And here are five plots that, in my mind, have risen and must converge before the series finale next May.
1. The Richard Alpert backstory. Who is he, what’s his allegiance, when and where does he come from, and why is he ageless? Of all the recurring characters, Alpert is by far the most compelling—actually, I find him more interesting than half the main cast—and the one whose mystery is most central to the mythology of the Island. I’d absolutely love to see a Richard-centric episode in season 6, and I think it’s entirely possible. Even though he’s a recurring character, we’ve had recurring characters have centric episodes before (Rose and Bernard), and it’s clear that Alpert is way more important than those two.
Current theory: Richard, in addition to being the “Panchen Lama” of the Others, is also the high priest of whatever supernatural power is venerated at the Temple. More and more, I like the idea that we shouldn’t consider Richard an “Other” per se at all, or at least not a member of the Others’ hierarchy. Instead, he’s a mediator between the Island and its people, or an emissary from the Island to its people. Therefore, while he’s not one of the Others, he has a great deal of authority in what they do and license to ignore their leadership.
Timeline of reveal: The Richard flashback episode, if we get it, is likely to be a mid-season 6 episode. That way, Richard’s goals and motivations are set for the battle in the grand finale. Or, he might pull and Eko and die in his own centric episode, and precipitate the events that lead to the last battle.
2. Structures of the ancients. Most intriguing are the Frozen Donkey Wheel, the Statue, and the Temple. We’ve visited the Wheel twice without knowing really anything about how it works or who put it there. The Statue is production gold: it has no lines, can be represented easily with a scale model, and has shown up a total of three times in a hundred hours. But it has spawned more theorizing and discussion than probably half of the main characters. And we’ve seen around, outside, and under the Temple, but never the structure itself.
Current theory: These structures all seem to have been built by the same people, with the shared hieroglyph motif, general ignorance about their origin, and apparently ancient construction. There’s quasi-canonical evidence that the Statue is Taweret, which I’ll conveniently ignore, continuing to believe it’s Sobek, until Carlton Cuse tells me otherwise. The Wheel, I’ve got nothing.
But I’ve heard an interesting theory on the Temple that unfortunately I can’t take credit for. What if we’ve been thinking about the Temple’s time frame all wrong? We think it’s very old, mostly because the wall around it is designed to look very old. But we also know that the wall and the Temple itself aren’t necessarily related at all. Maybe the Temple is actually very new, or even futuristic? Then, the wall isn’t to protect the structure from outsiders at all, but to protect people from seeing what they’re not supposed to see of the future. There’s little evidence on the show to support this, but I love the theory because it turns so many assumptions on their head.
Timeline of reveal: The Wheel is a series finale issue, I’m sure of. The Statue has probably been “revealed” to the extent that it will be, but I believe we’ll revisit it. The Temple I can see being revealed mid-season 6, possibly serving as the setting for some of the series finale action.
3. Resurrection. What are Christian Shepherd, John Locke, and for that matter Alex Rousseau and Yemi? Who does the Island choose to resurrect, how does it happen, and why? When you’re resurrected, are you actually alive again, or are you in some sort of limbo-undead state? What sort of abilities do you gain? We know that Locke and Christian both seemed to know things they had no idea of after the Island brought them back. Finally, can you be killed (again) if you’ve been brought back?
Of course, the confirmation of Locke as a manifestation of Jacob’s enemy raises yet more questions. Can you be resurrected at all, or does this mean that every instance of resurrection or “I see dead people” is actually the Enemy?
Current theory: Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have more or less directly—as directly as they’re capable of, at any rate—confirmed that Christian and Yemi are actually manifestations of the Monster. Add that to the decidedly Smokey-ish noises when we saw Christian at the Barracks, and that theory seems good. The idea of why you’re “resurrected” is more interesting—and far tougher to explain. If we know for sure that Locke is Jacob’s enemy, and we know for (somewhat) sure that Christian is the Monster, then maybe all those entities are one and the same.
Timeline of reveal: Explicit confirmation of “Locke” as Jacob’s enemy should come pretty early on. Christian, and all the other supposedly dead people, might come further along, but I doubt that we’ll get the final Monster reveal until the very end.
4. Cataclysm. We’ve seen hints of a volcanic eruption for several seasons, and now there’s the looming threat of a hydrogen bomb. Several season finales have been described as “seismic” or “explosive”, and yet nothing until Juliet detonated Jughead’s core. Even that didn’t necessarily destroy the Island, especially if you believe “whatever happened, happened”.
Current theory: I find it entirely plausible that the volcano already exploded, sometime way in the past. But I think there’s going to be something equally as disastrous that happens at the end of the Island’s timeline, say in 2008, that kills everyone on the Island and destroys the Island… unless, of course, Desmond saves the day.
Timeline of reveal: The first half of season 6 might be about the cataclysm happening, and the second half about Desmond and company working to prevent it.
5. Desmond saves the future. There’s been a whole lot of emphasis placed on Desmond being “special” and being able to change the future. Desmond’s unique talents are the Chekhov’s gun that has to be used before the end of the show. Eloise said so, Faraday said so, and the failsafe key pretty much said so too. We don’t yet know exactly how he can manipulate past events, but that would seem to imply that Desmond has a bit of time travel left in his future.
Current theory: Desmond keeps his promise to Eloise and stays off the Island… until something very, very bad happens there. Then, because he’s such a stand-up guy, he returns per Eloise’s prediction to set things right.
Timeline of reveal: I can see at least the first two thirds of season 6 being about what Desmond is doing to try and prevent something terrible happening in the Island’s future, setting up the events for the series finale. Desmond might not even be in the first ten or so episodes of the season, only rejoining as a regular toward the end.
To wrap up this year's Lost coverage, what are your thoughts on episode titles for next season? I like "... Love" for the Sun/Jin centric reunion episode, "Progress" for a mid-season revelatory episode, "The Candidate" for a Lapidus-centric, "The Equation" or "The Numbers" for the Desmond-centric episode that finally establishes the Valenzetti equation as Dharma's mission on the Island (ie, another follow-up to The Constant), and "It Only Ends Once" for the finale. But my most brilliant suggestion--one that might actually come to pass--is "... At Sea" for the (possibly Richard-centric) Black Rock episode. You heard it here first.
Currently listening: "The Sun and the Moon", Mae, from The Everglow
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Sport in the UK
And they do call it "sport" there, rather than "sports"--you're looking at the "sport" section in the newspaper, the "sport" segment on the evening news, and so on.
The Brits are as into sports as we are across the pond--but it's entirely different sports. Instead of baseball, football, and basketball, we're looking at soccer (except they call it "football"), cricket, and rugby. Football of course takes the lead for the majority of the year... and it is pervasive.
The stereotype of the English soccer hooligan (I think there was even a Saturday Night Live sketch called that), like many stereotypes, comes from somewhere. Unlike most stereotypes, though, it's almost completely grounded in reality. Everyone has their team and a handful of bitter rivalries that go along with it, and everyone is sucked into the drama of the Premier League.
And after having been in London for only a week, the drama already got really, really compelling. Think the BCS, except stretched out for nine months, the top few teams earn the right to play football against colleges from all across North America for the continent champion... and the bottom few teams have to play against high schoolers for the next year.
If you're not familiar with "relegation" and "promotion", it's a fascinating concept, essentially allowing the most podunk club team in the middle of Wales to become the champion of all of Britain in the span of a few years. It also means that the consistently underperforming teams better re-evaluate their game plan the next season when they're playing in a lower league. If we did this in American baseball, the Nationals would have been bounced to AAA a long time ago.
It's a system that creates interest on all levels of the system, on the top and the bottom, and also seamlessly integrates the national system into an international one, with the top handful of teams earning bids into some sort of super-complicated pan-European system that an American doesn't have any hope of deciphering. It's tough to say if American sports would improve by adopting the system... but I'm sort of glad it's not used here, because I for one would waste a lot of time absorbed in the rankings tables.
Also incomprehensible to any American is the sport of cricket. If anyone can explain how a "two-innings" game is supposed to last five days, please do.
Currently listening: "This is the Countdown", Mae, from The Everglow
The Brits are as into sports as we are across the pond--but it's entirely different sports. Instead of baseball, football, and basketball, we're looking at soccer (except they call it "football"), cricket, and rugby. Football of course takes the lead for the majority of the year... and it is pervasive.
The stereotype of the English soccer hooligan (I think there was even a Saturday Night Live sketch called that), like many stereotypes, comes from somewhere. Unlike most stereotypes, though, it's almost completely grounded in reality. Everyone has their team and a handful of bitter rivalries that go along with it, and everyone is sucked into the drama of the Premier League.
And after having been in London for only a week, the drama already got really, really compelling. Think the BCS, except stretched out for nine months, the top few teams earn the right to play football against colleges from all across North America for the continent champion... and the bottom few teams have to play against high schoolers for the next year.
If you're not familiar with "relegation" and "promotion", it's a fascinating concept, essentially allowing the most podunk club team in the middle of Wales to become the champion of all of Britain in the span of a few years. It also means that the consistently underperforming teams better re-evaluate their game plan the next season when they're playing in a lower league. If we did this in American baseball, the Nationals would have been bounced to AAA a long time ago.
It's a system that creates interest on all levels of the system, on the top and the bottom, and also seamlessly integrates the national system into an international one, with the top handful of teams earning bids into some sort of super-complicated pan-European system that an American doesn't have any hope of deciphering. It's tough to say if American sports would improve by adopting the system... but I'm sort of glad it's not used here, because I for one would waste a lot of time absorbed in the rankings tables.
Also incomprehensible to any American is the sport of cricket. If anyone can explain how a "two-innings" game is supposed to last five days, please do.
Currently listening: "This is the Countdown", Mae, from The Everglow
Friday, May 15, 2009
Lost Speculations and Observations, "H-Bomb" Edition
If you missed the last Lost finale post, and you're into this sort of thing, check out the Loophole edition, which focuses on the mythology of the season finale.
One of the reasons Lost is so, so good is that there's so much going on at any given time. Mythology, plot, characters are all critical to making this show excellent, and they're all quasi-independent enough to talk about by themselves. I'd like to talk a little about characters in this installment of the finale post, because I think Season 6 is going to have to make a few critical changes.
The biggest character-y surprise from the finale was the lack of a major, impactful death. Important characters dying has been a fixture of season finales past (eg Charlie). Plus, people far more acquainted with spoiler sites than I am were convinced that there was going to be a "major" death in the finale. Sure, plenty of people died, particularly Dharma employees who has the ill fortune of assignment to the Swan station. But I can only count two characters whose names we knew that actually kicked the bucket: Phil and Jacob.
Sure, we'd gotten to know Phil, and he was in as many episodes as Horace, and we even saw a hint of development in his character. However, he was so unimportant to the scheme of things that his death could hardly be considered major. As for Jacob, while his death is undoubtedly hugely important to the scheme of things, we hardly knew the guy, having just met him two hours ago... so as a plot point, his death was major, but as a character point, it lacked impact.
Now, half of our main cast is certainly on the line for having maybe died, with Juliet's death looking the most probable. You don't sit at ground zero of an atomic explosion and live. Then again, I'd argue that you don't sit fifty feet above ground zero and live, either, unless there's some weird "electromagnetic anomaly" business going on.
Really, the Juliet ambiguity is quite clever from a production standpoint--apparently, Elizabeth Mitchell got some major role in a pilot for a new television show, and her role on Lost could change dramatically if the pilot gets picked up and lasts a while. If this means she can no longer be on the Lost cast, then of course she died after being so close to a massive release of energy. If she can still be on lost, then of course the "fluctuations" caused by Jughead and the strange matter pocket saved her.
If Juliet needs to die so Elizabeth Mitchell can move on, though, then the main cast is going to need a little overhaul. We'd be down to two female main characters, Kate and Sun, against about a dozen male main characters, and the last thing Lost needs is to turn into as much of a sausage fest as Georgia Tech. Claire coming back holds some promise--and the producers really need to address that story, but that's still lacking. Combine that with Ilana apparently being a lot more important than we thought, and I can definitely see her joining the main cast.
Speaking of the main cast, major gripe with the finale: no Desmond? What the hell? Every season finale to date have featured all the (living) main characters. Desmond's utterly embarrassing lack of screen time has been the one knock on the otherwise fantastic season 5. Eloise as much as told us, halfway through the season, that the Island was not done with Desmond. This had better come to fruition before the end of the series.
Pleasantly, Jack is no longer my least favorite character, having regrown most of his lost backbone and seemingly left "wussy" mode. He hasn't recovered all the way: the worst scene in the finale was his fight with Sawyer, which didn't seem to have much of a point. It almost seemed like that fight was really over Kate, which made my hate it even more. I really, really like season 5 Sawyer, and it made me care about his character for the first time in the series. I only hope his character stays that interesting to the end.
I still like Miles, and I still like Sun, and I've been satisfied with their screen time this season. Definitely looking forward to the Jin-Sun reunion, which I have to assume will happen toward the beginning of next season. I really want to see more Frank and more Richard, and I could do with a little more Charles Widmore too.
To end, the biggest thing to speculate about: who will the next important "group of people" be in season 6? We had the mid-section survivors in season 1, the tail section people in season 2, the Others in season 3, the freighter people in season 4, and Dharma in season 5. Maybe more of Jacob's people, such as Ilana and her ilk?
I'll finish up the season finale discussion in a few days with the "Everything that Rises Must Converge" edition, describing what I perceive as the most important plot points for the last season.
Currently listening: "Suspension", Mae, from The Everglow
One of the reasons Lost is so, so good is that there's so much going on at any given time. Mythology, plot, characters are all critical to making this show excellent, and they're all quasi-independent enough to talk about by themselves. I'd like to talk a little about characters in this installment of the finale post, because I think Season 6 is going to have to make a few critical changes.
The biggest character-y surprise from the finale was the lack of a major, impactful death. Important characters dying has been a fixture of season finales past (eg Charlie). Plus, people far more acquainted with spoiler sites than I am were convinced that there was going to be a "major" death in the finale. Sure, plenty of people died, particularly Dharma employees who has the ill fortune of assignment to the Swan station. But I can only count two characters whose names we knew that actually kicked the bucket: Phil and Jacob.
Sure, we'd gotten to know Phil, and he was in as many episodes as Horace, and we even saw a hint of development in his character. However, he was so unimportant to the scheme of things that his death could hardly be considered major. As for Jacob, while his death is undoubtedly hugely important to the scheme of things, we hardly knew the guy, having just met him two hours ago... so as a plot point, his death was major, but as a character point, it lacked impact.
Now, half of our main cast is certainly on the line for having maybe died, with Juliet's death looking the most probable. You don't sit at ground zero of an atomic explosion and live. Then again, I'd argue that you don't sit fifty feet above ground zero and live, either, unless there's some weird "electromagnetic anomaly" business going on.
Really, the Juliet ambiguity is quite clever from a production standpoint--apparently, Elizabeth Mitchell got some major role in a pilot for a new television show, and her role on Lost could change dramatically if the pilot gets picked up and lasts a while. If this means she can no longer be on the Lost cast, then of course she died after being so close to a massive release of energy. If she can still be on lost, then of course the "fluctuations" caused by Jughead and the strange matter pocket saved her.
If Juliet needs to die so Elizabeth Mitchell can move on, though, then the main cast is going to need a little overhaul. We'd be down to two female main characters, Kate and Sun, against about a dozen male main characters, and the last thing Lost needs is to turn into as much of a sausage fest as Georgia Tech. Claire coming back holds some promise--and the producers really need to address that story, but that's still lacking. Combine that with Ilana apparently being a lot more important than we thought, and I can definitely see her joining the main cast.
Speaking of the main cast, major gripe with the finale: no Desmond? What the hell? Every season finale to date have featured all the (living) main characters. Desmond's utterly embarrassing lack of screen time has been the one knock on the otherwise fantastic season 5. Eloise as much as told us, halfway through the season, that the Island was not done with Desmond. This had better come to fruition before the end of the series.
Pleasantly, Jack is no longer my least favorite character, having regrown most of his lost backbone and seemingly left "wussy" mode. He hasn't recovered all the way: the worst scene in the finale was his fight with Sawyer, which didn't seem to have much of a point. It almost seemed like that fight was really over Kate, which made my hate it even more. I really, really like season 5 Sawyer, and it made me care about his character for the first time in the series. I only hope his character stays that interesting to the end.
I still like Miles, and I still like Sun, and I've been satisfied with their screen time this season. Definitely looking forward to the Jin-Sun reunion, which I have to assume will happen toward the beginning of next season. I really want to see more Frank and more Richard, and I could do with a little more Charles Widmore too.
To end, the biggest thing to speculate about: who will the next important "group of people" be in season 6? We had the mid-section survivors in season 1, the tail section people in season 2, the Others in season 3, the freighter people in season 4, and Dharma in season 5. Maybe more of Jacob's people, such as Ilana and her ilk?
I'll finish up the season finale discussion in a few days with the "Everything that Rises Must Converge" edition, describing what I perceive as the most important plot points for the last season.
Currently listening: "Suspension", Mae, from The Everglow
Rapid-Fire Airplane Movie Reviews
Review: Gran Torino
The remarkable thing about this movie is that half of the main character's dialog is either "grrrr" or some manner of ethnic slur--and Mr. Eastwood's character sure knows a lot of those. The movie starts with Eastwood's character Walt absolutely despising anyone who isn't like him--and that extends to his white family, Southeast Asian neighbors, Mexican neighbors, and pretty much everyone else. So it's predictable in the sense that by the time everything is said and done, you know he's going to come around and be okay with at least some of the minorities.
Over the course of the movie, we see how he gets there, and how he actually manages to bring about some positive change in other people's lives, too. I suppose I can buy that seventy-plus years of bigotry vanishes over the course of just a few months, mostly because I can't buy that someone is that ridiculously bigoted in the first place. Sure, there's plenty of grizzled old dudes who don't care for the fact that their neighbors are Asian, but is there really anyone who would go so far as to throw away their gifts for no real reason?
Without giving away the ending, I'll go ahead and say that the best line in the movie comes at the end, when Walt forbids someone from painting "any of those stupid flames" on his car, or putting a "gay spoiler" on the back. It's a good movie overall--a classic tale of redemption that's nothing we haven't seen before, but well enough acted and presented that it doesn't so much matter.
