The horse is dead. Long live the horse.
Birthday loot was glorious and much appreciated. Wonderful things include:
And just 'cuz, here's a thank you note I sent to my pastor's family:
There was a joke on a Laffy Taffy wrapper that I admit to not understanding at all. Here, you give it a shot:
Q. Which Garden has the most vegetables?
A. Flash Garden.
Okay, so I get that its meant to be some sort of pun off of the name Flash Gordon, but I'm not sure what flash has to do with "the most vegetables." Any help?
Labels: humour, robot apocalypse
So I've got a question. A few days ago, I posted that thing responding to an article about how Diesel's advertising campaign was damaging the counter-hegemonic resistance by convincing potential resistors to simply look the look without either talking the talk or walking the walk. As I elucidated, I had problems with the article's conclusions.
Still, it made me think and that's good. And so I wondered at how advertising affects me, personally. Whether a Diesel-like advertisement, something slick and witty and cynical, could draw me to prefer a brand over another. And so, I've got a question.
Do you find that you are yourself influenced by advertising? And how so or why not?
For my own personal answer to the question, I'll say that I am not largely affected by advertising. Now, to be sure, I will certainly purchase things I see advertised, but generally they are the kinds of things that I already have desire for but just did not know the product was available.* Like when I see that Brian K. Vaughan is releasing a new series or that Valve is releasing a new episode of Half-Life content. But then, it doesn't even need to be any sort of flashy ad or anything for stuff like that to sell me. Just seeing the words "RockStar is planning to release GTA IV" is enough to sell me on the upcoming game. I "fall" to advertising that hocks what I would buy anyway; so I don't really consider that a loss.
The other way advertising affects me is that it alerts me to new products that will be made available to my discerning mind. This, in itself, can never sell me on a product. It can, however, induce me to research a product. When I heard someone mention BioShock, I thought, Great. Another mediocre games that everyone's getting crazy excited about. Still, there was enough buzz that I thought I'd check it out for myself. I watched demos, production trailers, read about the game—and only after all that does it seem like a game I wouldn't mind purchasing. It was the same with World of Warcraft. I saw an ad and heard some hype. I wasn't interested in purchasing but was intrigued enough to check it out. Videos, reviews, analyses. A lot of stuff went into my decision to purchase a game that initially sounded utterly unappetizing. So, while the advertisement did have some influence (i.e., it alerted me to the product's existence), it certainly didn't sell me on the product.
Advertising, I guess, just rings hollow for me. I don't purchase image. I don't buy into what is being sold. Even though I can really appreciate the work and ingenuity that goes into many advertising campaigns, my appreciation of irony or cynicism or wit doesn't make a repped company's product any more enticing to me. I might buy Diesel's jeans if their models look comfortable in the clothes and when I see them in the store the clothes still look comfortable. And if I appreciate the aesthetic vibe I get from the clothing (this is only image in the mundane sense, not the identity sense). At best, traditional advertising can alert me to something for further inspection. At worst, it can make a product look entirely unappetizing.
Funny that. Advertising can't win me over but it can alienate me.
I will say this, however, there is a kind of advertising that when properly achieved, swims so seamlessly into the conscious mind that it cannot be detected or reacted against. Recently, they've called it viral marketing (probably when its a direct and definable operation by a campaign), but in reality, it's just word of mouth. In this way, I may actually be more affected by advertising than I think. For instance, if a number of people are sucked into a product via advertising, then it's entirely likely that they will talk about the product with friends and acquaintances. The more people are talking favourably about a product, the more likely it is that the person non plussed by the advertising will actually be willing to give the product a shot. While I can't note any purchases that I have recently made that could have been introduced through a concerted effort by companies to virally market, I can point to at least one example by which a specific product became known to me as the one I wanted (almost wholly upon reputation of the product as conveyed by others).
My Vespa. This was the biggest purchase I'd made in recent years. Nearing six thousand dollars. And while I'm pretty happy with the purchase, it's rather curious why I didn't research other company's scooters at the time of purchase. I wanted a Vespa, plain and simple. Someone told me I could get a Honda for a couple thousand less and I simply responded with, "That's okay. I want an Italian job." Why exactly was that?
