Currently listening: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", the Beatles

A Plan for Local Government

I'm a big advocate of local government. I believe that one of the reasons so many people are so down on government is the fact that someone, somewhere who is supposed to be representing your interests does not care about you. They care about their parties, about their special interests, and about keeping their job. What really ought to be a government "by the people" is now government from the government; "consent of the governed" is in many cases "apathy of the governed". By straying away from the representative-constituent system, we now have untold layers of bureaucratic nonsense. That's something anyone can disagree with, regardless of your dot on the Nolan chart.

Two options exist here: either wipe the slate and make a new system, or re-energize people about their local government, and demand that control be returned to somewhere resembling "the governed". The first is clearly non-practical. But I think there's a decent shot at the second.

The term "county" was originally the demesne of a count, just as a "kingdom" belonged to a king and a "duchy" belonged to a duke. My plan is simple: reinstate the office of count. Some counties have commissioners, some have chairmen, some merged city-counties might have mayors. Who actually knows who their commissioner is? I consider myself reasonably well informed about politics at all levels, and I have no idea who the chairman of the board of commissioners of Gwinnett is. Under this proposal, not only would everyone in the county know who the count was, they'd have a sworn allegiance to him or her.

One clarification: the count is an elected position. I'm advocating federalism with a local emphasis, not feudalism. The populace elects its count and can get rid of him when it so chooses. It can use two means to accomplish this: a simple vote of no confidence, or a march on city hall with picks and shovels. If it uses the latter, the populace can then install its choice for count immediately and pillory the old count in the stocks outside city hall.

What are the duties of the count? A lot of administrative stuff, of course. But also to rally his constituents around him. If the county government wants to get something done at the state or federal level, it's up to the count to get the people to support it. That means making a circuit around the county, showing up to and organizing meetings, and delivering impassioned speeches defending his actions.

The count would have a symbol of office, a cape, that he would have to wear when conducting any official business.

Most entertainingly, and most likely to rally the masses, is the way the count deals with inter-county disputes. Under the current system, if Gwinnett and Dekalb have a fight over some trees, they bring their cases to the state government, some surveyors get sent out a few weeks later, and an appellate judge draws lines on a map, along with the aid of some civil engineer. Yawn.

Under the count system, things would be drastically different. It would be up to the count to defend both the interests and honor of the county. This means a duel with the disputant count. Rapiers, first blood wins the day and the dispute.

If this won't get people enthusiastic, I don't know what will.


Currently listening: "Desecration Smile", Red Hot Chili Peppers

Stars Concert (and Various Other Sundries)

At Tech, pursuant to all that I've noticed about the population and related behaviors, there's something fishy about the weekends. Either people shut themselves in their rooms or flee campus like Abaddon himself brought the keys to the Pit of Fire and unleashed it upon the Kessler Campanile. (There is something shady about that place...) In downtown Athens, this is not the case. People are out, walking around, doing things, and not wearing a perpetual "the world is out to screw me" frown.

I was later assured that no, it's not some sort of fantastical paradise, just an extension of the UGA bubble. That's in much the same way, for instance, that Atlantic Station or the Howell Mill Kroger seems like an extension of the Tech bubble at times. (Tangent: that Howell Mill Kroger has been very, very good to me, on at least three occasions. They carry Stewart's Key Lime, for goodness' sake.) Essentially, it's yet another "grass is greener" case. But I do need to go back sometime.

My reason for being in Athens in the first place was to go to a concert by the band Stars. They're a bit on the obscure side, so I'll try to elucidate their music a bit. They're Canadian, and they describe their own music as "indie rock", but if you really want to pick and call it "indie pop" you wouldn't be off-base either. The first description of their music I heard was "like the Postal Service" which isn't incorrect, but I think a more apt description is "like the Postal Service, but a bit less electronic." Or, if you wanted to go further on a limb, "a bit like Rilo Kiley but less folksy." Even "sort of like Metric but a lot more melodic." If you can get those three to converge into a consistent sound, that's Stars. Last.fm also lists similar bands to be The New Pornographers and the Most Serene Republic, both bands that I have heard of and would probably like but am unfamiliar with.

One thing I feel like I need to bring up even before the concert itself: timing. Given "doors open at 8 pm" and "two opening bands", Matt logic would go something like this. Give people half an hour to straggle in, and for the opening bands to get their crap together. Start playing at 8:30, allot half an hour for each band, stop at 9:30. Allow 30 minutes for a set change (in my opinion, those things never need to take longer than 15 minutes, but I'll be generous here). No reason Stars should start playing any later than 10. Matt logic would have been incorrect. My intrepid band of concertgoers rolls in at 10:40 or so, and we still have to wait a few minutes to hear the main attraction. (That said, our timing was downright impeccable.) Perhaps this is too harsh, but I'd really like it if bands gave a reasonable approximation of their start time, not some wishful thinking to get everyone milling about for the better part of an hour.