Review: Quantum of Solace
Daniel Craig's new interpretation of James Bond surprised and impressed a lot of people in the last movie, Casino Royale. Gone, or at least postponed, were the days of the ultra-suave, super-sophisticated Bond, and we got a rendition that was a lot more relateable in terms of emotion. That made Casino Royale a good movie.
The other thing that made Casino Royale good was that it made sense. The whole way through. You could follow the plot, you knew who the characters were, and there was an acceptable level of doubt about who was up to what. Quantum of Solace decided not to follow that approach. Confirmation of who certain characters are and what they're doing comes way too late in the movie to help it make sense. Worse, even after watching it, I'm still not sure what the Bond Girl's involvement in anything is. (Is she Russian? South American? Something else entirely?)
Chances are good you expect certain things from a Bond movie, like exotic locales, explosions, chase scenes, and banter between Bond and his superiors. We get all that, no doubt about it. The issue comes in whether we get anything beyond that... and Quantum of Solace doesn't so much deliver.
Review: Slumdog Millionaire
I was a little skeptical of this movie at first, mostly because Indian cinema and I don't so much get along, but it turns out this movie was a lot less Bollywood than I might have thought. No spontaneous bursting into song (or dance), no characters who find out they're inexplicably related at the very end of the movie (hey, this isn't Lost here), and no four-hour duration.
The coolest thing this movie does is to use an interesting temporal structure, explaining how this poor kid from the slums knows the answers to all these trivia questions. Turns out he's had some ridiculously bad things happen to him in his life, and those moments just happen to coincide with the questions he gets asked. Fate, or something like that.
It has its flaws--notably, the main character Jamal is utterly unlikable and devoid of personality for the first third or so of the movie. And, as Ken Jennings pointed out before the movie was even released, the "trivia game" backbone of the movie is weak: some of the early questions seem impossibly hard, while the last (20 million rupee) question is comparatively stunningly easy.
However, the movie has way more going for it than wrong with it. Slumdog Millionaire manages to use the "flashes through time" device without confusing us, because both of the timelines move linearly forward, and that's a credit to the movie in and of itself. But it does a lot more than that, featuring characters you find yourself caring about and a few powerful redemptive moments.
Review: Best in Show
I love the mockumentary style--see Spinal Tap, the Office, etc. And Best in Show is one of... well, the best. I'd already seen this movie, several years ago, and the good news is it's still as funny as ever.
Currently listening: "Cover Me", Mae, from The Everglow
The remarkable thing about this movie is that half of the main character's dialog is either "grrrr" or some manner of ethnic slur--and Mr. Eastwood's character sure knows a lot of those. The movie starts with Eastwood's character Walt absolutely despising anyone who isn't like him--and that extends to his white family, Southeast Asian neighbors, Mexican neighbors, and pretty much everyone else. So it's predictable in the sense that by the time everything is said and done, you know he's going to come around and be okay with at least some of the minorities.
Over the course of the movie, we see how he gets there, and how he actually manages to bring about some positive change in other people's lives, too. I suppose I can buy that seventy-plus years of bigotry vanishes over the course of just a few months, mostly because I can't buy that someone is that ridiculously bigoted in the first place. Sure, there's plenty of grizzled old dudes who don't care for the fact that their neighbors are Asian, but is there really anyone who would go so far as to throw away their gifts for no real reason?
Without giving away the ending, I'll go ahead and say that the best line in the movie comes at the end, when Walt forbids someone from painting "any of those stupid flames" on his car, or putting a "gay spoiler" on the back. It's a good movie overall--a classic tale of redemption that's nothing we haven't seen before, but well enough acted and presented that it doesn't so much matter.
Review: Quantum of Solace
Daniel Craig's new interpretation of James Bond surprised and impressed a lot of people in the last movie, Casino Royale. Gone, or at least postponed, were the days of the ultra-suave, super-sophisticated Bond, and we got a rendition that was a lot more relateable in terms of emotion. That made Casino Royale a good movie.
The other thing that made Casino Royale good was that it made sense. The whole way through. You could follow the plot, you knew who the characters were, and there was an acceptable level of doubt about who was up to what. Quantum of Solace decided not to follow that approach. Confirmation of who certain characters are and what they're doing comes way too late in the movie to help it make sense. Worse, even after watching it, I'm still not sure what the Bond Girl's involvement in anything is. (Is she Russian? South American? Something else entirely?)
Chances are good you expect certain things from a Bond movie, like exotic locales, explosions, chase scenes, and banter between Bond and his superiors. We get all that, no doubt about it. The issue comes in whether we get anything beyond that... and Quantum of Solace doesn't so much deliver.
Review: Slumdog Millionaire
I was a little skeptical of this movie at first, mostly because Indian cinema and I don't so much get along, but it turns out this movie was a lot less Bollywood than I might have thought. No spontaneous bursting into song (or dance), no characters who find out they're inexplicably related at the very end of the movie (hey, this isn't Lost here), and no four-hour duration.
The coolest thing this movie does is to use an interesting temporal structure, explaining how this poor kid from the slums knows the answers to all these trivia questions. Turns out he's had some ridiculously bad things happen to him in his life, and those moments just happen to coincide with the questions he gets asked. Fate, or something like that.
It has its flaws--notably, the main character Jamal is utterly unlikable and devoid of personality for the first third or so of the movie. And, as Ken Jennings pointed out before the movie was even released, the "trivia game" backbone of the movie is weak: some of the early questions seem impossibly hard, while the last (20 million rupee) question is comparatively stunningly easy.
However, the movie has way more going for it than wrong with it. Slumdog Millionaire manages to use the "flashes through time" device without confusing us, because both of the timelines move linearly forward, and that's a credit to the movie in and of itself. But it does a lot more than that, featuring characters you find yourself caring about and a few powerful redemptive moments.
Review: Best in Show
I love the mockumentary style--see Spinal Tap, the Office, etc. And Best in Show is one of... well, the best. I'd already seen this movie, several years ago, and the good news is it's still as funny as ever.
Currently listening: "Cover Me", Mae, from The Everglow
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Lost Speculations and Observations, "Loophole" Edition
In "The Incident", we're subject to the usual gamut of Lost emotions. Awe, when we realize who we're seeing back in the 1800s. Confusion, any time Ilana and Bram's people show up. Disgust, every time Jack talks about Kate. (Or maybe that's just me.) Admiration, when Miles puts himself on the line to help out his dad. But I'm ashamed of one particular emotion I couldn't help but feel about an hour and forty-five minutes in.
Sympathy. For Ben Linus.
In the last few episodes, we've seen the entire mystical facade surrounding Ben evaporate. It's taken no longer than half a season for him to go from master manipulator who singlehandedly convinces half of the Oceanic Six to get back on the plane to empty deposed leader who has no idea what's going on. Even Sun has caught onto his game: "Do you really expect me to believe that?" when asked about the Statue is met with a dejected "No, I guess not."
Not too long after that, Ben and Jacob finally have a heart-to-heart chat, apparently for the first time in their lives. And it's clear that Ben really isn't as special, as crucial to the Island, as central a cog in the "whatever happened, happened" scheme as he thought he was. Nearly everyone important got a Jacob visit earlier in their lives... except for Ben. All of the other leaders of the Others, presumably, have met the man, except for Ben. And Ben, the Island's undisputed master of getting others to do his dirty work, is manipulated himself by (ostensible) John Locke.
And as dirty and evil and foul that many of this actions have been, I couldn't help but feel terrible for the guy. To add to his misery, I think that killing Jacob just might have been the very worst thing he could have done for the Island. Enter the Statue, whose foot we first saw exactly three seasons ago, and whose face we finally see for the first time. Whose face is that exactly? I'm putting all of my chips in the Sobek pile.
Why I think the Statue is Sobek: ankh in the left hand, check. Alligator head, check. However, that can describe any of a handful of Egyptian deities. The much better evidence comes from comparing Jacob to Sobek. I'll quote liberally from the Wikipedia page about Sobek here, emphasis mine. "Sobek's ambiguous nature led some Egyptians to believe that he was a repairer of evil that had been done, rather than a force for good in itself."
"Ambiguous" certainly does describe Jacob, but then again it describes about half of the characters on the show. The idea of Sobek as a "repairer of evil", though, is fascinating. When did Jacob show up to the 815 survivors in the past? Pivotal moments, yes, but pivotal moments that all followed some evil that had befallen them.
Jack had just been embarrassed during surgery (ironically, by the man who claims to speak on Jacob's behalf thirty years later) and to top it all off, his Apollo bar had just gotten stuck. Kate was just called out for trying to steal. Hurley was falsely imprisoned. Jin and Sun had been married--not exactly evil, but the tribulations they went through to get there could have used some "repairing". In this manner, Jacob's visits to the 815 survivors seem to be exactly in the function of "repairing evil".
"He was seen as a more primal god, eventually becoming regarded as an avatar of the primal god Amun, who at that time was considered the chief god. When his identity finally merged, Amun had become merged himself with Ra[...]" So Sobek is an avatar or Ra. Remember the tapestry that Jacob had spent hundreds of years weaving? Happy people worshiping none other than Ra.
"Going to Duat to restore damage done to the dead". Duat is the Egyptian underworld, where all sorts of fun stuff happens, like hearts getting weighed against feathers. I've been saying for a couple of years now that the Island represents the Underworld. What if Jacob urged the 815 survivors to go to the Island so that he could help them, undo the rest of the evils that they'd experienced?
The other significant thing that happens in Duat is Ra, whom Sobek is an avatar of, battles Apep, the snake demon of chaos and darkness. Light and darkness, white and black, the abstraction of all of the conflicts in Lost ever since the first season. And apparently Jacob and his "nemesis", if their old-school hand-woven garments are any indication.
If Jacob is effectively an avatar of Ra, the Egyptian sun god and the upholder of order, then who is his nemesis? It makes a lot of sense that he'd be an avatar of Apep. Then the whole perspective of conflict on the show changes. The central conflict is still "good" against "bad", white against black, but it's no longer our people against the Others or Dharma against the Hostiles. It's not even Ben versus Widmore as I claimed a few months ago. The Island then becomes the battleground of deities, which has apparently been going on for five thousand years.
This conflict does recall Ben's and Widmore's, at least in one respect. The combatants live by some code of "rules", which includes not being able to kill each other. Enter the "loophole". Apep can't kill Ra, but he can sure manipulate some mortal into doing it for him.
These revelations raise three more questions about mysticism on the Island. First, what is Christian? I'd say that he's Jacob's Locke: a dead man who acts on behalf of some greater power. Or, maybe Jacob and his nemesis actually take the forms of Christian and Locke. (Then, what implication does that have for the rest of the dead people that have shown up on the Island, like Yemi and Dave?)
The second question is what's the deal with the Monster? Jacob's people apparently have knowledge and control of it (eg, when Ben summons it), but Jacob's nemesis acting as Locke does too (eg, when "Locke" takes Ben to get his judgment). Possibly it's supposed to protect the Island, keep the battle of deities out of the sight of mortals. Or, maybe it acts as a mediator in the conflict.
Third, where does this leave Richard? Is he on Jacob's side? On neither side? Actually on the side of the nemesis, leading Ben to kill Jacob? There's no way to answer any of that for the time being.
Final observation: Ilana has emerged as a potential power player in the conflict as well. She's clearly on the Jacob side of the conflict, but how and why, we don't know. I can see her joining the main cast next year, particularly in light of what may or may not have happened to Juliet. But more on that in the "H-Bomb" installment coming up in the next day or two.
Currently listening: "The Ocean", Mae, from The Everglow
Sympathy. For Ben Linus.
In the last few episodes, we've seen the entire mystical facade surrounding Ben evaporate. It's taken no longer than half a season for him to go from master manipulator who singlehandedly convinces half of the Oceanic Six to get back on the plane to empty deposed leader who has no idea what's going on. Even Sun has caught onto his game: "Do you really expect me to believe that?" when asked about the Statue is met with a dejected "No, I guess not."
Not too long after that, Ben and Jacob finally have a heart-to-heart chat, apparently for the first time in their lives. And it's clear that Ben really isn't as special, as crucial to the Island, as central a cog in the "whatever happened, happened" scheme as he thought he was. Nearly everyone important got a Jacob visit earlier in their lives... except for Ben. All of the other leaders of the Others, presumably, have met the man, except for Ben. And Ben, the Island's undisputed master of getting others to do his dirty work, is manipulated himself by (ostensible) John Locke.
And as dirty and evil and foul that many of this actions have been, I couldn't help but feel terrible for the guy. To add to his misery, I think that killing Jacob just might have been the very worst thing he could have done for the Island. Enter the Statue, whose foot we first saw exactly three seasons ago, and whose face we finally see for the first time. Whose face is that exactly? I'm putting all of my chips in the Sobek pile.
Why I think the Statue is Sobek: ankh in the left hand, check. Alligator head, check. However, that can describe any of a handful of Egyptian deities. The much better evidence comes from comparing Jacob to Sobek. I'll quote liberally from the Wikipedia page about Sobek here, emphasis mine. "Sobek's ambiguous nature led some Egyptians to believe that he was a repairer of evil that had been done, rather than a force for good in itself."
"Ambiguous" certainly does describe Jacob, but then again it describes about half of the characters on the show. The idea of Sobek as a "repairer of evil", though, is fascinating. When did Jacob show up to the 815 survivors in the past? Pivotal moments, yes, but pivotal moments that all followed some evil that had befallen them.
Jack had just been embarrassed during surgery (ironically, by the man who claims to speak on Jacob's behalf thirty years later) and to top it all off, his Apollo bar had just gotten stuck. Kate was just called out for trying to steal. Hurley was falsely imprisoned. Jin and Sun had been married--not exactly evil, but the tribulations they went through to get there could have used some "repairing". In this manner, Jacob's visits to the 815 survivors seem to be exactly in the function of "repairing evil".
"He was seen as a more primal god, eventually becoming regarded as an avatar of the primal god Amun, who at that time was considered the chief god. When his identity finally merged, Amun had become merged himself with Ra[...]" So Sobek is an avatar or Ra. Remember the tapestry that Jacob had spent hundreds of years weaving? Happy people worshiping none other than Ra.
"Going to Duat to restore damage done to the dead". Duat is the Egyptian underworld, where all sorts of fun stuff happens, like hearts getting weighed against feathers. I've been saying for a couple of years now that the Island represents the Underworld. What if Jacob urged the 815 survivors to go to the Island so that he could help them, undo the rest of the evils that they'd experienced?
The other significant thing that happens in Duat is Ra, whom Sobek is an avatar of, battles Apep, the snake demon of chaos and darkness. Light and darkness, white and black, the abstraction of all of the conflicts in Lost ever since the first season. And apparently Jacob and his "nemesis", if their old-school hand-woven garments are any indication.
If Jacob is effectively an avatar of Ra, the Egyptian sun god and the upholder of order, then who is his nemesis? It makes a lot of sense that he'd be an avatar of Apep. Then the whole perspective of conflict on the show changes. The central conflict is still "good" against "bad", white against black, but it's no longer our people against the Others or Dharma against the Hostiles. It's not even Ben versus Widmore as I claimed a few months ago. The Island then becomes the battleground of deities, which has apparently been going on for five thousand years.
This conflict does recall Ben's and Widmore's, at least in one respect. The combatants live by some code of "rules", which includes not being able to kill each other. Enter the "loophole". Apep can't kill Ra, but he can sure manipulate some mortal into doing it for him.
These revelations raise three more questions about mysticism on the Island. First, what is Christian? I'd say that he's Jacob's Locke: a dead man who acts on behalf of some greater power. Or, maybe Jacob and his nemesis actually take the forms of Christian and Locke. (Then, what implication does that have for the rest of the dead people that have shown up on the Island, like Yemi and Dave?)
The second question is what's the deal with the Monster? Jacob's people apparently have knowledge and control of it (eg, when Ben summons it), but Jacob's nemesis acting as Locke does too (eg, when "Locke" takes Ben to get his judgment). Possibly it's supposed to protect the Island, keep the battle of deities out of the sight of mortals. Or, maybe it acts as a mediator in the conflict.
Third, where does this leave Richard? Is he on Jacob's side? On neither side? Actually on the side of the nemesis, leading Ben to kill Jacob? There's no way to answer any of that for the time being.
Final observation: Ilana has emerged as a potential power player in the conflict as well. She's clearly on the Jacob side of the conflict, but how and why, we don't know. I can see her joining the main cast next year, particularly in light of what may or may not have happened to Juliet. But more on that in the "H-Bomb" installment coming up in the next day or two.
Currently listening: "The Ocean", Mae, from The Everglow
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Lost Speculations and Observations, April Edition
The press release for "The Variable" promised that Faraday would "come clean" about what he knew about the Island. After watching the episode, I'm still leaning toward him knowing "not a whole lot". At least we know more about how a few things work after watching it.
Widmore is Daniel's father, which isn't really a surprise by this point, seeing as how we've gotten the parenthood "surprise" for Miles and (sort of) Charlotte and (once already) Daniel earlier in this season. Intriguingly, that makes Daniel and Penny half-siblings, with Penny's mother presumably the woman who Widmore fooled around with off the Island, much to Ben's dismay.
But if parentage has gotten to be a bore lately, death never is. And Faraday's looking pretty toast... shockingly, shot to death by his own mother. "Hi Mom," you can almost imagine him saying, "you haven't given birth to me just yet, but you will soon enough, and when I get to be an adult, I'm going to time travel so you can shoot my adult self." It's a wonder Eloise isn't a lot more screwed up than she actually is, knowing that she shot her own son.
Big question here: why is Eloise so insistent that Daniel go back to the Island, knowing well her past self is going to shoot him--and also knowing well that she can't do a thing to stop it?
Like most of the episodes this season, "The Variable" flirted with what's turning into a major theme: can you change the past to affect the future? Time and time again, the answer turns out to be "no". Sayid thought he could by shooting Ben; didn't work. As soon as Daniel starts questioning his own theory and getting notions about detonating Jughead to prevent the Incident, he's shot in the chest for it. Still I maintain that there's no mystery here at all; the only character who can really do these things is Desmond. And at some point, probably because he knows about a calamity that's about to strike the Island, he'll bring himself to go back and set things right.
Let's talk about our favorite Scotsman for a second. Owing to Desmond's "special" nature in being able to change the past, I have no doubt in my mind that he's the "Variable" that the title referred to. Remember Eloise's comment on Desmond's condition? "I have no idea" how he'll turn out. The great Ms. Hawking, temporal policeman and oracle, for once is at a loss. And that scares her. He's the one actor who's not just a cog in the great machine, not just another piece of determinism that Eloise can smugly predict.