If I look back, my (along with many Americans') first experience of the Italian motorscooter involved Gregory Peck as he raced around in Roman Holiday. For some, that was enough (just like the explosion of Mini Coopers in recent years rests solely on the shoulders of The Bourne Identity and The Italian Job). For me, it was merely one among many sparks. Then there was a good friend a few years back who was dying for a Vespa. I think her interest was infectious. And I really can't guess what influenced her, though I'd hazard that the slick European image the vehicle conveys wouldn't be wholly excluded from the formula. One more seed. After that, I started seeing them zipping around my beach community. They looked fun and convenient. One more step. Then I read the works of Chynna Clugston, Blue Monday and Scooter Girl and I was sold (even though in Scooter Girl, one of the top bikes was a Lambretta, not a Vespa... I had mistakenly imagined that Lambretta was just a model of Vespa).
A few months later, my car blew up (nearly blew up for reals. I am lucky to not be crisped) and I was in the market for new transportation. So I did research. I read all about Vespas and their gas mileage, power, and reliability. I went down to the showroom a few times. I checked forums and websites. I read up on the history of the company. I made an informed choice. And yet...
I still hadn't checked into any other brand of motorscooter. For some reason, in my head, there was only one worthy brand—if scooters were worthy at all (and they are!). The Wasp. The Vespa. The Italian lines and style. It had to be the Excalibur grey LX150 that I drive to work every day. And while I can't attribute that purchase to traditional advertising in any immediate sense (as I've never actually seen a Vespa advertisement), word of mouth and a general cultural aura about the thing** infiltrated me and opened my wallet.
So then, how 'bout you? What kind of advertising works on you?
*NOTE: An interesting subject for discussion some day would be the validity of my saying that I desire things of which I am unaware.
**NOTE: It's fascinating how often I get comments along the lines of "Oh wow! Is that a Vespa? I've wanted one of those since I was a teenager!" and "Man, those are among the coolest looking things on the road today." I have to admit that while I don't know what kind of image (identity) a Vespa betrays, I do admit to enjoying the feeling of riding around on one.
Labels: advertising, social issues
To celebrate My Seventh Year of Blogging tomorrow (I will not be posting or going near the internet until I finish The Book), I will simply say this: septum piercings ALWAYS make it look like you have snot ready to escape your nostrils. So good luck with that and all.
UPDATE: The Book is the one that makes the entire series worth reading. Outstanding stuff.
UPDATE II: There are now SPOILERS in the comments to this post.
Labels: blogging, things i don't like
Johnny T, in his infinite graciousness, has provide to both The Kilted One and I an article worthy of both consideration and discussion. It boasts an interesting premise, a broaching analysis of big business's interest in propping up the hegemony through its various advertising campaigns. This one, specifically, deals with Generation X—a generation whose boundary I just chin-hairingly squeak into. If at all.*
The name of the article (or chapter in a book, really, was "The Diesel Jeans and Workwear Advertising Campaign and the Commodification of Resistance." It was penned by the ever-dapper Daniel R. Nicholson.
Nicholson uses his allotted space to rail against big advertising for its part in supporting the hegemony by pretending to support the resistance, thereby drawing resistors from the ranks of the truly resistant and into the hegemonic fold. He does this by analyzing Diesel's entertainingly sly marketing campaign in the early '90s that went by the nomenclature, Successful Living (though I guess that particular identity transferred to the brand generally). Nicholson supports counter-hegemony activism and believes that by marketing the so-called lifestyle of such activism, Diesel is in fact actively stripping (or actively stripped since this was written in the early '90s) Generation X of their lives of resistance by simply replacing life with a lifestyle.
What the Hegemony Is It?
It may be worthwhile here to describe, define, or otherwise elucidate on the term hegemony.