The concert itself didn't disappoint. Like every show, it had its strong and weak points. One of the less-than-stellar (ha! pun!) points of the concert was the tendency to turn backs to the audience at otherwise-impressive technical moments. Big guitar solo? Better hide my guitar. Crucial riff on some synthesizer? Can't make eye contact with the people listening to it. That's not unique to Stars--it happens at just about every concert I've been to recently. And it's sort of irritating.

Some Stars fans would add another weak point was "anything that came off the most recent album". I've had that one since it came out (okay, since I got to the US after it came out), and I wrote a largely positive review of it. Yet several people I've talked to that have been Stars fans for a while disliked it. Why the negativity?

First, I believe that Heart and Set Yourself on Fire are sort of similar in character (the two albums before the most recent), and that Set Yourself on Fire and In Our Bedroom After the War are sort of similar too. If you're a Stars fan who's been listening to the early stuff since 2005, and this comes along in mid-2007, it's probably tougher to reconcile than for someone like me.

Second, the album contains a lot of what I've started calling "tofu songs". That is, they're neither remarkably good nor bad on their own. Instead, they take on the flavor of the rest of the album. And the rest of the album is gimmicky in parts. "Genova Heights", "Life 2", "Personal", "Barricade", and the title track all have some amount of gimmick to them. If you don't buy into the gimmick, you're probably going to hate these songs. Then, even give the strength of the truly good songs, the filler "tofu" is going to seem that much worse.

And finally, something I touched on back in August, the track placement is bad. You hear "The Night Starts Here" and "Take Me to the Riot" and think "yes, this is good music." Then, when the rest of the album fails to deliver to that standard, you naturally get disappointed.

While a lot of Stars' unique sound comes from the female vocalist Amy Millan, it's clear that the real showmanship comes from the male frontman Torquil Campbell (hey, he's Canadian). He was the one behind all the audience interaction, the one really getting us into the act. Even more impressively, he showed talent in both tenor and falsetto ranges, in addition to key harmonica, the mini Korg that so plagued Stars all night, and even the trumpet. I'd always assumed that the trumpet licks were studio jobs, and maybe on the CDs they were. But when Campbell pulled out a trumpet and did a surprisingly credible job, that pretty much made the concert for me.

Add that to a chance to break the Tech bubble (albeit entering the UGA one) and some excellent company, and it ended up being a great time. And as always after a concert, I have some awful amalgamation of the collective works of Stars stuck in my head.

Another concert alert: Eisley is headlining a tour, and they're coming to Atlanta. I'm not missing this one. But exactly one of three hundred-something people whom I'm friends with on Facebook proclaims to like them.... it's going to be a tough sell to get people to come along.


Currently listening: "What I'm Trying to Say," Stars, and "Listen," Chicago

Ecce gratum!

The spring break post has turned into a fortunate tradition... I finally have the time to collect a few thoughts, sit down, and shape them into something hopefully readable. This one is brought on by my third-favorite Wikipedia article as of late.

My favorite article is the one about A Dance with Dragons, the fifth installment in George R.R. Martin's brilliant epic fantasy series. (I've already commented and theorized on this brilliant series, in a reaction to the fourth book.) It reports progress in slow, measured trickles, taunting fans with its promises of some far-off release date. (September 30?)

The second-favorite honors at this point go to the article about Death Cab's upcoming album. It's safe to say that I'm... skeptical about this release. Combine Death Cab with words and phrases like "lunar" and "dissonant" and "sludgy slow metal" and I can't help but get a really unpleasant picture. Isn't Death Cab suppose to be sensitive, genuine, and, yes, emo? If we get something that ends up sounding like 1960s band music, I don't care how wonderful the art-music community thinks it is, I'm not going to enjoy it.

But the third-favorite, the one this post owes its inspiration to, details the saga of the end of the Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan's seminal work in the same epic fantasy genre that Martin has become the current master of. The Wheel of Time used to be really, really good. It was, up until the third book. I've said before that edit a few details of the end of The Dragon Reborn (and perhaps beef up the already-exciting climax of The Great Hunt a bit) and you have the best fantasy trilogy ever written, solidly beating even Lord of the Rings. But Jordan didn't stop there.

The series continued to be excellent through the sixth, perhaps seventh, book. By that time, though, Jordan was in over his head. It was clear that there wouldn't be any nice ending--it would take twelve, maybe thirteen books before this could wrap itself up. That would be just fine, provided that the second half of the series was any good. That provision didn't necessarily carry through.

By book ten, the series was so bogged down in itself that we got things like pages upon pages dedicated to buying fabric. Really, Robert Jordan? (If you're into this sort of thing, look up the Wikipedia plot summary for Crossroads of Twilight, book number 10. It's literally a few paragraphs long.) But I was willing to stick with it, along with probably thousands upon thousands of other fans. I've been at this since 2000 (and some, the ones who have been with it since the very beginning, have been at this since 1990), and damned if I'm going to let crappy books 7-11 get in the way of knowing how all this business eventually resolves.

Then Mr. Jordan got amyloidosis.