In that way, Desmond represents the free will that Daniel was so quick to cite just before his death. I, for one, will be really disappointed if he never exercises it before the story ends.
Yet again, I'm reminded that I really can care about relationships and love stories on this show. Every time I see Desmond and Penny, I'm touched. Theirs is the most sincere, genuine relationship on the show--by far--and I still maintain that their reunion at the end of Season 4 was one of the best moments of the entire show. They still love each other and care for each other, three years later in real time, and a season later in show time. It's almost like the Desmond-Penny relationship is a "constant" of its own, one thing that we can always count on even when everything else is going to hell.
Of course, "The Variable" is the episode most on my mind, because it's the only Lost I've gotten in the past two weeks. It's almost tough to remember "Dead is Dead", which I think is the most mythology-saturated episode the series has thrown at us so far. More Monster and Temple that you can shake a stick at, and even more in the accumulation of clues that Monster and Temple and Island are all bound, somehow, to the underworld. Recall the engraving of Anubis kneeling before the Monster and tell me you don't want to know what that means.
The Dharma people really have gotten to be my favorite slew of supporting characters we've seen so far. Radzinsky in particular is excellent. Yeah, he's a douche, and yeah, he's directly opposed to our people's interests, but his personality is spot-on and Eric Lange is doing a wonderful job. I was excited that we'd get to hear more about Radzinsky mostly because of his tie to the Blast Door Map. Turns out he's awesome even without the mythology tie-in, and I'd put money on us getting to see how Radzinsky ends up exiled to the Swan for fifteen years by the end of the season.
What else are you looking forward to for the finale? I still won't spoil the title, though I think Faraday made it perfectly clear where this storyline is headed when he described what was going to happen "in a few hours". Do you think we'll get to see the Sun and Jin reunion? (I think yes.) Jughead exploding? (Probably not, but what an awesome cliffhanger that would be!) Find out "what lies in the shadow of the statue"? (Again, probably not, but I assume we'll at least find out what Bram and Ilana are up to.) Better understand resurrection on the Island? (Possibly we'll head in that direction, but I think the exact mechanics are a season 6 issue.)
Currently listening: Paste Magazine sampler, Volume 52
Widmore is Daniel's father, which isn't really a surprise by this point, seeing as how we've gotten the parenthood "surprise" for Miles and (sort of) Charlotte and (once already) Daniel earlier in this season. Intriguingly, that makes Daniel and Penny half-siblings, with Penny's mother presumably the woman who Widmore fooled around with off the Island, much to Ben's dismay.
But if parentage has gotten to be a bore lately, death never is. And Faraday's looking pretty toast... shockingly, shot to death by his own mother. "Hi Mom," you can almost imagine him saying, "you haven't given birth to me just yet, but you will soon enough, and when I get to be an adult, I'm going to time travel so you can shoot my adult self." It's a wonder Eloise isn't a lot more screwed up than she actually is, knowing that she shot her own son.
Big question here: why is Eloise so insistent that Daniel go back to the Island, knowing well her past self is going to shoot him--and also knowing well that she can't do a thing to stop it?
Like most of the episodes this season, "The Variable" flirted with what's turning into a major theme: can you change the past to affect the future? Time and time again, the answer turns out to be "no". Sayid thought he could by shooting Ben; didn't work. As soon as Daniel starts questioning his own theory and getting notions about detonating Jughead to prevent the Incident, he's shot in the chest for it. Still I maintain that there's no mystery here at all; the only character who can really do these things is Desmond. And at some point, probably because he knows about a calamity that's about to strike the Island, he'll bring himself to go back and set things right.
Let's talk about our favorite Scotsman for a second. Owing to Desmond's "special" nature in being able to change the past, I have no doubt in my mind that he's the "Variable" that the title referred to. Remember Eloise's comment on Desmond's condition? "I have no idea" how he'll turn out. The great Ms. Hawking, temporal policeman and oracle, for once is at a loss. And that scares her. He's the one actor who's not just a cog in the great machine, not just another piece of determinism that Eloise can smugly predict.
In that way, Desmond represents the free will that Daniel was so quick to cite just before his death. I, for one, will be really disappointed if he never exercises it before the story ends.
Yet again, I'm reminded that I really can care about relationships and love stories on this show. Every time I see Desmond and Penny, I'm touched. Theirs is the most sincere, genuine relationship on the show--by far--and I still maintain that their reunion at the end of Season 4 was one of the best moments of the entire show. They still love each other and care for each other, three years later in real time, and a season later in show time. It's almost like the Desmond-Penny relationship is a "constant" of its own, one thing that we can always count on even when everything else is going to hell.
Of course, "The Variable" is the episode most on my mind, because it's the only Lost I've gotten in the past two weeks. It's almost tough to remember "Dead is Dead", which I think is the most mythology-saturated episode the series has thrown at us so far. More Monster and Temple that you can shake a stick at, and even more in the accumulation of clues that Monster and Temple and Island are all bound, somehow, to the underworld. Recall the engraving of Anubis kneeling before the Monster and tell me you don't want to know what that means.
The Dharma people really have gotten to be my favorite slew of supporting characters we've seen so far. Radzinsky in particular is excellent. Yeah, he's a douche, and yeah, he's directly opposed to our people's interests, but his personality is spot-on and Eric Lange is doing a wonderful job. I was excited that we'd get to hear more about Radzinsky mostly because of his tie to the Blast Door Map. Turns out he's awesome even without the mythology tie-in, and I'd put money on us getting to see how Radzinsky ends up exiled to the Swan for fifteen years by the end of the season.
What else are you looking forward to for the finale? I still won't spoil the title, though I think Faraday made it perfectly clear where this storyline is headed when he described what was going to happen "in a few hours". Do you think we'll get to see the Sun and Jin reunion? (I think yes.) Jughead exploding? (Probably not, but what an awesome cliffhanger that would be!) Find out "what lies in the shadow of the statue"? (Again, probably not, but I assume we'll at least find out what Bram and Ilana are up to.) Better understand resurrection on the Island? (Possibly we'll head in that direction, but I think the exact mechanics are a season 6 issue.)
Currently listening: Paste Magazine sampler, Volume 52
Cool Toys and Crappy Music
Review: T-Mobile G1
The best thing about the G1 is that it doesn't have a queer name. "Rant". "Chocolate". "Instinct". Come on, are we naming phones, or are we listing off verbs and nouns that we know? Back in my day, phones had good old robot names like "SGH-T309".
And let's not even discuss the perplexing and ambiguous "wireless" that mobile phone service has come to be known as. Lots of things are wireless. My mouse, for instance. My laptop, with respect to the internet. The commercials for various multimedia companies (I'm looking at you, AT&T) are proud to proclaim that they feature "television" (noun, no ambiguity), "internet" (noun, still no ambiguity), "home phone" (noun, even less ambiguity), and "wireless". This is an adjective, not the name of a service.
(It's like how the oil industry won't stop using "caustic" to describe sodium hydroxide, even though they know as well as the media companies that using an adjective by itself to describe a product is stupid.)
The second best thing about the G1 is that it's neither an iPhone nor a Blackberry. I can therefore have a device that's very useful and very entertaining but not figure on the douchebag scale either at the "hipster" end or the "senior vice president who thinks he's more important than he actually is" end. (Okay, okay, not everyone who uses an iPhone is a hipster. You'd best start checking your scarf habits though.)
The third best is that it tells me, depending on the season, the Braves, Tech football, or Tech basketball scores--as they happen, or as often as I'd like. And the location of the nearest Starbucks. And I can play Pac-Man. And stream Last.fm.
The general consensus is that the G1 has several unique advantages over its "smart phone" competitors: the keyboard is good, the trackball is useful, and built-in Google functionality is handy. It carries a few disadvantages, too: the software library is smaller than, say, the iPhone's, it's sort of big and heavy, and the battery life ranges from tepid to abysmal depending on how you're using the phone.
But this is the best toy I've gotten in a long, long time.
I have a new "least favorite musical artist", and her name is Lady Gaga. Remember when the worst thing we had to contend with on the radio was Fergie, or Katy Perry? "I Kissed a Girl" sounds like musical genius now. I promise, if I hear this "Poker Face" business one more time, I am going to turn off the radio no matter where I am. "But sir, you can't turn off the radio to the entire Target." Watch me.
Currently listening: "Shambala", Three Dog Night
The best thing about the G1 is that it doesn't have a queer name. "Rant". "Chocolate". "Instinct". Come on, are we naming phones, or are we listing off verbs and nouns that we know? Back in my day, phones had good old robot names like "SGH-T309".
And let's not even discuss the perplexing and ambiguous "wireless" that mobile phone service has come to be known as. Lots of things are wireless. My mouse, for instance. My laptop, with respect to the internet. The commercials for various multimedia companies (I'm looking at you, AT&T) are proud to proclaim that they feature "television" (noun, no ambiguity), "internet" (noun, still no ambiguity), "home phone" (noun, even less ambiguity), and "wireless". This is an adjective, not the name of a service.
(It's like how the oil industry won't stop using "caustic" to describe sodium hydroxide, even though they know as well as the media companies that using an adjective by itself to describe a product is stupid.)
The second best thing about the G1 is that it's neither an iPhone nor a Blackberry. I can therefore have a device that's very useful and very entertaining but not figure on the douchebag scale either at the "hipster" end or the "senior vice president who thinks he's more important than he actually is" end. (Okay, okay, not everyone who uses an iPhone is a hipster. You'd best start checking your scarf habits though.)
The third best is that it tells me, depending on the season, the Braves, Tech football, or Tech basketball scores--as they happen, or as often as I'd like. And the location of the nearest Starbucks. And I can play Pac-Man. And stream Last.fm.
The general consensus is that the G1 has several unique advantages over its "smart phone" competitors: the keyboard is good, the trackball is useful, and built-in Google functionality is handy. It carries a few disadvantages, too: the software library is smaller than, say, the iPhone's, it's sort of big and heavy, and the battery life ranges from tepid to abysmal depending on how you're using the phone.
But this is the best toy I've gotten in a long, long time.
I have a new "least favorite musical artist", and her name is Lady Gaga. Remember when the worst thing we had to contend with on the radio was Fergie, or Katy Perry? "I Kissed a Girl" sounds like musical genius now. I promise, if I hear this "Poker Face" business one more time, I am going to turn off the radio no matter where I am. "But sir, you can't turn off the radio to the entire Target." Watch me.
Currently listening: "Shambala", Three Dog Night
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Quick Lesson In Driving
If a traffic light is not working at a 4-way intersection, you treat it as a 4-way stop. You do not have an excuse to blow through the intersection. You still must use your turn signal. Take turns, and do not pull out in front of another driver. If there happens to be a pedestrian in the crosswalk, he has the right of way, just as if he had a "white man walking" sign. Therefore, please be kind and do not honk at him as if he were jaywalking.
It'll make 10th and State a much happier intersection, I promise.
Currently listening: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", the Beatles
It'll make 10th and State a much happier intersection, I promise.
Currently listening: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", the Beatles
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Lost Speculations and Observations, March Edition
First off, Ben Linus isn't really dead, of course. "Whatever happened, happened." But a good question to ponder is this: if Desmond had been the one to shoot Ben at the end of "He's Our You", would Ben actually be dead, screwing up the entire timeline? I have to say yes; Desmond, after all, is special, and can affect the past.
While this scene was a complete shocker, it only elevated "He's Our You" from an average episode to a good one. "Namaste" was generally dull. So most of this post originates from "LaFleur", the best and most mythically-intense of the episodes this month.
In the first four seasons of Lost, the operative question was always "where?" Charlie’s question "guys, where are we?" summed up the central mystery to Lost for two-thirds of its run. "Who?" came up a lot too—it continues to—especially when a new character is introduced and all those pesky inter-character relationships are getting developed. But physical place and the relationships between different physical places motivated all the action, whether that meant getting from the outside world to the Island, getting between places on the Island, and eventually getting from the Island back to the outside world.
When we watched Ben turn the Frozen Donkey Wheel, we knew it was going to change the way the show worked, but only now that we’re more than halfway into season 5 do we actually appreciate how drastic that change was. Even the idea of what "moving the Island" means has changed: back in season 4, everyone assumed that meant "move in space" to a new "where". Just half a season later, that notion seems antiquated. Even the old question of "how do we get to and leave the Island?" has been so thoroughly de-mysticized that it seems trivial.
That’s because now the operative question on Lost is "when?" Several characters have already mirrored Charlie’s season 1 inquiry and asked "when are we?" The important mysteries on the show now revolve around when events took place, rather than where. Granted, time has always been important to the mythology. The distinguishing narrative device for the first four seasons was the flashback (and then flashforward), a clever method of telling stories from different timelines without having to contrive ways for all the characters to show up in those timelines.
But the Island has much more history than just what the Oceanic 815 survivors can hope to tell us. Therefore, the new mechanic of time travel is an even more clever way to reveal fragments of the Island’s history. And by all accounts, that history goes back longer than anyone could have imagined when we saw 815 go down. The biggest and most mysterious evidence we have of ancient habitation of the Island is a handful of Egyptian-seeming artifacts.
Egyptology has been sneaking its way into the Lost mythos with all the subtlety of a Sayid Jarrah torture routine. The first glimpse we got of it, ironically, probably had nothing to do with the truly ancient construction we see later. That was way back in the days of the Swan station, when some hieroglyphs showed up behind the countdown time cards in the Swan. Creepily, the translation of those glyphs is either "cause to die" or "underworld", suggesting that Dharma at least knew that bad things would happen if you didn’t press the button.
But whether or not Dharma knew how the Swan really worked, it seems increasingly unlikely that they knew how the rest of the Island worked. For a while, Dharma seemed veiled and downright mystical; now that we’ve gotten more insight into how they operated, I think they were mostly as in over their heads as everyone else who’s ended up in the Island. The few exceptions might be Dharma’s leadership, people like its founders, Gerald and Karen de Groot, and its financier, Alvar Hanso. But for most Dharmites, I doubt they actually understood how deeply significant the choice of hieroglyphs actually was.
The rest of the Egyptian influence has been revealed in relatively quick succession, at least for Lost. Toward the end of season 4, Ben summoned the smoke monster from behind a hieroglyph-marked door; at the end of season 4, Ben turned the hieroglyph-marked Frozen Donkey Wheel, and toward the beginning of season 5, poor Montand got to make a visit to the smoke monster’s lair (presumably the Temple), which was brimming with hieroglyphs too.
And then, "LaFleur" gave us a two-second glimpse of a massive statue, about the same proportions as our old friend the Four Toed Statue probably is. If it isn’t the same one we saw before, it almost certainly dates from the same era and serves a similar purpose. But the most mythologically intense moment of "LaFleur" was the frame or two where we could see what the statue was holding. It was an ankh, the Egyptian symbol of eternal life, the same symbol that Paul had on his necklace. Egyptian deities, in particular, were often depicted as carrying anhks in their hands by the loop.
Which deity did that statue represent? I can’t help but hope it was Horus, given the emphasis on Horace in that episode.
Some people seem to think that Richard is an Egyptian. Maybe he's an Egyptian deity himself. Maybe he's dead and in the same state of unlife that Christian and presumably Locke are in now. I still like the idea that he's doing creative time travel. I like the "Richard is Egyptian" theory, but it does raise some questions, particularly concerning all of the Others' flawless English and the fact that "Richard" is as English a name as you can get.
(To speculate idly on season 6, that will be the season of the questions "what", as in "what is the Island?", and "why?", as in "why are these people here?". In other words, we’re going to see the Island become important not as a point in space or a point in time, but as a unique rational agent, with an agenda and abilities all its own. A character, maybe, rather than a setting.)
Most Lost-geeky observation of the month: the indirect mention of the deGroots in "He's Our You". "Either we decide, or we call Ann Arbor and they decide for us", declares Horace in the debate on what to do with Sayid. Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michigan, which is where the deGroots did their doctoral work and dreamed up the Initiative. While this might just be an Easter egg for those of us "lucky" enough to remember that trivial detail from the Swan orientation, I can't help but hope we see Gerald and Karen in an coming episode.
Gripe of the month: where in the heck is Desmond? After he walked out of Eloise's "here's how you get to the Island" party early, declaring boldly that he was "done with the Island", we haven't seen any of him at all. Eloise's rebuttal that "the Island isn't done with him" is starting to look more and more like a fabrication.
Finally, I know that some people are so spoiler-averse that they don't even look at the titles of upcoming episodes. (Like knowing that episode 8 was called "LaFleur" would have given anything away at all?) The title of the last episode of this season is awesome in its simplicity. I won't give it here, out of deference to those spoilerphobes, but if you can stomach it, take the half a minute on the internet it'll take to find the title of 5.16 and 5.17.
Currently listening: "Sonne", Rammstein
While this scene was a complete shocker, it only elevated "He's Our You" from an average episode to a good one. "Namaste" was generally dull. So most of this post originates from "LaFleur", the best and most mythically-intense of the episodes this month.
In the first four seasons of Lost, the operative question was always "where?" Charlie’s question "guys, where are we?" summed up the central mystery to Lost for two-thirds of its run. "Who?" came up a lot too—it continues to—especially when a new character is introduced and all those pesky inter-character relationships are getting developed. But physical place and the relationships between different physical places motivated all the action, whether that meant getting from the outside world to the Island, getting between places on the Island, and eventually getting from the Island back to the outside world.
When we watched Ben turn the Frozen Donkey Wheel, we knew it was going to change the way the show worked, but only now that we’re more than halfway into season 5 do we actually appreciate how drastic that change was. Even the idea of what "moving the Island" means has changed: back in season 4, everyone assumed that meant "move in space" to a new "where". Just half a season later, that notion seems antiquated. Even the old question of "how do we get to and leave the Island?" has been so thoroughly de-mysticized that it seems trivial.
That’s because now the operative question on Lost is "when?" Several characters have already mirrored Charlie’s season 1 inquiry and asked "when are we?" The important mysteries on the show now revolve around when events took place, rather than where. Granted, time has always been important to the mythology. The distinguishing narrative device for the first four seasons was the flashback (and then flashforward), a clever method of telling stories from different timelines without having to contrive ways for all the characters to show up in those timelines.