It's not a terminology I use often. Or really, ever. Essentially though, hegemony is a form of consensual control. Police states use the threat of force or violence to keep the populous under control; hegemonies on the other hand, are according to Nicholson "a sort of society-wide agreement which attempts to maintain a social order among the various members of society." Part of Nicholson's problem with hegemonies is that despite any influx of good will on the part of the participants, a society itself will continue to oppress certain members of the society. These victims are subordinated by various and almost discernible uses of power by the dominant group of victimizers.
The creation and disbursement of pop-culture, says Nicholson, is one of the many forms that the power of the dominant group influences the subordinate. "Hegemony occurs when the subordinate group acquiesces and accepts the 'reality' produced and then maintained by a dominant group." And so, Nicholson supports counter-hegemony.
Counter-hegemony, then, focus on personal and continued enlightenment and, once enlightened, action based upon the truths learned. Counter-hegemony is based wholly on the discontent that full-comprehension ideally must engender. Nicholson relies on the theory that analysis of pop-culture is itself counter-hegemonic and will result in both discontentment and the resultant action.
While I think there's some bits of the view worthy of critique (not the least of which is the elitism and appeal to a popularity upon which Nicholson relies**), I'm not really going to be talking about that today. Instead I'd like to focus on Nicholson's points that a) Diesel is commodifying resistance and b) this is a danger to the resistance.
Commodifying the Resistance?
To the first point, Nicholson does well with his analysis of several magazine advertisements in which Diesel vies for the disinterested interest of the cynical, hopeful Generation X. I found his perspective fascinating and think he did a great job pointing out exactly what Diesel was trying to do: sell the Generation X lifestyle to twenty-somethings.
In the early '90s it was discovered that twenty-somethings, those in the generation called X, seemed jaded and rather immune to the advertising formulae that worked well in the Cosby decade, the boisterous big-hair and yuppie-driven '80s. After growing up with commercial after commercial fraught with promises that could not be delivered, my generation grew to resent marketing and saw through the lie of most of it. At least on the surface of it anyway.
So advertising changed. It became more obscure. More self-deprecating. Harder to understand. Not that there hadn't been this kind of advertising all along, but it seemed to take on a renewed vigour in the face of a cynical market - exactly the kind of disillusioned consumers to whom such advertising flourishes. Gen-Xers supposedly found joy and accomplishment from deconstructing smart ads. That joy transformed into interest in a company that cared enough about them to market directly at their obscure, self-referential, and devastatingly witty needs. Or something like that.
And so advertisers duped Generation X into becoming consumers and supporting the hegemony just like advertisers tricked their parents and uncles into doing the same. Only this time they did it by preying upon the very thing that could set them apart from prior generations: their discontent and resistance to a society that wronged them. Nicholson pins this on advertisers like Diesel, who capitalize on the desire to be resistant.
The thing is, I don't think advertisers like Diesel are to blame for the commodification of Generation X.
Nicholson laments here, that because these kids weren't savvy enough, they were getting swindled by a fashion industry into believing that just looking the part would be enough. The thing is, it wasn't Diesel who commodified the resistance. Diesel only capitalized on the existing commodification. The commodification began the moment someone gave the generation a name.
It was the coinage of the term that was the culprit. The moment someone first said that Generation X was _______, then suddenly there was this identity to live up to. What? I'm supposed to be apathetic, disillusioned, cynical, wry? Well, I better get crackin' then! Generation X is what's cool, so I better look and play and smell the part. Goodbye mascara and hairspray! Hello bedhead! Goodbye vinyl! Hello flannel! Gotta look the part, gotta play the part. I don't know what ennui means, but I can learn, I can adapt.
The identity was not commodified by Diesel Jeans or any other advertiser. They merely noted the ongoing commodification and marketed toward those who would be attracted to such commodification.
Danger to No One Worth Saving
Those who revelled in the identity, those who even cared about the identity, were never Generation X (in its most proper form). They were hangers-on. Wannabes. They are the people who would shop a Hot Topic today in order to be so very punk, so very scene. And if there's one thing cooler than being cooler, it's eschewing coolness at every opportunity and relishing in one's outcast status. There is no one so ineffably hip than the person who is hated by the society for which he toils.***
Part of Nicholson's definition for Generation X is that they really and truly do not care. That person is not in any way going to be affected by the Diesel campaign. And if they do buy Diesel Jeans it won't be because they want to look the part.