I have a tough time bashing Jordan's series, given that the man has since passed away. One of his final resolves with respect to the monster of a series that he created was that the series absolutely would end with book number 12. No more stretching things out, no more books-long political intrigue, no more "signs that really, the last battle is totally upon us this time!" Instead, we were promised answers and resolutions and nice things like that that generally go along with ending a series.

Is all that in jeopardy now that that series no longer has an author? Happily, no. For as my third-favorite Wikipedia article reports, one Brandon Sanderson has been chosen by Tor Books (The Wheel of Time's publisher) to finish the series. He's going to use Jordan's notes, dispatches from Jordan's communications with his wife, and his own fantasy author's intuition to craft A Memory of Light into a coherent novel that's supposed to wrap up two decades.

Mr. Sanderson's first order of business is to re-read the first eleven books. Sounds like a fine idea. But it's making we wary, or at least his blog-posted reactions to the books are making me wary. I would assert that in his position as quasi-ghostwriter, Sanderson's primary responsibility is to be true to what Jordan would have wanted. Maintain his plot, his characterizations, and also his style. Sanderson's research appears to be pointing him in this direction. But his second responsibility is impartiality. He ought to be evaluating the first eleven books objectively, seeing what devices and settings worked, and what didn't. Taking Jordan's mistakes and triumphs in the same breath, and synthesizing them all into a book that reflects all of it.

Instead, Sanderson comes across as nothing more than a Jordan apologist at best and a sycophant at worst. Where a disappointed fan would say "Book 8 was bad because..." an unbiased critic would say "Book 8 was paced differently from the rest of the series, which literarily would have worked better if..." Mr. Sanderson, on the other hand, makes comments like "Well, I really don't think book 8 was bad at all! Here, you see Jordan's masterful handling of..."

As a caveat, I haven't read any of Sanderson's other books. Maybe I should. Maybe I will this summer, when I have little else to do. But from an author who doesn't realize that there were problems with books 7-11, I'm not sure whether or not to be excited by book 12.


Currently listening: "Fortune plango vulnera" from Carmina Burana

Georgia Tech in Two Microcosms

Recently, I had the pleasure of judging some high schoolers at a Science Olympiad competition. Luckily, I got an interesting event, in which the kids made robots and used remote controls to pick up things and drop them in boxes. It was very OM, very reminiscent of weirdly creative problem solving and contraptions, and an entire years' work dissolved in a left wheel's detachment at just the wrong time. (OM never had competitors yell obscenities when that happened, though, at least not my elementary school teams.)

And seeing this from the other side now, it's also a remarkable microcosm of kids that are destined for Georgia Tech. A sort of Yellow Jacket funnel, if you will. All of the dramatis personae were there. You had the cocky Asian kid, the one who six days out of the week resents his overbearing parents for making him keep at his studies so hard, but come Science Olympiad time on the seventh day, he comes to accept his burden to boss around all the lesser competitors.

The uber-geek, who can give you a ten minute thesis about how his robot works, or launch into a nuanced debate about how to beat the expert levels on Guitar Hero. But at the same time, he is so withdrawn from conventional social interaction that he finds it difficult to ask you when the competition starts.

The Abercrombie-wearing white kid, who seems just a little apathetic, a little jaded, and far out of place in this world of obsessive love for physics. Perhaps it's a secret passion of his, having to hide his scientific excursions from his beer-guzzling friends and provide an excuse why this weekend is a bad one to go to the lake house and chill. Far more likely, he's here just for the extra credit.

Two girls.

All of these people will probably get accepted into Georgia Tech. "Wow!" says some admissions officer. "A 700 SAT math! And he was involved in Science Olympiad back in high school. He will make a fantastic aerospace engineer." Probably he will. But what this admissions person fails to see (surprising, in the day of student body diversity) is that this only encourages the homogeneity that already pervades this campus. The very fact that an average Tech student can enter this subculture and see not just hints but strong streaks of his own community in them... Tech's stereotypes are self-perpetuating.


The other situation, merely a day after the Olympiad, was an event called Connect with Tech came through. CWT is officially the program that you can be invited to if you're reasonably good at high school, so you can see Tech and Tech in turn can recruit you. More significantly, CWT is known throughout housing staff as the one day besides holidays when the dining hall serves edible food. (Lately, that's been more of a myth than an actual truth, but at least it's something to get excited about.) This group of people was completely different than the Science Olympiad kids.

The cute and now sort of average girl, who's into theater and maybe a couple of generic service clubs in her high school. Little does she know (or maybe well does she know) that by virtue of being female and at all extroverted, she's about to become ridiculously sororitied up.

The apathetic dude without a shred of charisma or conversational ability who's used to getting good grades because high school is so damn easy. But when he gets to Tech, he'll suddenly find that school can indeed be tough. The only question that remains for him is whether he'll notice he's failing under all the pot he'll smoke.

The guy who's actually a decent human being, who you'd feel comfortable hanging out with and becoming friends with, but who takes one look at Tech, and decides against it. The rigor, the reputations... and all the odd people.

With no foreseeable end to any of it.


Currently listening: Billy the Kid, Aaron Copland