But the Island has much more history than just what the Oceanic 815 survivors can hope to tell us. Therefore, the new mechanic of time travel is an even more clever way to reveal fragments of the Island’s history. And by all accounts, that history goes back longer than anyone could have imagined when we saw 815 go down. The biggest and most mysterious evidence we have of ancient habitation of the Island is a handful of Egyptian-seeming artifacts.
Egyptology has been sneaking its way into the Lost mythos with all the subtlety of a Sayid Jarrah torture routine. The first glimpse we got of it, ironically, probably had nothing to do with the truly ancient construction we see later. That was way back in the days of the Swan station, when some hieroglyphs showed up behind the countdown time cards in the Swan. Creepily, the translation of those glyphs is either "cause to die" or "underworld", suggesting that Dharma at least knew that bad things would happen if you didn’t press the button.
But whether or not Dharma knew how the Swan really worked, it seems increasingly unlikely that they knew how the rest of the Island worked. For a while, Dharma seemed veiled and downright mystical; now that we’ve gotten more insight into how they operated, I think they were mostly as in over their heads as everyone else who’s ended up in the Island. The few exceptions might be Dharma’s leadership, people like its founders, Gerald and Karen de Groot, and its financier, Alvar Hanso. But for most Dharmites, I doubt they actually understood how deeply significant the choice of hieroglyphs actually was.
The rest of the Egyptian influence has been revealed in relatively quick succession, at least for Lost. Toward the end of season 4, Ben summoned the smoke monster from behind a hieroglyph-marked door; at the end of season 4, Ben turned the hieroglyph-marked Frozen Donkey Wheel, and toward the beginning of season 5, poor Montand got to make a visit to the smoke monster’s lair (presumably the Temple), which was brimming with hieroglyphs too.
And then, "LaFleur" gave us a two-second glimpse of a massive statue, about the same proportions as our old friend the Four Toed Statue probably is. If it isn’t the same one we saw before, it almost certainly dates from the same era and serves a similar purpose. But the most mythologically intense moment of "LaFleur" was the frame or two where we could see what the statue was holding. It was an ankh, the Egyptian symbol of eternal life, the same symbol that Paul had on his necklace. Egyptian deities, in particular, were often depicted as carrying anhks in their hands by the loop.
Which deity did that statue represent? I can’t help but hope it was Horus, given the emphasis on Horace in that episode.
Some people seem to think that Richard is an Egyptian. Maybe he's an Egyptian deity himself. Maybe he's dead and in the same state of unlife that Christian and presumably Locke are in now. I still like the idea that he's doing creative time travel. I like the "Richard is Egyptian" theory, but it does raise some questions, particularly concerning all of the Others' flawless English and the fact that "Richard" is as English a name as you can get.
(To speculate idly on season 6, that will be the season of the questions "what", as in "what is the Island?", and "why?", as in "why are these people here?". In other words, we’re going to see the Island become important not as a point in space or a point in time, but as a unique rational agent, with an agenda and abilities all its own. A character, maybe, rather than a setting.)
Most Lost-geeky observation of the month: the indirect mention of the deGroots in "He's Our You". "Either we decide, or we call Ann Arbor and they decide for us", declares Horace in the debate on what to do with Sayid. Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michigan, which is where the deGroots did their doctoral work and dreamed up the Initiative. While this might just be an Easter egg for those of us "lucky" enough to remember that trivial detail from the Swan orientation, I can't help but hope we see Gerald and Karen in an coming episode.
Gripe of the month: where in the heck is Desmond? After he walked out of Eloise's "here's how you get to the Island" party early, declaring boldly that he was "done with the Island", we haven't seen any of him at all. Eloise's rebuttal that "the Island isn't done with him" is starting to look more and more like a fabrication.
Finally, I know that some people are so spoiler-averse that they don't even look at the titles of upcoming episodes. (Like knowing that episode 8 was called "LaFleur" would have given anything away at all?) The title of the last episode of this season is awesome in its simplicity. I won't give it here, out of deference to those spoilerphobes, but if you can stomach it, take the half a minute on the internet it'll take to find the title of 5.16 and 5.17.
Currently listening: "Sonne", Rammstein
Pretty Whistles Meet Prog Rock: The Hazards of Love
Review and Discussion: The Hazards of Love
Is it a good sign that the Decemberists' latest album takes such a long time to digest? I think yes, even though it's more than a little daunting at first. There are characters to follow, plot lines to keep track of, even literary devices that you never thought you'd see again after freshman English.
And in many ways, although it's far different in character from most of the Decemberists' earlier works, it's exactly the logical place for them to have gone next. For those fans that think the prog-metal vibe is new, I'd encourage a listen to the 2004 EP The Tain, based off the Celtic epic Tain bo Cuailnge. The good news is that you don't have to be able to pronounce that to enjoy retelling of the story, which essentially describes a bunch of Irishmen fighting over a cow.
Even those more recently converted to the Decemberists' fanbase might see strains of works they know. The band's most recent recording, The Crane Wife, has moments of Hazards-like character throughout, particularly in the three-in-one song cycle "The Island".
Where "The Island" was loosely, maybe only thematically, connected, Hazards has all the internal consistency you'd ever want or need from a rock album. And where The Tain was content to borrow a mythology, albeit an obscure one, Hazards jumps right in an makes up its own. The result is something that seems more like it ought to be on Broadway than a CD.
In other words, we've got ourselves a rock opera.
A rather heated debate seems to be focusing around whether you can enjoy this as individual songs, or whether you need to take it holistically and evaluate the entire album, and I'm coming down on the side of "entire album". The Decemberists encourage it too, it seems, with the exclusive use of gapless playback: for any given song, while the "during" might be the most important part, the "before" and the "after" are critical too. That's not to say you'll get nothing out of listening to one song at a time, for example if one comes up randomly in shuffle mode, but it's a lot mroe enjoyable to press play at the beginning of track 1 and not touch anything until the end an hour later.
There's good reason for that. Yes, plot and characters are part of it, but there are some impressively-crafted themes, foreshadowing, irony, and witticisms that you might miss given only a song or two. And you'll want to appreciate them.
All of this literary business is fine and good, but what about the music? Is the album worth listening to? Is it what we've come to expect from the Decemberists? Mostly yes. There's a much wider variety that you might have gotten on, say, Her Majesty. And at first, it may seem completely off the mark from what we might have expected, but with a closer examination, it's completely understandable. That's exactly the sort of direction that's nice for a band to head in once they've gotten to the point of five full length albums.
My comments on the album, in generally chronological order.
The album starts with an instrumental "Prelude"--think of it like something that would play as the opening credits roll and we see gorgeous, sweeping shots of the Queen's domain and the Annan Water. The real action starts with "The Hazards of Love 1", with the curious subtitle "The Prettiest Whistles Won't Wrestle the Thistles Undone". Literally, that's saying "if you’re caught in a prickly plant, it doesn’t matter how nice a sound you make, it won’t disentangle you." More abstractly, "if you go about a problem the wrong way, it doesn’t matter how hard you try, you won’t solve it." That's actually a major theme of the album, though we hardly recognize it as that at the very beginning.
There's a male voice yelling something between "The Hazards of Love 1" and "A Bower Scene", but I can't figure out what it's saying or who it is. Could it be Margaret's "irascible blackguard of a father"?
One of the album's biggest successes is its use of voicing to distinguish the characters. Margaret's soprano, which we first hear in "Won't Want For Love", the Queen's alto (which we hear later on), and William's tenor are always in about the same range, and though I might have liked a baritone for one of the major male characters, it makes it very easy to distinguish whose point of view we're hearing without having to see the characters.
This successful character distinction isn't just in the voices--there's also some nice leitmotif in the background music. The few seconds of banjo in "The Queen's Approach" foreshadows her driving metal theme in "Repaid" and "The Queen's Rebuke".
"Won't Want For Love" is my favorite track on the album. Given my love of indie bands with soprano girl singers, this probably isn't too shocking.
"The Hazards of Love II" and "Isn't It A Lovely Night?" are both very nice songs, but they're too close together on the album. It makes sense in the narrative why they are where they are, but with every other pair of songs marking a stylistic shift, it seems odd to have the two most down-tempo, emotional songs next to each other.
Two songs that do follow each other are "Isn't It A Lovely Night?" and "The Wanting Comes In Waves", which feature an interesting major/minor inversion. "Waves" is not exactly a reprise of "Lovely Night"--there are a few true reprises later on--but it sounds sort of similar. Speaking of "The Wanting Comes in Waves", being sort of a music theorist, it bothers me that I can't figure out what the meter is in that song. There's a lot of weird rest and upbeat business, that's for sure.
"Repaid", the second half of "The Wanting Comes in Waves", sets up the backstory between William and the Queen, though it's not fully explained until "The Queen's Rebuke" later in the story. That's excellent storytelling, something that you'd see in a real musical or opera. And "Repaid" is an excellent cliffhanger to the intermission; the action picks up an indeterminate amount of time later without having to give the details of what happened in between. It sets up the second half of the album--call it "Act II"--well.
Apart from being a terrible person, the Rake--or more specifically his song--has the most clever foreshadowing and irony in the album. The Rake expects that we'd think he'd be "haunted" by his despicable actions. That's meant figuratively enough, until he actually is haunted by the ghosts of his dead children toward the end. And he "reckons his curse" is having those children, but eventually they'll literally curse him, not just offend him with their presence.
"The Wanting Comes in Waves" is formally called a reprise when it's repeated at the end of the album, but "The Abduction of Margaret" is a also reprise of "A Bower Scene", and "Margaret in Captivity" is a reprise of "The Hazards of Love 1". Both of these juxtapose willing vs. unwilling love. In "A Bower Scene", Margaret "withdraws to the taiga"; in "Abduction", she "falls prey to her abductor". "Margaret in Captivity" is a whole lot worse: "The Hazards of Love 1" described her quite amicable meeting with William, while "Captivity" describes her rape in the Rake's fortress.
"The Queen's Rebuke" is really cool, and I love the narrative/mythological role it plays, but I'm not crazy about the super-distorted guitar solo in the middle of it. One of the things that makes it so important is that it describes a limit to the Queen's power. She has a way around the Annan Water--allowing the Rake to fly over it--but even she can't make the water less "wild".
Where's the climax of this story? I tend to think it's "The Crossing", where I imagine the Rake (helped along by the Queen's fell forest magics) flying over the Annan Water and William arriving just too late to do anything about it. William knows that Margaret is somewhere across the water, but does he actually know she's in the Rake's fortress? I don't really think so; instead, I see Margaret escaping from the fortress and her and William reuniting.
I see the Annan Water as a symbol of both separation and of powerlessness versus fate and nature. Both songs that feature the Annan ("Annan Water" and "The Hazards of Love 4") switch to acoustic and mention lyrics like "rolling only where [the river] takes us". Neither creature of the forest--William or his mother--can best the Annan, though they both find their ways around it. (William's gets him in a bit more trouble.)
How does Margaret escape? With the help of the ghost children, of course. Some people have advanced the theory that the children aren't meant to represent Charlotte, Dawn, and Isaiah, but I don't but that for a second. The first child, a girl, specifically mentions getting fed flowers (ie, foxglove); the second, another girl, mentions drowning; and the third, a boy, mentions getting into a fight. Somehow, they distract the Rake for long enough to get Margaret out. Ghostly powers, or something.
Finally, reunited though they are, William and Margaret must face the music. William is at a lose-lose: he's promised both the Annan Water and his mother his life. And I think for that reason, William was completely fine with making his deal with the Annan. Better dead with his Margaret than alive but completely in his mother's grasp, right?
If "the prettiest whistles" are one of the themes of the story, what's the other? It's a lot more direct: "these hazards of love". For Margaret (toward William), it’s being put in the position of caring for a strange beast-creature, leading to her being outcasted then captured ("The Hazards of Love 1"). For the Queen (toward William), it’s jealousy ("Hazards 2", when she sees how much William loves Margaret). For the Rake (toward his bride), it’s children, who then haunt him ("Hazards 3"). And for William (toward Margaret), it’s the deals he has to make with his mother and the Annan Water, which lead to his death ("Hazards 4").
I don't think this album tops Wincing the Night Away, and I don't know if anything will ever top The Everglow. But I like it a whole lot. And it's one that I can see myself becoming fiercely protective of. There's people out there who don't like it, who give it bad reviews, who call the prog/metal flavor "out of place", who see a rock opera these days as "indulgent".
They're wrong. They're boorish. And they wouldn't know good storytelling if it hit them in the ear. The Hazards of Love is something we've seen a hundred times, but the Decemberists have made it relevant and excellent.
Currently listening: "Futures", Jimmy Eat World
Is it a good sign that the Decemberists' latest album takes such a long time to digest? I think yes, even though it's more than a little daunting at first. There are characters to follow, plot lines to keep track of, even literary devices that you never thought you'd see again after freshman English.
And in many ways, although it's far different in character from most of the Decemberists' earlier works, it's exactly the logical place for them to have gone next. For those fans that think the prog-metal vibe is new, I'd encourage a listen to the 2004 EP The Tain, based off the Celtic epic Tain bo Cuailnge. The good news is that you don't have to be able to pronounce that to enjoy retelling of the story, which essentially describes a bunch of Irishmen fighting over a cow.
Even those more recently converted to the Decemberists' fanbase might see strains of works they know. The band's most recent recording, The Crane Wife, has moments of Hazards-like character throughout, particularly in the three-in-one song cycle "The Island".
Where "The Island" was loosely, maybe only thematically, connected, Hazards has all the internal consistency you'd ever want or need from a rock album. And where The Tain was content to borrow a mythology, albeit an obscure one, Hazards jumps right in an makes up its own. The result is something that seems more like it ought to be on Broadway than a CD.
In other words, we've got ourselves a rock opera.
A rather heated debate seems to be focusing around whether you can enjoy this as individual songs, or whether you need to take it holistically and evaluate the entire album, and I'm coming down on the side of "entire album". The Decemberists encourage it too, it seems, with the exclusive use of gapless playback: for any given song, while the "during" might be the most important part, the "before" and the "after" are critical too. That's not to say you'll get nothing out of listening to one song at a time, for example if one comes up randomly in shuffle mode, but it's a lot mroe enjoyable to press play at the beginning of track 1 and not touch anything until the end an hour later.
There's good reason for that. Yes, plot and characters are part of it, but there are some impressively-crafted themes, foreshadowing, irony, and witticisms that you might miss given only a song or two. And you'll want to appreciate them.
All of this literary business is fine and good, but what about the music? Is the album worth listening to? Is it what we've come to expect from the Decemberists? Mostly yes. There's a much wider variety that you might have gotten on, say, Her Majesty. And at first, it may seem completely off the mark from what we might have expected, but with a closer examination, it's completely understandable. That's exactly the sort of direction that's nice for a band to head in once they've gotten to the point of five full length albums.
My comments on the album, in generally chronological order.
The album starts with an instrumental "Prelude"--think of it like something that would play as the opening credits roll and we see gorgeous, sweeping shots of the Queen's domain and the Annan Water. The real action starts with "The Hazards of Love 1", with the curious subtitle "The Prettiest Whistles Won't Wrestle the Thistles Undone". Literally, that's saying "if you’re caught in a prickly plant, it doesn’t matter how nice a sound you make, it won’t disentangle you." More abstractly, "if you go about a problem the wrong way, it doesn’t matter how hard you try, you won’t solve it." That's actually a major theme of the album, though we hardly recognize it as that at the very beginning.
There's a male voice yelling something between "The Hazards of Love 1" and "A Bower Scene", but I can't figure out what it's saying or who it is. Could it be Margaret's "irascible blackguard of a father"?
One of the album's biggest successes is its use of voicing to distinguish the characters. Margaret's soprano, which we first hear in "Won't Want For Love", the Queen's alto (which we hear later on), and William's tenor are always in about the same range, and though I might have liked a baritone for one of the major male characters, it makes it very easy to distinguish whose point of view we're hearing without having to see the characters.
This successful character distinction isn't just in the voices--there's also some nice leitmotif in the background music. The few seconds of banjo in "The Queen's Approach" foreshadows her driving metal theme in "Repaid" and "The Queen's Rebuke".
"Won't Want For Love" is my favorite track on the album. Given my love of indie bands with soprano girl singers, this probably isn't too shocking.
"The Hazards of Love II" and "Isn't It A Lovely Night?" are both very nice songs, but they're too close together on the album. It makes sense in the narrative why they are where they are, but with every other pair of songs marking a stylistic shift, it seems odd to have the two most down-tempo, emotional songs next to each other.
Two songs that do follow each other are "Isn't It A Lovely Night?" and "The Wanting Comes In Waves", which feature an interesting major/minor inversion. "Waves" is not exactly a reprise of "Lovely Night"--there are a few true reprises later on--but it sounds sort of similar. Speaking of "The Wanting Comes in Waves", being sort of a music theorist, it bothers me that I can't figure out what the meter is in that song. There's a lot of weird rest and upbeat business, that's for sure.
"Repaid", the second half of "The Wanting Comes in Waves", sets up the backstory between William and the Queen, though it's not fully explained until "The Queen's Rebuke" later in the story. That's excellent storytelling, something that you'd see in a real musical or opera. And "Repaid" is an excellent cliffhanger to the intermission; the action picks up an indeterminate amount of time later without having to give the details of what happened in between. It sets up the second half of the album--call it "Act II"--well.
Apart from being a terrible person, the Rake--or more specifically his song--has the most clever foreshadowing and irony in the album. The Rake expects that we'd think he'd be "haunted" by his despicable actions. That's meant figuratively enough, until he actually is haunted by the ghosts of his dead children toward the end. And he "reckons his curse" is having those children, but eventually they'll literally curse him, not just offend him with their presence.
"The Wanting Comes in Waves" is formally called a reprise when it's repeated at the end of the album, but "The Abduction of Margaret" is a also reprise of "A Bower Scene", and "Margaret in Captivity" is a reprise of "The Hazards of Love 1". Both of these juxtapose willing vs. unwilling love. In "A Bower Scene", Margaret "withdraws to the taiga"; in "Abduction", she "falls prey to her abductor". "Margaret in Captivity" is a whole lot worse: "The Hazards of Love 1" described her quite amicable meeting with William, while "Captivity" describes her rape in the Rake's fortress.
"The Queen's Rebuke" is really cool, and I love the narrative/mythological role it plays, but I'm not crazy about the super-distorted guitar solo in the middle of it. One of the things that makes it so important is that it describes a limit to the Queen's power. She has a way around the Annan Water--allowing the Rake to fly over it--but even she can't make the water less "wild".