Nicholson worries that by selling a resistance-lifestyle, Diesel is robbing people from truly living as a resistant and prompting them to think looking the part is okay. The thing is, none of those who care about looking the part were ever a part of the resistance anyway. They might occasionally play the part of the noble counter-hegemonic influence, but really? They're probably just doing it to get chicks. And I assure you, Daniel R. Nicholson, losing the wannabe to Value Commodification is no loss to your cause. If anything, Diesel is doing you a favour by giving the opposition Team Colours.
And really, this is besides the point anyway. As Nicholson points out, the true players for Generation X are not players at all. They don't care. They are apathetic. They've lost interest in politics, business, society. They are experiencing, as Nicholson says, weltschmerz: which is a "mental depression and apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state." So in the end, who cares if Diesel is sucking Genexers into its tractor beam of capitalism and hegemony? It's not like they cared enough to be the resistance anyway. Resistance entails hope and apathy is the enemy of hope.
Still though, I liked his analysis of the ads themselves. It was fun, in a Gen X sort of way.
*note: The early '70s seems to be the best estimated cut-off time for whatever we term Generation X, though some will place the cut-off as late as 1976. Later estimates (say... 1985?) seem to have one common failing: the proposed Genexers would only have been under twelve ('85ers would have been six) when the term came into vogue, describing a generation that was currently experiencing a deep ennui and generational cynicism resulting from the big lie of the '80s. These were supposedly twenty-somethings who found they didn't fit into the place the world had prepared for them. Twelve year-olds can't claim that particular conceit.
**note: At one point, Nicholson states the "the truly media literate will recognize that the advertisers of [the Diesel Jeans] campaign have appropriated the resistant, anti-establishment attitudes of Generation X and commodified them for the purpose of selling resistant, anti-establishment identities in order to make money for Diesel." So either you're "truly media literate" or you disagree with Nicholson and relegate yourself to the scrap pile of the media illiterate. Joy.
***note: The key to discerning the truly put-upon from the lookitmeI'msodowntrodden is that the truly put-upon is happy to be shown that things aren't as bad as all that while the wannabe relies so heavily on the idea that he is discontent that any and every effort to lighten or remove the cloud of ultra-hip despair that perches in a distinguished other-worldly hover above his head must and will be forcefully rebuffed. The wannabe is immune to reason for fear of the horrible possibility of removing his resistance-identity and replacing it with something slightly less discomforted and acquiescing (and therefore, less cool).
Labels: advertising, social issues
The great American dream, in some fearsome circles (circles usually preceded by a numeral and a th and finding deep association with an certain Italian named Alighieri), is comprised of power creation, management, and disbursement—in ways far less subtle than those proposed by a certain Chomsky. This dream consists, quite plainly, in the ownership and management of a power company in the most vernacular sense of the term. This dream is not my dream.
And so, I find it somewhat surprising that I could find myself lauding a board game whose whole conceit lies in telling the story of such a dream.
And yet, here we are. Power Grid is such a board game, a game in which each player takes the role of a power magnate, building power stations, divining the resources necessary to power said stations, and then delivering wrought energies to an increasingly webbed network of cities. And of course, there is the requisite reaping of monetary gain, the soul of any capitalist gain. And here I find myself, strangely compelled by a game whose description leaves me wholly unappetized.
Really, it doesn't sound that fun to me.
So in the end, my vast enjoyment of the game must come down to the game itself, not pale descriptions resembling the barren wasteland of the American business wilderness. Any game that actually sounds like work shouldn't be fun—and yet it is, because what Power Grid does more than anything is that it keeps you actively pursuing simple goals through a consistent-though-evolving set of strategies, and rewards your continued perseverance with coloured pieces and neat little cards signifying the industrial decay that marks our world. And yes, that too is way better than I make it sound.