Where's the climax of this story? I tend to think it's "The Crossing", where I imagine the Rake (helped along by the Queen's fell forest magics) flying over the Annan Water and William arriving just too late to do anything about it. William knows that Margaret is somewhere across the water, but does he actually know she's in the Rake's fortress? I don't really think so; instead, I see Margaret escaping from the fortress and her and William reuniting.
I see the Annan Water as a symbol of both separation and of powerlessness versus fate and nature. Both songs that feature the Annan ("Annan Water" and "The Hazards of Love 4") switch to acoustic and mention lyrics like "rolling only where [the river] takes us". Neither creature of the forest--William or his mother--can best the Annan, though they both find their ways around it. (William's gets him in a bit more trouble.)
How does Margaret escape? With the help of the ghost children, of course. Some people have advanced the theory that the children aren't meant to represent Charlotte, Dawn, and Isaiah, but I don't but that for a second. The first child, a girl, specifically mentions getting fed flowers (ie, foxglove); the second, another girl, mentions drowning; and the third, a boy, mentions getting into a fight. Somehow, they distract the Rake for long enough to get Margaret out. Ghostly powers, or something.
Finally, reunited though they are, William and Margaret must face the music. William is at a lose-lose: he's promised both the Annan Water and his mother his life. And I think for that reason, William was completely fine with making his deal with the Annan. Better dead with his Margaret than alive but completely in his mother's grasp, right?
If "the prettiest whistles" are one of the themes of the story, what's the other? It's a lot more direct: "these hazards of love". For Margaret (toward William), it’s being put in the position of caring for a strange beast-creature, leading to her being outcasted then captured ("The Hazards of Love 1"). For the Queen (toward William), it’s jealousy ("Hazards 2", when she sees how much William loves Margaret). For the Rake (toward his bride), it’s children, who then haunt him ("Hazards 3"). And for William (toward Margaret), it’s the deals he has to make with his mother and the Annan Water, which lead to his death ("Hazards 4").
I don't think this album tops Wincing the Night Away, and I don't know if anything will ever top The Everglow. But I like it a whole lot. And it's one that I can see myself becoming fiercely protective of. There's people out there who don't like it, who give it bad reviews, who call the prog/metal flavor "out of place", who see a rock opera these days as "indulgent".
They're wrong. They're boorish. And they wouldn't know good storytelling if it hit them in the ear. The Hazards of Love is something we've seen a hundred times, but the Decemberists have made it relevant and excellent.
Currently listening: "Futures", Jimmy Eat World
Sunday, March 22, 2009
More Vignettes From Spring Break
The new Quaker Oats advertising campaign doesn't sit well with me. "Go Humans Go"? As opposed to what, all those oatmeal-eating crocodiles? Who's telling us humans to go? The hatted Quaker himself? If not human, what does that make him? Zombie? Alien? Robot? Something far more sinister?
I've just finished my first ever tax return, and it was a pain to put it mildly. Turns out, tax programs like TurboTax are wonderful... as long as you only made money in one state. If you, like I, made money in several different states, you get to fill out IL-1040-NR and GA-500 Schedule C.
Being a 20-year resident of the area, and being a strong advocate of local community, government, and affiliation, the Evermore CID is something I'm following closely. I like their efforts. Make US 78 not suck. Encourage businesses to come to the area. Allow pedestrians to walk through my part of the county. Improve traffic operations. But in an evening trip to Starbucks, I was perplexed beyond belief to see this:
Why is this bridge blue now? The March edition of the Evermore newsletter suggests it's to provide "a safer and more attractive environment for nighttime driving". There's a bridge there to be sure, but not a particularly unsafe of accident-prone one. My mom had the idea of changing the lights from their perplexing blue color to tiki torches, which I agree with, as long as we can also ritualistically summon the spirits of Commissioner Beaudreau.
I'm not exactly sure how I got subscribed to Rolling Stone. If it was a gift, thanks! I don't like the fact that the magazine has a political slant (regardless of the direction of that slant), but I did gain a lot more respect when I found that Rolling Stone named Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as the greatest album of all time.
This issue in particular features an intriguing little cover photo. If you've seen my Facebook page lately, you may have seen my comment on the situation. I might have to start watching Gossip Girl, if this picture is any indication of what happens on that show. (I've already been advised that it does not, so I shouldn't waste my time.)
Three days into March Madness, and my bracket has already taken a beating. In retrospect, picking Clemson to win a game and Wake Forest to win two was a terrible idea. After all, both teams lost to Georgia Tech this season, and we had one of the worst squads in Division I. I picked Pitt to win the tournament, which seemed a fine choice a week ago. While they've won their first two games, the Panthers looked far from championship caliber today. But at least CBS has broken the habit, somewhat, of showing us crappy games.
It used to be that whatever "region" you were in dictated the game you saw, regardless if it was a good game or not. Don't want to see UNC beating up on a 16 seed? Too bad: because you live in the southeast, and UNC is in the southeast, you're stuck with the Tar Heels. Now they're more likely to flip back and forth between games you might actually be interested in watching.
Now, the only way to make the tournament better is to have those Tar Heels lose.
Currently listening: "Beautiful World", Carolina Liar
I've just finished my first ever tax return, and it was a pain to put it mildly. Turns out, tax programs like TurboTax are wonderful... as long as you only made money in one state. If you, like I, made money in several different states, you get to fill out IL-1040-NR and GA-500 Schedule C.
Being a 20-year resident of the area, and being a strong advocate of local community, government, and affiliation, the Evermore CID is something I'm following closely. I like their efforts. Make US 78 not suck. Encourage businesses to come to the area. Allow pedestrians to walk through my part of the county. Improve traffic operations. But in an evening trip to Starbucks, I was perplexed beyond belief to see this:
Why is this bridge blue now? The March edition of the Evermore newsletter suggests it's to provide "a safer and more attractive environment for nighttime driving". There's a bridge there to be sure, but not a particularly unsafe of accident-prone one. My mom had the idea of changing the lights from their perplexing blue color to tiki torches, which I agree with, as long as we can also ritualistically summon the spirits of Commissioner Beaudreau.
I'm not exactly sure how I got subscribed to Rolling Stone. If it was a gift, thanks! I don't like the fact that the magazine has a political slant (regardless of the direction of that slant), but I did gain a lot more respect when I found that Rolling Stone named Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as the greatest album of all time.
This issue in particular features an intriguing little cover photo. If you've seen my Facebook page lately, you may have seen my comment on the situation. I might have to start watching Gossip Girl, if this picture is any indication of what happens on that show. (I've already been advised that it does not, so I shouldn't waste my time.)
Three days into March Madness, and my bracket has already taken a beating. In retrospect, picking Clemson to win a game and Wake Forest to win two was a terrible idea. After all, both teams lost to Georgia Tech this season, and we had one of the worst squads in Division I. I picked Pitt to win the tournament, which seemed a fine choice a week ago. While they've won their first two games, the Panthers looked far from championship caliber today. But at least CBS has broken the habit, somewhat, of showing us crappy games.
It used to be that whatever "region" you were in dictated the game you saw, regardless if it was a good game or not. Don't want to see UNC beating up on a 16 seed? Too bad: because you live in the southeast, and UNC is in the southeast, you're stuck with the Tar Heels. Now they're more likely to flip back and forth between games you might actually be interested in watching.
Now, the only way to make the tournament better is to have those Tar Heels lose.
Currently listening: "Beautiful World", Carolina Liar
Saturday, March 21, 2009
And All Of This Will Happen Again
Review and Discussion: Battlestar Galactica finale
Television's most underrated show finally came to an end this weekend. It's a show that's drawn many parallels to my favorite show, Lost: a complex mythology, shifting alliances, a huge cast of complicated characters. And apparently the two also share the knowledge that ending the series when it's time to end just makes the series better. Galactica--the show or the titular spaceship--probably couldn't have lasted much longer anyhow.
It's interesting that Galactica (the ship) lasted as long as it did, only with the help of Cylon technology. Galactica is a symbol for humanity's resilience and survival in the most desperate situations. As the war goes on, humanity begins to realize that first, they might not be so different from the Cylons after all, and second, that they need the help of the Cylons to survive. This is reflected in Galactica's growing more decrepit but relying on Cylon technology to survive.
Structurally, Ronald Moore and company have laid out a nice Shakespearean arc, with the two-hour-plus finale's climax really happening in the opera house meets Galactica's bridge scene only about an hour and fifteen minutes into the finale. It's fitting for the climactic moment of the series finale to take place in Galactica's bridge, the scene of so much of the show's development, conflict, and resolution; it's even more fitting for the hallucinatory opera house to represent the same control room.
This structural approach was well done, because it allowed a good hour of falling action and denouement, an integral part of the story that most modern storytellers brush under the rug as if it were optional. Thinking back on the rest of the series, what is the overall climax of the series? I'd say the destruction of the Cylon resurrection hub, as that moment proved a turning point in both the war and the motivation of many of the protagonists and antagonists.
The "antagonist" of Battlestar is a tricky thing to nail down. For the first three seasons, it was "the Cylons", the faceless, massive, brooding threat--and that was a compelling villain. From the end of the third season through the fourth, the antagonist redefined itself into "the rebel Cylons", then finally to "Cavil's forces". I think some of the impact of the overall conflict was lost with each successive reduction. As my friend Mike pointed out, it changed from a class struggle to some dude's daddy issues. It's not to say that Cavil isn't a terrible person, or a compelling villain, but next to the enigmatic, omnipotent might of "the Cylons", he lacks a little.
The more important event to the finale, though, is the climactic confrontation with Cavil in Galactica's control room, and it delivers. The symbolic arrangement of the Final Five on the ledge as Baltar and Six enter the room echoed what we'd been hinted at for the past season and a half in half-lucid dreams of the opera house. A major theme of the show is that the distinction between what's human and what's machine is only as sharp as you want it to be; alternatively, Cylon is in the eye of the beholder.
So it was fitting and necessary that the confrontation here featured juxtaposition of human and Cylon at least five times. Roslin and Athena, both women with motherly connections to and visions of the child Hera, mirror each other's movements as they follow Hera toward the control room. Baltar and Six, after seeing angelic visions of themselves, are the ones to bring Hera to safety. The conflict is over Hera, herself half-human and half-Cylon, and prophesied to be critical to both species' ultimate fate. Naturally, the conflict was fought between the human faction, led by William Adama, and the Cylon faction, led by Cavil. Finally, the Final Five were the ones to mediate the conflict, themselves Cylon but the closest Cylons to human.
Probably the most shocking twist came in the moment when the Final Five were re-assembling the resurrection technology, and the Final Five knew all there was to know about each other for a few minutes. I sort of assumed the worst things that would come out were Ellen's "exploits"; they did, but that was only the beginning. All of the intensity in that scene made me completely forget Tory airlocking Cally, so it was almost as much a surprise to me as it was to Tyrol. Tyrol flips out, as could be expected, and the deal was off.
My question: did Saul Tigh ever intend to make a deal? I think it's entirely possible that Saul knew that Tory's past deeds would rise to the surface, that Tyrol would not take too kindly to that, and that the resulting chaos would give the Final Five a way out of giving resurrection back to Cavil. When Leoben accused Tigh of tricking Cavil, of course we're supposed to assume Leoben is merely being paranoid: trust and forthrightness aren't exactly Leoben's strong suits.
Then, with maybe ten minutes to go, Tigh sneaks in a seed of doubt: "For what it's worth, if that had been Ellen instead of Cally, I'd have done the same thing."
We get a little clarification about one of the central mysteries from the very beginning of the show: what's going on in Baltar's head? Apparently, an agent of God, or the gods, or "it", or whatever quasi-spiritual muck is really in charge of this universe, saw fit to manifest as Six, just so Baltar would listen to it--and the same went for Six, in the form of a virtual Baltar. In the second-biggest twist of the finale, it seems like Baltar isn't crazy after all. And here's yet another example of the human-Cylon merge theme: the supernatural feels the need to speak to both, knowing the future of intelligent life lies in both.
A note on the spirituality: it's interesting to know for sure that some supernatural force exists in the universe of Battlestar Galactica. It can explain many things, like what the heck Starbuck was after her apparent death on Earth (apparently some angelic manifestation of her own, though this is never fully detailed). It's a lot better than just having some void of misplaced belief. But in the end, it's such a loose, amorphic theology that Pope Benedict would have a field day with it.
Ultimately, the finale dealt with the refuge that the human survivors have been reaching toward ever since the destruction of the colonies. They get there, so for all intents and purposes we have a "happy ending". It contained moments of sadness, like when Roslin died--but surely even Adama saw that coming. Roslin finally fulfilled her own mystical destiny of being the dying leader who lead her people to Earth, even if Adama sort of made that a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Why was it so important for humanity to preserve Hera and reach its new home on Earth? Baltar, through his angelic agent; Roslin, through her Pythian prophecy; and others all think so. It's a common thread in science fiction: Leto II, with his Golden Path, the contemporaries and descendants of Ender Wiggin, with their colonization, and even some real-life scientists have the idea that humanity cannot advance any further except for by diaspora followed by divergent evolution. Is that another plank in God's plan, to force a dispute between Cylons and humans so that the future of intelligent life can be furthered in a similar manner?
If the scene in Galactica's control room was a huge twist, and Baltar's Six actually being some manner of angel was merely the second biggest twist, what was the biggest? The instant we found out we'd been duped with the first Earth we saw. In one moment, the entire chronology of the series was turned on its head. It was the logical assumption for four entire seasons that we were watching our own post-apocalypse, maybe a few thousand years in the future. Turns out we were watching our own progenitors, who vowed to give us the best parts of their civilization without the worst.
Never mind the continuity errors: the fate of all the mechanical technology the colonists brought to Earth, the reason that it's called Earth again after our own history says it wasn't called that for several thousand years, the flourishing of the Gods of Kobol for one specific period in our history. It made for a finale that made you think on plenty of different levels, and a fitting end for the show.
So say we all.
Currently listening: "All Along the Watchtower", Jimi Hendrix
Television's most underrated show finally came to an end this weekend. It's a show that's drawn many parallels to my favorite show, Lost: a complex mythology, shifting alliances, a huge cast of complicated characters. And apparently the two also share the knowledge that ending the series when it's time to end just makes the series better. Galactica--the show or the titular spaceship--probably couldn't have lasted much longer anyhow.
It's interesting that Galactica (the ship) lasted as long as it did, only with the help of Cylon technology. Galactica is a symbol for humanity's resilience and survival in the most desperate situations. As the war goes on, humanity begins to realize that first, they might not be so different from the Cylons after all, and second, that they need the help of the Cylons to survive. This is reflected in Galactica's growing more decrepit but relying on Cylon technology to survive.
Structurally, Ronald Moore and company have laid out a nice Shakespearean arc, with the two-hour-plus finale's climax really happening in the opera house meets Galactica's bridge scene only about an hour and fifteen minutes into the finale. It's fitting for the climactic moment of the series finale to take place in Galactica's bridge, the scene of so much of the show's development, conflict, and resolution; it's even more fitting for the hallucinatory opera house to represent the same control room.
This structural approach was well done, because it allowed a good hour of falling action and denouement, an integral part of the story that most modern storytellers brush under the rug as if it were optional. Thinking back on the rest of the series, what is the overall climax of the series? I'd say the destruction of the Cylon resurrection hub, as that moment proved a turning point in both the war and the motivation of many of the protagonists and antagonists.
The "antagonist" of Battlestar is a tricky thing to nail down. For the first three seasons, it was "the Cylons", the faceless, massive, brooding threat--and that was a compelling villain. From the end of the third season through the fourth, the antagonist redefined itself into "the rebel Cylons", then finally to "Cavil's forces". I think some of the impact of the overall conflict was lost with each successive reduction. As my friend Mike pointed out, it changed from a class struggle to some dude's daddy issues. It's not to say that Cavil isn't a terrible person, or a compelling villain, but next to the enigmatic, omnipotent might of "the Cylons", he lacks a little.
The more important event to the finale, though, is the climactic confrontation with Cavil in Galactica's control room, and it delivers. The symbolic arrangement of the Final Five on the ledge as Baltar and Six enter the room echoed what we'd been hinted at for the past season and a half in half-lucid dreams of the opera house. A major theme of the show is that the distinction between what's human and what's machine is only as sharp as you want it to be; alternatively, Cylon is in the eye of the beholder.
So it was fitting and necessary that the confrontation here featured juxtaposition of human and Cylon at least five times. Roslin and Athena, both women with motherly connections to and visions of the child Hera, mirror each other's movements as they follow Hera toward the control room. Baltar and Six, after seeing angelic visions of themselves, are the ones to bring Hera to safety. The conflict is over Hera, herself half-human and half-Cylon, and prophesied to be critical to both species' ultimate fate. Naturally, the conflict was fought between the human faction, led by William Adama, and the Cylon faction, led by Cavil. Finally, the Final Five were the ones to mediate the conflict, themselves Cylon but the closest Cylons to human.
Probably the most shocking twist came in the moment when the Final Five were re-assembling the resurrection technology, and the Final Five knew all there was to know about each other for a few minutes. I sort of assumed the worst things that would come out were Ellen's "exploits"; they did, but that was only the beginning. All of the intensity in that scene made me completely forget Tory airlocking Cally, so it was almost as much a surprise to me as it was to Tyrol. Tyrol flips out, as could be expected, and the deal was off.
My question: did Saul Tigh ever intend to make a deal? I think it's entirely possible that Saul knew that Tory's past deeds would rise to the surface, that Tyrol would not take too kindly to that, and that the resulting chaos would give the Final Five a way out of giving resurrection back to Cavil. When Leoben accused Tigh of tricking Cavil, of course we're supposed to assume Leoben is merely being paranoid: trust and forthrightness aren't exactly Leoben's strong suits.
Then, with maybe ten minutes to go, Tigh sneaks in a seed of doubt: "For what it's worth, if that had been Ellen instead of Cally, I'd have done the same thing."
We get a little clarification about one of the central mysteries from the very beginning of the show: what's going on in Baltar's head? Apparently, an agent of God, or the gods, or "it", or whatever quasi-spiritual muck is really in charge of this universe, saw fit to manifest as Six, just so Baltar would listen to it--and the same went for Six, in the form of a virtual Baltar. In the second-biggest twist of the finale, it seems like Baltar isn't crazy after all. And here's yet another example of the human-Cylon merge theme: the supernatural feels the need to speak to both, knowing the future of intelligent life lies in both.
A note on the spirituality: it's interesting to know for sure that some supernatural force exists in the universe of Battlestar Galactica. It can explain many things, like what the heck Starbuck was after her apparent death on Earth (apparently some angelic manifestation of her own, though this is never fully detailed). It's a lot better than just having some void of misplaced belief. But in the end, it's such a loose, amorphic theology that Pope Benedict would have a field day with it.
Ultimately, the finale dealt with the refuge that the human survivors have been reaching toward ever since the destruction of the colonies. They get there, so for all intents and purposes we have a "happy ending". It contained moments of sadness, like when Roslin died--but surely even Adama saw that coming. Roslin finally fulfilled her own mystical destiny of being the dying leader who lead her people to Earth, even if Adama sort of made that a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Why was it so important for humanity to preserve Hera and reach its new home on Earth? Baltar, through his angelic agent; Roslin, through her Pythian prophecy; and others all think so. It's a common thread in science fiction: Leto II, with his Golden Path, the contemporaries and descendants of Ender Wiggin, with their colonization, and even some real-life scientists have the idea that humanity cannot advance any further except for by diaspora followed by divergent evolution. Is that another plank in God's plan, to force a dispute between Cylons and humans so that the future of intelligent life can be furthered in a similar manner?
If the scene in Galactica's control room was a huge twist, and Baltar's Six actually being some manner of angel was merely the second biggest twist, what was the biggest? The instant we found out we'd been duped with the first Earth we saw. In one moment, the entire chronology of the series was turned on its head. It was the logical assumption for four entire seasons that we were watching our own post-apocalypse, maybe a few thousand years in the future. Turns out we were watching our own progenitors, who vowed to give us the best parts of their civilization without the worst.
Never mind the continuity errors: the fate of all the mechanical technology the colonists brought to Earth, the reason that it's called Earth again after our own history says it wasn't called that for several thousand years, the flourishing of the Gods of Kobol for one specific period in our history. It made for a finale that made you think on plenty of different levels, and a fitting end for the show.
So say we all.
Currently listening: "All Along the Watchtower", Jimi Hendrix
Friday, March 20, 2009
How to Make American Idol Not Suck
Obviously, this season's apparent lack of anyone nearly as attractive as Carrie Underwood is hurting. The fact that the show is in something like its eighth season isn't helping either. Sure, producers, you can try as many gimmicks like "new judge" and "judge veto" as you'd like, but it's not going to make the show any less sucky.
How to tackle that, then? Themed song nights, of course. "But they already do that!" Oh, yeah, sure. "Country". Really creative there. "Songs from the Billboard Top 100". That's clearly narrow enough to throw the contestants into unfamiliar territory. "The music of Neil Sedaka". Who the heck is that anyway?
No, we need to keep these, just step up the creativity a little bit. "Weird indie-pop" night, featuring music from Matt's iPod. I can see it now: "Who the heck is Sufjan Stevens?" "Oh, yeah, the Shins, didn't they have a song in Garden State?" Bonus points for a dude singing in Sherri DuPree's vocal register, or for anyone tackling the Decemberists' "Mariner's Revenge Song".
The week after that, we put on "Rap: the Highlights of the Gangsta Era." Each contestant has to perform a hit by Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, NWA, Notorious BIG, or their contemporaries. The song "Bitches Ain't Shit" off of Dr. Dre's seminal The Chronic is not only allowed but encouraged; however, it has to be the original, not the Ben Folds cover. And contestants are expected to have some of their songs "featuring" other contestants at some point.
Finally, maybe once the field has thinned itself a little, spring the real surprise: "Screaming Death Metal Showcase". Cradle of Filth or any of a number of bands I've never heard but would probably be painful to listen to. Automatic disqualification if you sing, rather than scream, for more than a few seconds.
Currently listening: The Hazards of Love, the Decemberists. Review and discussion to follow, as soon as I digest it all.
How to tackle that, then? Themed song nights, of course. "But they already do that!" Oh, yeah, sure. "Country". Really creative there. "Songs from the Billboard Top 100". That's clearly narrow enough to throw the contestants into unfamiliar territory. "The music of Neil Sedaka". Who the heck is that anyway?
No, we need to keep these, just step up the creativity a little bit. "Weird indie-pop" night, featuring music from Matt's iPod. I can see it now: "Who the heck is Sufjan Stevens?" "Oh, yeah, the Shins, didn't they have a song in Garden State?" Bonus points for a dude singing in Sherri DuPree's vocal register, or for anyone tackling the Decemberists' "Mariner's Revenge Song".
The week after that, we put on "Rap: the Highlights of the Gangsta Era." Each contestant has to perform a hit by Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, NWA, Notorious BIG, or their contemporaries. The song "Bitches Ain't Shit" off of Dr. Dre's seminal The Chronic is not only allowed but encouraged; however, it has to be the original, not the Ben Folds cover. And contestants are expected to have some of their songs "featuring" other contestants at some point.
Finally, maybe once the field has thinned itself a little, spring the real surprise: "Screaming Death Metal Showcase". Cradle of Filth or any of a number of bands I've never heard but would probably be painful to listen to. Automatic disqualification if you sing, rather than scream, for more than a few seconds.
Currently listening: The Hazards of Love, the Decemberists. Review and discussion to follow, as soon as I digest it all.
Why So Serious?
Something must be done about this season of The Office. We all remember the good old days of the Dundies, the Dunder-Mifflin Olympiad, and Dwight channeling Mussolini making a convention speech. The reason all of that worked is because it was just this side of frivolous; it was character-driven comedy, and it was intensely comedic; it never took itself too seriously.
Fast-forward to Season 5, and Diwali parties and Fun Runs have given way to what exactly? Pam's parents facing very real drama when they intend to split up? Michael having real feelings for a woman, almost to the point of you feeling sympathy for the man? Jim and Pam's relationship, which we rooted for through seasons of Roy, straining over the bounds of distance and separated interests? All of this may work for a character drama, but it's not the Office that we've come to know and love.
Most of the episodes in the first four seasons you could walk away from chuckling and waiting for next week's installment (or next minute's installment, if you were watching the "electronic" version). But most of the time now, you walk away with more of a cringe than a smile, and instead of amusement, it's more often a bittersweet far more bitter than sweet, or than funny for that matter.
One viewer posted an impassioned defense of the most recent episode, "New Boss", on Hulu. In true Web 2.0 style, I'm going to respond to parts of that review.
The show really used to have no plot - it was just about a bunch of people working together in an office for a boss that was a pain in the butt.
Is this a bad thing? In effect, you're accusing The Office of being a show about nothing. Recall another show-about-nothing, Seinfeld, which was probably the funniest, most successful, and best-loved comedy that television has ever seen. Asserting that The Office has to have a plot to be funny, or watchable, or successful, is a fallacy.
But, now, the show has embraced more serious and true to life story lines. For instance, the difficulties of beginning a family in a plunging economy[...]
Is this a good thing? I can only name a handful of shows (Freaks and Geeks is one of the few) that are successful because they accurately portray "true to life" stories. The rest are straight-up fantasy (Battlestar Galactica, Lost) or are predicated on such obvious exaggerations of whatever nuggets of reality may have existed that they may as well be straight fantasy (24, House). I have a life in the real world. I don't need television to mirror it too closely.
Another review had the following to say:
[...]it was a good plot-moving episode that finally creates a multi-episode story-arc that we can look forward to.
No. Not from The Office. If I want something that complicated, I'll again turn to something like 24. It's okay for a show, particularly a half-hour comedy, to have perfectly self-contained mini-plots in each episode. Look at Arrested Development or Curb Your Enthusiasm or even older The Office. That's not to say that what happened in one episode of those shows never affected what happened in another episode. Arrested Development in particular did very clever things with recurring storylines. But to create something as inherently dramatic as a "multi-episode story-arc" has no place in a comedy.
In the end, this discussion comes down to exactly what you want to see from The Office. If you envision it as a "dromedy", then you might not mind all the changes that Season 5 has brought. But if you see it as straight comedy, like I do, then all of this is more than a little odd. Some people insist that the show has had its dramatic moments all along, but I maintain that the evidence to support that argument just isn't there in the early seasons.
Currently listening: "Comfortably Numb", Pink Floyd
Fast-forward to Season 5, and Diwali parties and Fun Runs have given way to what exactly? Pam's parents facing very real drama when they intend to split up? Michael having real feelings for a woman, almost to the point of you feeling sympathy for the man? Jim and Pam's relationship, which we rooted for through seasons of Roy, straining over the bounds of distance and separated interests? All of this may work for a character drama, but it's not the Office that we've come to know and love.
Most of the episodes in the first four seasons you could walk away from chuckling and waiting for next week's installment (or next minute's installment, if you were watching the "electronic" version). But most of the time now, you walk away with more of a cringe than a smile, and instead of amusement, it's more often a bittersweet far more bitter than sweet, or than funny for that matter.
One viewer posted an impassioned defense of the most recent episode, "New Boss", on Hulu. In true Web 2.0 style, I'm going to respond to parts of that review.
The show really used to have no plot - it was just about a bunch of people working together in an office for a boss that was a pain in the butt.
Is this a bad thing? In effect, you're accusing The Office of being a show about nothing. Recall another show-about-nothing, Seinfeld, which was probably the funniest, most successful, and best-loved comedy that television has ever seen. Asserting that The Office has to have a plot to be funny, or watchable, or successful, is a fallacy.
But, now, the show has embraced more serious and true to life story lines. For instance, the difficulties of beginning a family in a plunging economy[...]
Is this a good thing? I can only name a handful of shows (Freaks and Geeks is one of the few) that are successful because they accurately portray "true to life" stories. The rest are straight-up fantasy (Battlestar Galactica, Lost) or are predicated on such obvious exaggerations of whatever nuggets of reality may have existed that they may as well be straight fantasy (24, House). I have a life in the real world. I don't need television to mirror it too closely.
Another review had the following to say:
[...]it was a good plot-moving episode that finally creates a multi-episode story-arc that we can look forward to.
No. Not from The Office. If I want something that complicated, I'll again turn to something like 24. It's okay for a show, particularly a half-hour comedy, to have perfectly self-contained mini-plots in each episode. Look at Arrested Development or Curb Your Enthusiasm or even older The Office. That's not to say that what happened in one episode of those shows never affected what happened in another episode. Arrested Development in particular did very clever things with recurring storylines. But to create something as inherently dramatic as a "multi-episode story-arc" has no place in a comedy.
In the end, this discussion comes down to exactly what you want to see from The Office. If you envision it as a "dromedy", then you might not mind all the changes that Season 5 has brought. But if you see it as straight comedy, like I do, then all of this is more than a little odd. Some people insist that the show has had its dramatic moments all along, but I maintain that the evidence to support that argument just isn't there in the early seasons.
Currently listening: "Comfortably Numb", Pink Floyd
Friday, March 06, 2009
Reading Challenge: A Facebook Meme
Usually I hate memes, but then again usually they don't involve books either. This one is interesting. The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. My count is hovering mid-20s.
How do your reading habits stack up?
You can copy, edit and paste into a note of your own.
1 Pride and Prejudice: Nope, and I’m not sure it would be a book I’d enjoy so much. However, I’ve just become aware of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”, which I think I’d enjoy very much.
2 The Lord of the Rings: Yes, all three, twice, and two copies of it. But I’ve only seen each movie a time or two, in contrast to many of my friends.
3 Jane Eyre: Nope.
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling: At least twice each. I was actually in London the night the last book came out. Talk about some interesting people… and I like to think I got on British television twice.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee: Yes, 9th grade English, and I definitely enjoyed it. Atticus Finch is one of the most awesome characters from the 20th century: the prototypical Southern gentleman attorney, and a dead eye firing shotguns at rabid dogs.
6 The Bible: Not cover-to-cover, but enough to get the gist. I know at least as much about it as the average Catholic, so I’ll go with yes.
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte: Ugh. Yes, AP Lit, and not by choice. Although Mr. Lockwood is wonderfully douche-y.
8 1984 - George Orwell: Yep, back in middle school. I really think I ought to read it again.
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman: No, though I’d like to, to see what all the hype and controversy was about.
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens: Nope.
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott: Nah, another “not so much a Matt book”.
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy: Nope.
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller: No, though it’s on the list for this summer.
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare: Not even close, but the Tempest is my favorite play of all time.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier: Never heard of it.
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien: Yes, three times, and I own two copies of it too.
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk: Never heard of it either.
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger: Nope, though it might be on the list for this summer as well.
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger: Never heard of it either.
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot: No. My dad’s least favorite book of all time is Silas Marner, so I’ve avoided Mr. Eliot’s books, perhaps a bit prejudicially.
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell: No, and I’m the rare Georgian who’s never seen the movie either. Honestly, I don’t know how into it I’d be.
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald: Yep, 11th grade English. I enjoyed it, but that’s another one that probably merits a re-read.
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens: Nah… I don’t like Dickens much at all.
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy: No, like many readers, I’m scared of its length.
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams: Of course! (and yes, I know where my towel is.)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh: Never heard of this one either.
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Yes, voluntarily, as a summer project before AP Lit. One of the great works of all time. Not just Russian literature, or 19th century literature, but ever. It’s by no means en easy read; long and weighty. But if you have the patience for the length and curiosity for the moral issues, highly recommended.
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck: Yeah, and I didn’t care for it at all.
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll: I’ve… er… played the Kingdom Hearts level based on it?
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame: Nope.
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy: Nope again.
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens: Again with the Dickens?
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis: Pass the Chronic! Yeah, read them all, but it’s been a very long time.
34 Emma - Jane Austen: Nope.
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen: Nope again.
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis: As part of the Chronic, yes.
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini: No, though I’ve heard it’s very good.
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres: Never heard of it.
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden: Watched the movie?
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne: At this point, the story is so collectively etched into the youth of America that it hardly matters that I’ve never sat down and read it.
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell: Yep, way back in 8th grade English. I think I was one of the only ones who really understood the allegory. Enjoyed it.
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown: Read all of Dan Brown’s books, which admittedly are pretty much all the same book anyway. I found them entertaining.
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Nope.
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving: Nope.
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins: Nope.
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery: Nope.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy: No.
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood: No. This is a bad streak I’m on…
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding: Yes, 10th grade English. I actually didn’t care for it so much. Too much symbolism crammed down your throat, and the ending is awful. Still, the influence on Lost (particularly seasons 1 and 4) is undeniable.
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan: Nope.
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel: Nope.
52 Dune - Frank Herbert: Yeah, and I was disappointed. For the sci-fi classic it’s supposed to be, I thought I’d really enjoy it, but I found it confusing, and I didn’t care about half the characters. Interestingly, the prequel series, written within the last 5 or so years, are a lot less deep but a lot more fun to read.
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons: Nope, never heard of it.
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen: Only if there are zombies in this one too.
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth: Never heard of it.
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon: Or it.
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens: Dickens.
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley: No, though I might want to.
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon: That was the one about the autistic kid who decides what sort of day it’s going to be by the colors of cars he sees, right? Read it and liked it.
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Nope.
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck: Yeah, 11th grade English. Talk about a sad book.
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov: Nope.
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt: Never heard of it.
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold: Or it.
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas: Wonderful book. I only read it recently, and I was surprised never to have encountered it before that. Highly recommended.
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac: Nah, I don’t think I’d have patience for his beatnik “dharma” business.
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy: Nope. A friend of mine told me it was really bad.
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding: Nope.
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie: Nope.
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville: A cursory study of it in 11th grade English. Watched the movie, read excerpts. I think it's one of those books that probably has a downright excellent story buried in there if you have the patience for 19th-century dark-romantic wordiness.
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens: More Dickens?
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker: No, actually.
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett: Nope.
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson: Never heard of this one.
75 Ulysses - James Joyce: I'm scared to death of Joyce, mostly because of things like 4000-word sentences. Tell me that anyone can comprehend that--including Joyce himself--and you'd be lying.
76 The Inferno - Dante: Yes, plus a high-level view of the Purgatorio and the Paradiso, in AP Lit. I liked it a lot, because there's so many levels you can read and understand the story on. Also, it gives an interesting glimpse into Middle Ages Catholicism, an important reference point for my religion.
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome: Never heard of it.
78 Germinal - Emile Zola: Or it.
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thakeray: Ugh, no, I don't think I'd enjoy it at all.
80 Possession - AS Byatt: Nope.
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens: Saw the... Muppets movie?
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell: Nope.
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker: Saw the play?
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro: Never heard of it.
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert: Nope.
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry: Nope.
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White: Yes, a long time ago.
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom: Nope, but I read Tuesdays with Morrie, and it was really sad.
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Actually no; those are probably worth reading.
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton: Nope.
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad: Ooh, yes. Interesting book. Way better as a springboard to discuss good and evil and morality than as a narrative. And yet, "The horror! The horror!" is one of the classic lines of modern literature.
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery: Saw the... Lost episode called that?
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks: Nope.
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams: Somehow, I managed to escape this one back in 9th grade English. Seems like an awfully divisive book, with more people leaning toward the side of "it sucked."
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole: Nope.
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute: Nope.
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas: No, though given how much I liked The Count of Monte Cristo, I might give it a shot.
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare: Once in AP Lit, and again in English at Tech. AP Lit was a lot more fun, because we got to do a read-through of it. I read the part of Laertes, which was great, until our teacher declined to allow me and the guy reading Hamlet to have an actual swordfight.
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl: Probably yes, as a kid.
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo: Nah, and I've never seen the musical either.
My total is 25, give or take, depending on if you count "part of it" as a yes or no. I think that's pretty respectable.
Now, five books I'm surprised were not on this list.
The Crucible - Arthur Miller: If The Tempest is my favorite play, The Crucible is a close second. Actually, I think it's odd that there wasn't anything by Arthur Miller, or Tennessee Williams, or any of their contemporaries. It would be like compiling a similar list of musical compositions, and leaving out Gershwin, Copland, and Bernstein. The middle of the 20th century was very good to American artistic development, and it deserves some representation here.
Candide - Voltaire: Possibly the best-known satire in literary history, and its humor is still relevant centuries later.
Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card: Certainly a better sci-fi tale than Dune, with more compelling characterization, a more straightforward plot, and actually some compelling philosophical questions raised.