Maybe I should describe what one might—nay, will—do in a given turn. The gaming mechanic! Therein lays the joy!
So first the order of play is determined. Each round, the order of player alters in order to somewhat handicap the game that no player is necessarily left in the dust. That keeps things lively for sure. Then players (i.e., power companies) bid on available and increasingly powerful power plants, diversifying by type just enough to keep one from being ruined via a lack of available fuel sources. Power plants convert coal, oil, garbage, and uranium into precious energies. There are even environmentally friendly plants that require no natural resource save for the very wind that nature herself provides. After purchasing the resources necessary for power conversion, players extend their network, their power grid, to comprise ever more cities, all the while trying to be careful not to connect to too many more cities than one has the capacity or ability to power.
And at the end of a game, the map on which you play (Germany or America, unless you purchase an expansion map) incarnates as a multi-coloured nightmare, a galaxy of rainbow-hued wood and cardboard. It is an unexpected, unheralded joy to behold.
Admittedly, even that description fails justice, where evaluation of the games worth and value are concerned. At the last, I suppose, one must simply trust the word of another (and in this case, your humble reviewer) that Power Grid is worth the time or, indeed, the money. Those who do trust will be rewarded with, I believe, an amusing experience and a time well-spent. They will be met with an engaging game that, while not espying that grail-like stature of Cities and Knights, will nonetheless please gamers with a fine mix of strategy, a little bit of luck, and more than a handful of that plumbing type of psychology by which one works to gauge and predict the mode and direction of opposition players.
Rating: 
My experience of Neil Gaiman and his estimable oeuvre is, in large part, a recent acquirement, having come into being over the last year and a bit. If you don't count an earlier, regrettable experience with Sandman—an experience than by no means offered justice either to Gaiman or his grainy little fellow. Or indeed to myself as a reader. I feel fortunate that Anansi Boys came along and changed everything.
Because otherwise, I might not have given The Eternals its due shot. And that would have been sad.
When I was a wee Danish (jelly-filled), I had the good fortune to inherit a veritable mess of comics that included some real finds among which were the entire original series of Silver Surfer, several giant-sized Hulk books, and ancient and collected reprints of some of the greatest Kirby-era Fantastic Four. And an entire run of another Kirby invention, The Eternals.
I'll be honest here. Either I was not a very discriminating fifth grader or the Great Jack Kirby wasn't exactly on his game when he came up with this super group, based, I hear, on ruminations inspired by Chariot of the Gods. I suppose that the truth of the matter lies in all likelihood betwixt these two precarious compass points. In any case, I didn't really catch the fire for the series and abandoned it both to my crappy-comic box and to that sector of my memory that is now and likely forever unreachable.
And so, I am approaching the work, for all intents and porpoises, as a reader entirely unaware of the personalities and history intimate to the characters going by the nomenclature, Eternals. In essence, as you yourself would approach the work—presuming that you were intimately familiar with the visual vocabulary upon which works of comic storytelling are founded. I will assume this knowledge and allow you to debate my assumption wholly within the realm of your internal monologue in which you engage your mind, your heart, and your moral self.
So then, Gaiman crafts a tale in which no prior knowledge of the Eternals is necessary for events have conspired to leave the Eternals themselves with no knowledge of either their longevity or their grand destiny. Gaiman allows the reader to be introduced to their fantastic world with all the shock, surprise, and inevitable confusion that the Eternals themselves experience. It is an indubitably strange experience. The story is wild and inventive and all those fantastic adjectives that book reviewers indiscriminately slather all over the backs of a a thousand books that grace the new release tables at Borders and Barnes & Noble across the span of any given year.
I cannot be certain that Gaiman's story will be memorable (at least I still remember now, but it's only been a week and a half...), but I'm sure I wouldn't mind reading it again some day. And that's worth something. I do remember thinking both Woah and Huh on several occasions as Gaiman proceeded to blow my mind. That also must be worth something in whatever currency you call native.