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand: The immortal "Who Is John Galt?" and its answer--both literal and symbolic--is one of the most enduring and provoking inquiries of modern literature. Whether or not you agree with Objectivism, or any of Rand's ideas at all, Atlas Shrugged provides an intellectual counterpoint to some of the political philosophies active in the 20th century, and actually manages to be a compelling narrative at the same time.
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne: I actually didn't so much like The Scarlet Letter, but its connection to American culture--both nascent America in the 17th century and developing America in the 19th--is undeniable.
Currently listening: Water Music, GF Handel
How do your reading habits stack up?
You can copy, edit and paste into a note of your own.
1 Pride and Prejudice: Nope, and I’m not sure it would be a book I’d enjoy so much. However, I’ve just become aware of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”, which I think I’d enjoy very much.
2 The Lord of the Rings: Yes, all three, twice, and two copies of it. But I’ve only seen each movie a time or two, in contrast to many of my friends.
3 Jane Eyre: Nope.
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling: At least twice each. I was actually in London the night the last book came out. Talk about some interesting people… and I like to think I got on British television twice.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee: Yes, 9th grade English, and I definitely enjoyed it. Atticus Finch is one of the most awesome characters from the 20th century: the prototypical Southern gentleman attorney, and a dead eye firing shotguns at rabid dogs.
6 The Bible: Not cover-to-cover, but enough to get the gist. I know at least as much about it as the average Catholic, so I’ll go with yes.
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte: Ugh. Yes, AP Lit, and not by choice. Although Mr. Lockwood is wonderfully douche-y.
8 1984 - George Orwell: Yep, back in middle school. I really think I ought to read it again.
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman: No, though I’d like to, to see what all the hype and controversy was about.
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens: Nope.
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott: Nah, another “not so much a Matt book”.
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy: Nope.
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller: No, though it’s on the list for this summer.
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare: Not even close, but the Tempest is my favorite play of all time.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier: Never heard of it.
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien: Yes, three times, and I own two copies of it too.
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk: Never heard of it either.
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger: Nope, though it might be on the list for this summer as well.
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger: Never heard of it either.
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot: No. My dad’s least favorite book of all time is Silas Marner, so I’ve avoided Mr. Eliot’s books, perhaps a bit prejudicially.
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell: No, and I’m the rare Georgian who’s never seen the movie either. Honestly, I don’t know how into it I’d be.
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald: Yep, 11th grade English. I enjoyed it, but that’s another one that probably merits a re-read.
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens: Nah… I don’t like Dickens much at all.
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy: No, like many readers, I’m scared of its length.
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams: Of course! (and yes, I know where my towel is.)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh: Never heard of this one either.
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Yes, voluntarily, as a summer project before AP Lit. One of the great works of all time. Not just Russian literature, or 19th century literature, but ever. It’s by no means en easy read; long and weighty. But if you have the patience for the length and curiosity for the moral issues, highly recommended.
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck: Yeah, and I didn’t care for it at all.
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll: I’ve… er… played the Kingdom Hearts level based on it?
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame: Nope.
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy: Nope again.
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens: Again with the Dickens?
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis: Pass the Chronic! Yeah, read them all, but it’s been a very long time.
34 Emma - Jane Austen: Nope.
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen: Nope again.
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis: As part of the Chronic, yes.
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini: No, though I’ve heard it’s very good.
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres: Never heard of it.
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden: Watched the movie?
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne: At this point, the story is so collectively etched into the youth of America that it hardly matters that I’ve never sat down and read it.
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell: Yep, way back in 8th grade English. I think I was one of the only ones who really understood the allegory. Enjoyed it.
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown: Read all of Dan Brown’s books, which admittedly are pretty much all the same book anyway. I found them entertaining.
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Nope.
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving: Nope.
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins: Nope.
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery: Nope.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy: No.
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood: No. This is a bad streak I’m on…
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding: Yes, 10th grade English. I actually didn’t care for it so much. Too much symbolism crammed down your throat, and the ending is awful. Still, the influence on Lost (particularly seasons 1 and 4) is undeniable.
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan: Nope.
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel: Nope.
52 Dune - Frank Herbert: Yeah, and I was disappointed. For the sci-fi classic it’s supposed to be, I thought I’d really enjoy it, but I found it confusing, and I didn’t care about half the characters. Interestingly, the prequel series, written within the last 5 or so years, are a lot less deep but a lot more fun to read.
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons: Nope, never heard of it.
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen: Only if there are zombies in this one too.
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth: Never heard of it.
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon: Or it.
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens: Dickens.
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley: No, though I might want to.
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon: That was the one about the autistic kid who decides what sort of day it’s going to be by the colors of cars he sees, right? Read it and liked it.
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Nope.
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck: Yeah, 11th grade English. Talk about a sad book.
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov: Nope.
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt: Never heard of it.
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold: Or it.
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas: Wonderful book. I only read it recently, and I was surprised never to have encountered it before that. Highly recommended.
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac: Nah, I don’t think I’d have patience for his beatnik “dharma” business.
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy: Nope. A friend of mine told me it was really bad.
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding: Nope.
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie: Nope.
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville: A cursory study of it in 11th grade English. Watched the movie, read excerpts. I think it's one of those books that probably has a downright excellent story buried in there if you have the patience for 19th-century dark-romantic wordiness.
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens: More Dickens?
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker: No, actually.
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett: Nope.
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson: Never heard of this one.
75 Ulysses - James Joyce: I'm scared to death of Joyce, mostly because of things like 4000-word sentences. Tell me that anyone can comprehend that--including Joyce himself--and you'd be lying.
76 The Inferno - Dante: Yes, plus a high-level view of the Purgatorio and the Paradiso, in AP Lit. I liked it a lot, because there's so many levels you can read and understand the story on. Also, it gives an interesting glimpse into Middle Ages Catholicism, an important reference point for my religion.
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome: Never heard of it.
78 Germinal - Emile Zola: Or it.
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thakeray: Ugh, no, I don't think I'd enjoy it at all.
80 Possession - AS Byatt: Nope.
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens: Saw the... Muppets movie?
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell: Nope.
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker: Saw the play?
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro: Never heard of it.
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert: Nope.
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry: Nope.
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White: Yes, a long time ago.
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom: Nope, but I read Tuesdays with Morrie, and it was really sad.
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Actually no; those are probably worth reading.
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton: Nope.
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad: Ooh, yes. Interesting book. Way better as a springboard to discuss good and evil and morality than as a narrative. And yet, "The horror! The horror!" is one of the classic lines of modern literature.
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery: Saw the... Lost episode called that?
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks: Nope.
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams: Somehow, I managed to escape this one back in 9th grade English. Seems like an awfully divisive book, with more people leaning toward the side of "it sucked."
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole: Nope.
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute: Nope.
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas: No, though given how much I liked The Count of Monte Cristo, I might give it a shot.
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare: Once in AP Lit, and again in English at Tech. AP Lit was a lot more fun, because we got to do a read-through of it. I read the part of Laertes, which was great, until our teacher declined to allow me and the guy reading Hamlet to have an actual swordfight.
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl: Probably yes, as a kid.
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo: Nah, and I've never seen the musical either.
My total is 25, give or take, depending on if you count "part of it" as a yes or no. I think that's pretty respectable.
Now, five books I'm surprised were not on this list.
The Crucible - Arthur Miller: If The Tempest is my favorite play, The Crucible is a close second. Actually, I think it's odd that there wasn't anything by Arthur Miller, or Tennessee Williams, or any of their contemporaries. It would be like compiling a similar list of musical compositions, and leaving out Gershwin, Copland, and Bernstein. The middle of the 20th century was very good to American artistic development, and it deserves some representation here.
Candide - Voltaire: Possibly the best-known satire in literary history, and its humor is still relevant centuries later.
Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card: Certainly a better sci-fi tale than Dune, with more compelling characterization, a more straightforward plot, and actually some compelling philosophical questions raised.
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand: The immortal "Who Is John Galt?" and its answer--both literal and symbolic--is one of the most enduring and provoking inquiries of modern literature. Whether or not you agree with Objectivism, or any of Rand's ideas at all, Atlas Shrugged provides an intellectual counterpoint to some of the political philosophies active in the 20th century, and actually manages to be a compelling narrative at the same time.
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne: I actually didn't so much like The Scarlet Letter, but its connection to American culture--both nascent America in the 17th century and developing America in the 19th--is undeniable.
Currently listening: Water Music, GF Handel
Thursday, March 05, 2009
The Peclet Number, and Why Some People Shouldn't Get Degrees
Here's a scenario posed on a recent Safety quiz, with a few minor modifications. You're south of a town with an enormous chemical plant on its outskirts. You're not entirely sure what they make there, except that the end product is pretty nasty, and the intermediates they use to get to the end product are even nastier. You hear a loud boom, look to the north, and see a plume emerging from the plant. The wind is blowing strongly to the south (ie, toward you), and there's no distinguishing terrain near you in any direction. Which way do you run?
The answer relies on a dispersive model of fluid flow that compares diffusive to convective mass transfer. That's not nearly as complicated as it sounds. In fact, you've experienced both of them in your own kitchen. Imagine you're baking cookies, and within a few minutes, the delicious scent of cooking sugar and butter fills your kitchen. If you open the door to the oven, the smell gets stronger, as a puff of vapor is released. Obviously the smell comes from the oven, but in the absence of anything else acting on them, the particles that you smell would rather spread out (diffuse) than remain concentrated.
Now imagine you're sitting in a room upstairs far away from the kitchen. Eventually, if the cookies stay in the oven long enough (but hopefully not so long that they burn!) you'll smell them even upstairs, because a few scent-carrying particles reach you. There's a much faster way you might smell them, though. What if the oven is near an air vent, and so are you? It would be like the Seinfeld episode "The Calzone", where Steinbrenner knows George has his lunch just because of the smell coming out of the vent. In this case, the particles aren't merely diffusing, they're convecting, or being carried along by the air currents in your heating or cooling system.
Do diffusion and convection ever happen in the same system? Sure. At the same time you're smelling the cookies through the vent, someone downstairs can smell them too, and probably more strongly than you can.
Or, say you have some water in a bathtub. If you put some green food coloring in that water, you'd see it diffuse through the tub until all the water was about the same intensity green. But before you let it diffuse all the way, say you opened the drain. You'd observe water flow toward the drain--convection--as well as diffusion. Depending on how fast the water was draining, you might see a well-defined line of food coloring with a bit of fuzziness toward the edge, suggesting strong convection. Or, you might see a blur of green throughout with only slight movement toward the drain, suggesting strong diffusion.
Us engineering types use a number called the Peclet number to describe systems like this. It's merely a ratio of convective motion to diffusive motion. That's the key to answering the chemical plume problem. If you assume strong wind toward the south (ie, fast wind speed), the convective motion of the toxic cloud becomes much more important than the diffusive motion. That means the toxic particles in the cloud are going to be carried in one direction rather than spreading out in all directions. Unfortunately, that direction happens to be toward you, to the south. So which direction do you go?
You could try and go south, essentially trying to outrun the plume, but that might be a bad idea unless you can go really, really fast. "Strong" wind probably means something in the range of 20-30 miles an hour; if you don't have a car, there's no way you can hope to go this fast. The best choice is east or west--if you assume that all motion is in the convective direction, the effects of dispersion in any other directions is relatively small, so you minimize your chances of coming into contact with any of these particles.
Would you even think of standing still or running north? Both of these practically guarantee you're going to meet the plume head-on. And yet, some of my classmates, in their fourth year of education to be chemical engineers, thought that might be a prudent course of action.
Currently listening: Symphony No. 9, "From the New World", Antonin Dvorak
The answer relies on a dispersive model of fluid flow that compares diffusive to convective mass transfer. That's not nearly as complicated as it sounds. In fact, you've experienced both of them in your own kitchen. Imagine you're baking cookies, and within a few minutes, the delicious scent of cooking sugar and butter fills your kitchen. If you open the door to the oven, the smell gets stronger, as a puff of vapor is released. Obviously the smell comes from the oven, but in the absence of anything else acting on them, the particles that you smell would rather spread out (diffuse) than remain concentrated.
Now imagine you're sitting in a room upstairs far away from the kitchen. Eventually, if the cookies stay in the oven long enough (but hopefully not so long that they burn!) you'll smell them even upstairs, because a few scent-carrying particles reach you. There's a much faster way you might smell them, though. What if the oven is near an air vent, and so are you? It would be like the Seinfeld episode "The Calzone", where Steinbrenner knows George has his lunch just because of the smell coming out of the vent. In this case, the particles aren't merely diffusing, they're convecting, or being carried along by the air currents in your heating or cooling system.
Do diffusion and convection ever happen in the same system? Sure. At the same time you're smelling the cookies through the vent, someone downstairs can smell them too, and probably more strongly than you can.
Or, say you have some water in a bathtub. If you put some green food coloring in that water, you'd see it diffuse through the tub until all the water was about the same intensity green. But before you let it diffuse all the way, say you opened the drain. You'd observe water flow toward the drain--convection--as well as diffusion. Depending on how fast the water was draining, you might see a well-defined line of food coloring with a bit of fuzziness toward the edge, suggesting strong convection. Or, you might see a blur of green throughout with only slight movement toward the drain, suggesting strong diffusion.
Us engineering types use a number called the Peclet number to describe systems like this. It's merely a ratio of convective motion to diffusive motion. That's the key to answering the chemical plume problem. If you assume strong wind toward the south (ie, fast wind speed), the convective motion of the toxic cloud becomes much more important than the diffusive motion. That means the toxic particles in the cloud are going to be carried in one direction rather than spreading out in all directions. Unfortunately, that direction happens to be toward you, to the south. So which direction do you go?
You could try and go south, essentially trying to outrun the plume, but that might be a bad idea unless you can go really, really fast. "Strong" wind probably means something in the range of 20-30 miles an hour; if you don't have a car, there's no way you can hope to go this fast. The best choice is east or west--if you assume that all motion is in the convective direction, the effects of dispersion in any other directions is relatively small, so you minimize your chances of coming into contact with any of these particles.
Would you even think of standing still or running north? Both of these practically guarantee you're going to meet the plume head-on. And yet, some of my classmates, in their fourth year of education to be chemical engineers, thought that might be a prudent course of action.
Currently listening: Symphony No. 9, "From the New World", Antonin Dvorak
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Snippets from a Visit to Texas
Having just returned from the first of three grad school recruiting weekends I'll be going to this spring, I have the following to share:
To the crazy guy on Marta, no matter how many times you say "hey, light bulb!", the light bulb is not going to answer you. Nothing against you or anything--the light bulb just isn't a very talkative fellow. Also, you probably won't convince him, or me, or anyone else on the train that Jay-Z is walking the streets of West End at 6:30 am.
To all the men standing around in the terminal wearing cowboy hats and talking in drawls about the Rangers' fate for the 2009 baseball season, I could hardly tell I was about to board a plane to Texas.
To the guy who was sitting across the aisle from me on the flight to Austin, I wonder how many people feel like they're in an episode of 24 when they see you. That you're a dead ringer for Ike Dubaku is only the beginning. Texting those guys with shady French African sounding names, and covering up your phone when the flight attendant walked by, is much stronger evidence. Your fashionable but unconventionally-colored dress shirt didn't hurt either.
To whomever gave Austin the area code 512, your subtle and geeky mock trial reference made my weekend. (Oh, I know that the Austin area code was probably around long before the Longhorns were ever team 512, but it's the order I found those out in that counts.)
To the professor who shall go nameless for the sake of avoiding self-incrimination, you seemed like a really nice guy, and your research sounded sort of interesting. Then you saw my name tag, found out that I was from Georgia Tech, and asked me about a certain professor I may have had for a class at some point. I'm glad I didn't share my feelings about that certain professor (they would have been something strongly worded) because it seems you two are friends.
To the grad student that I met downtown, one of a couple dozen, how you got such a fantastically pretty and pleasant girlfriend is totally beyond me. Oh, wait, it's probably because your school has 26,000 women, and mine has 6,000.
To Delta Air, I appreciate your clever and novel euphemisms, but it's okay with me if you call it a "trash bag". "Service bag" is really not necessary.
Currently listening: "Robots", Flight of the Conchords
To the crazy guy on Marta, no matter how many times you say "hey, light bulb!", the light bulb is not going to answer you. Nothing against you or anything--the light bulb just isn't a very talkative fellow. Also, you probably won't convince him, or me, or anyone else on the train that Jay-Z is walking the streets of West End at 6:30 am.
To all the men standing around in the terminal wearing cowboy hats and talking in drawls about the Rangers' fate for the 2009 baseball season, I could hardly tell I was about to board a plane to Texas.
To the guy who was sitting across the aisle from me on the flight to Austin, I wonder how many people feel like they're in an episode of 24 when they see you. That you're a dead ringer for Ike Dubaku is only the beginning. Texting those guys with shady French African sounding names, and covering up your phone when the flight attendant walked by, is much stronger evidence. Your fashionable but unconventionally-colored dress shirt didn't hurt either.
To whomever gave Austin the area code 512, your subtle and geeky mock trial reference made my weekend. (Oh, I know that the Austin area code was probably around long before the Longhorns were ever team 512, but it's the order I found those out in that counts.)
To the professor who shall go nameless for the sake of avoiding self-incrimination, you seemed like a really nice guy, and your research sounded sort of interesting. Then you saw my name tag, found out that I was from Georgia Tech, and asked me about a certain professor I may have had for a class at some point. I'm glad I didn't share my feelings about that certain professor (they would have been something strongly worded) because it seems you two are friends.
To the grad student that I met downtown, one of a couple dozen, how you got such a fantastically pretty and pleasant girlfriend is totally beyond me. Oh, wait, it's probably because your school has 26,000 women, and mine has 6,000.
To Delta Air, I appreciate your clever and novel euphemisms, but it's okay with me if you call it a "trash bag". "Service bag" is really not necessary.
Currently listening: "Robots", Flight of the Conchords
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Lost Speculations and Observations, February Edition
The biggest, most global, farthest-reaching conflict on Lost continues to be Ben Linus vs. Charles Widmore, but as I commented last month, don't be fooled into thinking this is a conflict of good versus evil, of right versus wrong, of selflessness versus malice. It's an interpersonal conflict, plain and simple. So much has been invested into this conflict, in fact, that it would be a copout to make either Widmore or Ben the "good guy" and the other the "bad guy". A mystery that eventually resolves into black and white is a lot less interesting than one that retains gray even after the big reveal. It's a lot like Harry Potter; for Snape to have been either a good guy or a bad guy would have been irresponsible storytelling. And I think that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are even better storytellers than JK Rowling.
"The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" finally gave us a little more backstory regarding Ben and Widmore, and it was much of what I and others theorized anyway. At some point in the past, Ben and Widmore got into some dispute, likely over the leadership of the Others. I can see this happening immediately post-Purge: Richard convinces Ben that Dharma is bad for the Island, so Richard and his people (including Widmore) orchestrate the Purge with the help of Ben, and possibly a few other Dharma people. Naturally, having done Richard's people a great service, Ben assumes that he should now lead them. Widmore disagrees, loses the battle, and is booted from the Island.
Brandon, one of the guys I sometimes watch with, and I came up with a good interpretation of this. Both Ben and Widmore claim that they're out for the interest of others, when all they really want is the Island for themselves. Who's actually out for the Island then? Richard Alpert, probably. As the Panchen Lama, he knows that sometimes there just needs to be a new Dalai Lama. Changing out the leadership is in fact the best thing for the Island, even though it might spawn the ill will of the likes of Widmore and Ben. Ben was, at one time, allied with Richard; once Richard sees Ben again (which he will, now that Ben's back on the Island), what will the former allies think of each other?
Does that make Richard a good guy? If you take the position of the Island, yes. But I still maintain that "good" and "bad" are completely relative on Lost, which the Others made painfully clear back in seasons 2 and 3. And what of Alpert's immortality? I think it's creative time travel. Remember what Widmore said to Locke when they spoke in Tunisia: he was amazed it had only been four days for Locke, but more than fifty years for Widmore. "And you look exactly the same." What if Alpert does the same sort of thing; flashing through time, not constantly living on the Island, but appearing where and when the Island takes him?
I mentioned last month that Widmore and Ben had essentially the same motive and goals, but different means of achieving them. That distinction has blurred a bit. There's no better example of that blur than how both talked to Locke. In fact, we heard essentially the exact same speech from both of them: "I know what I did may have looked evil, but I did it for the Island's sake, so you could be the new leader." The chess match analogy has been beaten to death in Lost, but it's the best metaphor for what's happening here. Locke is only a piece--albeit maybe an important one--in the game Ben and Widmore are playing. If there really is a war coming, like Widmore suggests, it's not a war that holds the fate of the world at stake. It's one that holds nothing at stake except the fate of the Island, and whose hands it falls into. It's a voluntary war of Ben and Widmore's making--and both are courting John to be their general in the war, or their king in the chess match.
Of course, plenty has been happening completely unrelated to Ben and Widmore, which is what makes Lost such a great show. The smoke monster has had a nice couple of episodes, during which we finally see the gruesome fate of Montand's arm. We've been promised that every time we see Smokey, we learn more about it. In "This Place is Death", we see its lair--presumably the Temple. The hieroglyph motif suggests it's from the same ancient era of construction as the door in Ben's house and the Frozen Donkey Wheel. It's doubtful that Dharma knew anything more about it than we do, because they designed the sonic fence to contain it. Perhaps that knowledge is one of the perks of leading the Others, because Ben sure seems to know a lot about it.
Exactly what the smoke monster is, and its relation to the Island, is very much the provenance of Season 6. But we've already gotten a few clues. Apparently, the Wheel's hieroglyphs have to do with resurrection. Certainly the characters who are associated with the Wheel have some manner of resurrection associated with them too--Christian Shepherd, and now John Locke. In addition, the monster was known at least by some as Cerberus, the mythical guardian of the underworld. That name is not accidental. I think we'll eventually come to find out--though not for a very long time--that Cerberus, the Wheel, and the Temple are all related to the underworld and the journey from death to resurrection. Remember what book Ben was reading the moment Ajira 316 crashed on the Island? Ulysses, by James Joyce. Ulysses is of course the Roman name for Odysseus, a man whose years of travel took him to the underworld among other places.
Does that mean Locke is resurrected? Undoubtedly he is in a manner of speaking, but I have huge reservations about calling him "alive". Recall the terminology applied to Yemi and Christian: "undead". Both people were dead beyond a shadow of a doubt, brought to the Island, and have been known to walk around again. That's the same boat Locke is finding himself in now. While dead is dead on Lost, dead might also be undead, if the Island finds it necessary.
I fully expect that Desmond will have to return to the Island to bring Penny back to life. Desmond and Penny are the Odysseus and, well, Penelope analogs in this story. It seems likely that Ben's "errand" was killing Penny like he promised Widmore he'd do. Desmond is probably not taking too kindly to this. Hawking's prophecy that the Island isn't done with Desmond is going to come into play when Desmond realizes the only way to get Penny back--if only as an "undead"--is to go to the Island.
Speaking of Ben and Penny, remember the reason that Ben vowed to kill Penny? It's because Widmore's men killed Ben's "daughter". Alex was of course not actually Ben's daughter. But Ben sure got indignant when Kate suggested that her not-son Aaron was her own. Maybe that explains Ben's lack of compassion for Kate's assumed child, because Ben's own assumed child got such a horrendous death.
It's far too early to begin speculating about our new castaways Caesar and Illana, except that they know each other. Also, they probably know far more about what's going on than they're telling, and in true Lost fashion, they probably have mysterious connections to everyone else we know. That's certainly true for Sayid, who was handcuffed and led aboard Ajira 316 by Illana.
I could move on and talk about event windows, or Daniel and Charlotte, or Matthew Abaddon's untimely demise, but instead I'll mention the only gripe I have with Season 5 so far. I don't care about the Oceanic Six. Sun had huge potential when she made her alliance with Widmore, but one work from Ben about Jin, and that all went down the drain. Sayid has been mildly interesting, because let's face it: you can't say no to a gun-toting Iraqi assassin. Hurley has been borderline at best. I've never really been that interested in Jack, I'm even less interested in Kate, and I couldn't be less interested in Aaron. He's a plot device, not a character, and given that he's being fought over by the two least interesting real characters, that whole plotline is a snooze.
Finally, two questions for the audience. First, we know of at least three characters on the show named Charlie or Charles: Charles Widmore, Charlie Pace, and now Desmond's son Charlie. Are there any other pairs or groups of characters who have the same name?
Second, what would be a good title for the last episode of the series? I saw that as a poll on a website, and all the choices it suggested sort of sucked. I'm a fan of "See You in Another Life", but I'd like to hear some more opinions too.
Currently listening: "I Am the Walrus", the Beatles
"The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" finally gave us a little more backstory regarding Ben and Widmore, and it was much of what I and others theorized anyway. At some point in the past, Ben and Widmore got into some dispute, likely over the leadership of the Others. I can see this happening immediately post-Purge: Richard convinces Ben that Dharma is bad for the Island, so Richard and his people (including Widmore) orchestrate the Purge with the help of Ben, and possibly a few other Dharma people. Naturally, having done Richard's people a great service, Ben assumes that he should now lead them. Widmore disagrees, loses the battle, and is booted from the Island.
Brandon, one of the guys I sometimes watch with, and I came up with a good interpretation of this. Both Ben and Widmore claim that they're out for the interest of others, when all they really want is the Island for themselves. Who's actually out for the Island then? Richard Alpert, probably. As the Panchen Lama, he knows that sometimes there just needs to be a new Dalai Lama. Changing out the leadership is in fact the best thing for the Island, even though it might spawn the ill will of the likes of Widmore and Ben. Ben was, at one time, allied with Richard; once Richard sees Ben again (which he will, now that Ben's back on the Island), what will the former allies think of each other?
Does that make Richard a good guy? If you take the position of the Island, yes. But I still maintain that "good" and "bad" are completely relative on Lost, which the Others made painfully clear back in seasons 2 and 3. And what of Alpert's immortality? I think it's creative time travel. Remember what Widmore said to Locke when they spoke in Tunisia: he was amazed it had only been four days for Locke, but more than fifty years for Widmore. "And you look exactly the same." What if Alpert does the same sort of thing; flashing through time, not constantly living on the Island, but appearing where and when the Island takes him?
I mentioned last month that Widmore and Ben had essentially the same motive and goals, but different means of achieving them. That distinction has blurred a bit. There's no better example of that blur than how both talked to Locke. In fact, we heard essentially the exact same speech from both of them: "I know what I did may have looked evil, but I did it for the Island's sake, so you could be the new leader." The chess match analogy has been beaten to death in Lost, but it's the best metaphor for what's happening here. Locke is only a piece--albeit maybe an important one--in the game Ben and Widmore are playing. If there really is a war coming, like Widmore suggests, it's not a war that holds the fate of the world at stake. It's one that holds nothing at stake except the fate of the Island, and whose hands it falls into. It's a voluntary war of Ben and Widmore's making--and both are courting John to be their general in the war, or their king in the chess match.
Of course, plenty has been happening completely unrelated to Ben and Widmore, which is what makes Lost such a great show. The smoke monster has had a nice couple of episodes, during which we finally see the gruesome fate of Montand's arm. We've been promised that every time we see Smokey, we learn more about it. In "This Place is Death", we see its lair--presumably the Temple. The hieroglyph motif suggests it's from the same ancient era of construction as the door in Ben's house and the Frozen Donkey Wheel. It's doubtful that Dharma knew anything more about it than we do, because they designed the sonic fence to contain it. Perhaps that knowledge is one of the perks of leading the Others, because Ben sure seems to know a lot about it.
Exactly what the smoke monster is, and its relation to the Island, is very much the provenance of Season 6. But we've already gotten a few clues. Apparently, the Wheel's hieroglyphs have to do with resurrection. Certainly the characters who are associated with the Wheel have some manner of resurrection associated with them too--Christian Shepherd, and now John Locke. In addition, the monster was known at least by some as Cerberus, the mythical guardian of the underworld. That name is not accidental. I think we'll eventually come to find out--though not for a very long time--that Cerberus, the Wheel, and the Temple are all related to the underworld and the journey from death to resurrection. Remember what book Ben was reading the moment Ajira 316 crashed on the Island? Ulysses, by James Joyce. Ulysses is of course the Roman name for Odysseus, a man whose years of travel took him to the underworld among other places.
Does that mean Locke is resurrected? Undoubtedly he is in a manner of speaking, but I have huge reservations about calling him "alive". Recall the terminology applied to Yemi and Christian: "undead". Both people were dead beyond a shadow of a doubt, brought to the Island, and have been known to walk around again. That's the same boat Locke is finding himself in now. While dead is dead on Lost, dead might also be undead, if the Island finds it necessary.
I fully expect that Desmond will have to return to the Island to bring Penny back to life. Desmond and Penny are the Odysseus and, well, Penelope analogs in this story. It seems likely that Ben's "errand" was killing Penny like he promised Widmore he'd do. Desmond is probably not taking too kindly to this. Hawking's prophecy that the Island isn't done with Desmond is going to come into play when Desmond realizes the only way to get Penny back--if only as an "undead"--is to go to the Island.
Speaking of Ben and Penny, remember the reason that Ben vowed to kill Penny? It's because Widmore's men killed Ben's "daughter". Alex was of course not actually Ben's daughter. But Ben sure got indignant when Kate suggested that her not-son Aaron was her own. Maybe that explains Ben's lack of compassion for Kate's assumed child, because Ben's own assumed child got such a horrendous death.
It's far too early to begin speculating about our new castaways Caesar and Illana, except that they know each other. Also, they probably know far more about what's going on than they're telling, and in true Lost fashion, they probably have mysterious connections to everyone else we know. That's certainly true for Sayid, who was handcuffed and led aboard Ajira 316 by Illana.
I could move on and talk about event windows, or Daniel and Charlotte, or Matthew Abaddon's untimely demise, but instead I'll mention the only gripe I have with Season 5 so far. I don't care about the Oceanic Six. Sun had huge potential when she made her alliance with Widmore, but one work from Ben about Jin, and that all went down the drain. Sayid has been mildly interesting, because let's face it: you can't say no to a gun-toting Iraqi assassin. Hurley has been borderline at best. I've never really been that interested in Jack, I'm even less interested in Kate, and I couldn't be less interested in Aaron. He's a plot device, not a character, and given that he's being fought over by the two least interesting real characters, that whole plotline is a snooze.
Finally, two questions for the audience. First, we know of at least three characters on the show named Charlie or Charles: Charles Widmore, Charlie Pace, and now Desmond's son Charlie. Are there any other pairs or groups of characters who have the same name?
Second, what would be a good title for the last episode of the series? I saw that as a poll on a website, and all the choices it suggested sort of sucked. I'm a fan of "See You in Another Life", but I'd like to hear some more opinions too.
Currently listening: "I Am the Walrus", the Beatles
Friday, February 20, 2009
The DTV Transition
I was a little wary of the government telling private television companies how they were allowed to broadcast their signals, but I got over that. Mostly I got over that when I got a HDTV, and I saw just how good the picture quality was. Then, I was a little upset that everyone had gotten worked up over this transition, just to have it pushed back by four months. Honestly, if you'd made it to February 2009 without knowing that the transition was impending, it probably didn't matter to you anyway. Seriously, I'm not sure how you could have missed it unless you didn't own a television at all.
I've mostly gotten over that, too. Except that the delay means I have to keep hearing about it for the next four months now. Here's the kicker: CBS interrupts my HD feed, changing back to a crappy analog signal, to bring me the message that I'm going to need to support digital television in four months. If the broadcast is smart enough to give me less-than-HD for three minutes, surely it's smart enough to know that I already have HD in the first place?
Currently listening: First Suite for Military Band in E-Flat, Holst
I've mostly gotten over that, too. Except that the delay means I have to keep hearing about it for the next four months now. Here's the kicker: CBS interrupts my HD feed, changing back to a crappy analog signal, to bring me the message that I'm going to need to support digital television in four months. If the broadcast is smart enough to give me less-than-HD for three minutes, surely it's smart enough to know that I already have HD in the first place?
Currently listening: First Suite for Military Band in E-Flat, Holst
Monday, February 02, 2009
Information Security and xkcd
I've been saying for years that information security is one of the most over-emphasized and overblown "issues" around today. It's as if the second someone realized "hey, maybe some dishonest person out there might try and steal my information", without any provocation, an entire industry was born out of paranoia.
In playing devil's advocate, even I'm not prepared to say "just because it's out there doesn't mean someone will want to steal it." I think if it's out there, someone eventually will try and steal it. But what I certainly am prepared to say is "just because it's out there doesn't mean it's worth stealing." Apparently today's xkcd agrees with me (read the comic, then look at the alt-text).
The truth is that very few of our secrets are worth stealing. Financial information is probably the one exception for the individual; corporations and governments do of course have secrets that might be worth stealing. A personal email address, though? If you're going to take the time to guess my gmail password, then by all means read my dictionary.com "Word of the Day" emails and Facebook notifications.
The good folks at Google realize this and therefore do not make its users change their passwords if they don't want to. It's a very laissez-faire approach to information security: let the individual apply exactly as much security to his information as he thinks is necessary. It's one that colleges would to well to emulate.
Georgia Tech's policy involves changing your password once every few months, with a mandated arcane combination of different "character classes" (ie, upper-case letters, lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols). But that's where the restrictions end. If I wanted to make my password "abc123!", I certainly could. It's essentially a middle-of-the-road approach, comparable to most corporate systems. And honestly, my password getting hacked could lead to some untoward things going on, including my unwitting withdrawal from school. The one issue I have with the system is that it presumes my password is not good enough the first time around, and I have to keep trying to improve it.
The Georgia Tech School of Mathematics (where I'm currently employed) makes the Institute policy look lax by comparison. In addition to the aforementioned restrictions, the Math password cannot start or end with certain characters, it cannot repeat the same character too many times, and it cannot "resemble a dictionary word" too closely. After a few rounds of my usual passwords getting rejected, I resorted to video game characters, of course augmented with different character classes.
I don't know what dictionary this system is drawing from, but if "Akatosh" really resembles a dictionary word, my vocabulary obviously isn't as strong as I'd like to think it is.
And what would guessing or hacking this password get for you? Emails about Friday bagel breakfasts with Math grad students and access to a handful of computers that I didn't even know existed until I started working for the department.
Currently listening: "A Day in the Life", Mae (covering the Beatles)
In playing devil's advocate, even I'm not prepared to say "just because it's out there doesn't mean someone will want to steal it." I think if it's out there, someone eventually will try and steal it. But what I certainly am prepared to say is "just because it's out there doesn't mean it's worth stealing." Apparently today's xkcd agrees with me (read the comic, then look at the alt-text).
The truth is that very few of our secrets are worth stealing. Financial information is probably the one exception for the individual; corporations and governments do of course have secrets that might be worth stealing. A personal email address, though? If you're going to take the time to guess my gmail password, then by all means read my dictionary.com "Word of the Day" emails and Facebook notifications.
The good folks at Google realize this and therefore do not make its users change their passwords if they don't want to. It's a very laissez-faire approach to information security: let the individual apply exactly as much security to his information as he thinks is necessary. It's one that colleges would to well to emulate.
Georgia Tech's policy involves changing your password once every few months, with a mandated arcane combination of different "character classes" (ie, upper-case letters, lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols). But that's where the restrictions end. If I wanted to make my password "abc123!", I certainly could. It's essentially a middle-of-the-road approach, comparable to most corporate systems. And honestly, my password getting hacked could lead to some untoward things going on, including my unwitting withdrawal from school. The one issue I have with the system is that it presumes my password is not good enough the first time around, and I have to keep trying to improve it.
The Georgia Tech School of Mathematics (where I'm currently employed) makes the Institute policy look lax by comparison. In addition to the aforementioned restrictions, the Math password cannot start or end with certain characters, it cannot repeat the same character too many times, and it cannot "resemble a dictionary word" too closely. After a few rounds of my usual passwords getting rejected, I resorted to video game characters, of course augmented with different character classes.
I don't know what dictionary this system is drawing from, but if "Akatosh" really resembles a dictionary word, my vocabulary obviously isn't as strong as I'd like to think it is.
And what would guessing or hacking this password get for you? Emails about Friday bagel breakfasts with Math grad students and access to a handful of computers that I didn't even know existed until I started working for the department.
Currently listening: "A Day in the Life", Mae (covering the Beatles)
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