I was not initially certain that John Romita Jr.'s artwork would work for the story that Gaiman was telling. I love JRJR's work on other, more mundane projects, but was concerned how it would serve this particular yarn. I needn't have worried. While there are probably artists who might better capture both the grandiose and the pedestrian more capably, it did not mind their exclusion from this particular work.
At the last, I will give The Eternals my recommendation. Understand that this is not an unqualified recommendation—as there are a vast number of books that are more worthy. Still, there are a much vaster number of worse books out there and while this is no Anansi Boys, I can certainly claim to have enjoyed myself.
Rating: 
My spirit is crushed. Well, not really. In fact, I'm a little bit stoked. As it turns out, I'm a little bit to edgy either for kids or for the parents of kids.
I can't figure out which.
I was asked to create a quick flyer for a kid's carnival my church is hosting in a couple weeks. I didn't have a lot of time, so I threw something together that I thought would be fun. Something I might have liked in my imaginary childhood. The result of my labour was this:
I delivered the art Friday night so it could be printed for Sunday morning. Upon viewing the flyer Sunday morning, I noted several distinct differences:
I was told that they were nervous that my flyer wouldn't go over well and that it might be too much. It was suggested that it might be more suitable for a youth event. I admit that I was sad to put work into a project that would never see the light of day (I was up til 1:30 Friday night working on it), but I must say that I'm gratified to know that I am too hip for church flyers for elementary schoolers. Also, capitalizing on recent fads, I even developed a zeitgest version
Labels: art
Having essentially seen the first two seasons of Gilmore Girls, I can say unequivocally that the show would be awesome if only there were no Gilmores to be found in program. The absolutely (and mind-bendingly) ridiculous dramas and melodramas in which the the two principles, Lorelei and Rory, engage rob an otherwise good show of both it's life and watchability. It's as if they are vampires of fun, sucking every last drop of enjoyability from the show.
The town of Star's Hollow is incredible and features a host of characters both interesting and entertaining. The inhabitants of the small community are each unique and boast the kinds of eccentricities that make small town life seem attractive to the rest of us. Miss Patty is the clownish, overweight dance instructor who's far to world-weary to be as charitable as she is. Babette and Morey Dell are the mismatched couple next door who love each other fiercely and say ridiculous things. Kirk is bafflingly amusing. Luke is angry, brusque, and witty enough to keep me from throwing shoes at the screen when Lorelei is onscreen. Michel is the requisite snobby French concierge who is the misanthropic soul of the show (and probably the reason, if there is one, to watch.
But then we have Lorelei and Rory. And especially Rory. Lorelei, we kind of expect to be dumber than wood. But Rory is supposed to be some sort of wunderkind, on the fast track to Harvard and all the stale dreams that such genius and ambition entails. The only reason we know she's a genius is because we hear about her getting good grades in her Ivy-league-prep school and see her reading all manner of hip novel and making quick-clip banter seem like a past time for children on the verge of entering the second grade (i.e., she's a fast-talker). The problem is: Gilmore Girls tells us all this without ever showing it.
If we were to judge Rory by her actions and the decisions she makes, she comes off a lot worse for her wear. To put it plainly. She's an idiot. In the classic, "village" sense of the word. This is especially evident in her interaction with those claiming the dreaded XY chromosome as their own. There is not a single instance in which one doesn't feel a deep and abiding sense of shame and humiliation for even watching her engaging in these horrible mockeries of actual life. It's like sneaking into the bathroom while your blind older sister's showering and filming the whole thing and then playing it over and over again over the unfolding weeks hence. That's how it feels to watch Gilmore Girls. And that's why I had to quit.
This is my story. And this is my song.
p.s. If you're not a Gilmore Girls viewer and want the merest taste of what I'm talking about and don't have a blind older sister, go check out the character synopses available on Wiki: Rory, Jess, and Dean.
Labels: reviews, television
From that political questionnaire I mentioned a few posts back, the question was asked whether voting in elections was a required qualifier for the status of "good citizen." It was presumed by several that such was the case. I, however, take a different view.
I think that I am a better citizen for the fact that I don't generally vote. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have a hard time believing that it is responsible for me to make an active decision on an issue that I haven't spent uncounted hours researching, on whose outcome (either way) the fruit I cannot predict. How is it responsible for me to contribute to decisions that will affect the lives and welfare of others if I don't understand how those people will be affected? How could that possibly make me a good citizen?
A vote for George Bush is an easy example. Many voted for him solely for his ostensible stand against abortion. Yet his presidency has not (to my knowledge) diminished the rate of abortion or affected its legality and has instead ended the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children. How am I supposed to choose between the two: a possibility (some would say slim) of saving hundreds of thousand or perhaps millions of infant lives vs. the probable saving of hundreds of thousands of lives that we are ending in addition to abortion? Now, not being versed in politics, news, probability, and the realistic casualties attributable to a yea or a nay vote in regard to Bush, how can I be expected to decide? How dare somebody suggest that I have to choose who dies in order to be a "good" citizen?
I am not competent to vote and neither are bulk of the teeming hordes that do.
To this, I've been asked whether I don't trust myself (a spirit-led follower of Christ) to make better decisions than the uninformed pagan on the street—whether I don't think my vote is a better vote than the non-believer's vote.
Actually, no. I don't trust myself to make a better choice than the equally uninformed person on the street. It has been said to me that "the ones who vote, get their votes counted and the people they vote for are elected to office." I completely agree and that is why I cannot in good conscience take part. By voting my ignorance, I am actively deciding on something I should not be deciding. It's for this reason that the PCA (my church denomination) isn't congregational in its government. As a church, we recognize that some people aren't qualified to be the deciding vote on matters of doctrine; doesn't it make sense that there are people who are equally unqualified to be the deciding vote on matters of state?
I am not, in fact, saying that "Christians are being good citizens by letting elections be decided by people who more than likely spend even less time than they did." I am saying that two wrongs do not make right and that for me to vote out of my ignorance just because other people are doing so would fly in the face of that very cliché.
Politics is the only realm of life I can think of in which the unknowledgeable are encouraged to act as experts—and chastised if they don't. Chemistry? Auto repair? Financial management? Theology? Psychology? Medicine? In none of these areas is ignorance given a pass. And the political realm may be even more intricate and complicated than the majority of other fields, and yet we treat it as if its something in which anyone should engage. That just strikes me as irresponsible.
Labels: christian living, politics
As far as tabletop gaming goes, there are winners (Dutch Blitz) and there are losers (Monopoly). And there are excruciatingly painful losers (Sorry!) and jaw-droppingly awesomely awesome winners (Settlers of Catan: Cities and Knights). Bang! happens to fall somewhere in the no-man's land between winners and jaw-droppingly awesomely awesome winners. It's a good game. It may even be better than a good game. But it's not a great game. Still, I've yet to play a card game that was.
And yes, for you skeptics out there, I have too played Pok-é-Mon.
So you guys remember that group game you may have played as some form of youthful individual (I played it in high school) called "Mafia," right? Well, imagine that Mafia was a three-to-eight player card game. Also imagine that it was fun instead of a great big ball of suck (like Mafia inevitably is). That game you're imagining might be something like Bang!
Bang! is a card game set in the world of Spaghetti Westerns. Players take on the typical roles: a sheriff, his deputies, outlaws, and the diabolical renegade. The identities of all players (save for the sheriff) are kept secret and players' roles are made known by their actions (by their fruit you shall know them!). The outlaws are trying to kill the sheriff, the deputy is trying to kill the outlaws and the renegade, the sheriff tries to outlive both the outlaws and the renegade, and the renegade must kill the outlaws, the sheriff, and the deputies. It's a tangled web of life, death, Indian attacks, and life-giving beer.
Building on the unique flavour of the game, each player, in addition to his general role (e.g. sheriff or outlaw), takes on the identity of one of a fistful of colourful western characters. Each character has his own particular strengths. For example: Slab the Killer fires a six-shooter that is very difficult to avoid; Tequila Joe heals better than anyone when alcohol touches his lips; and Willy the Kid is so quick he might as well be firing a semi-automatic.
The playing cards themselves are fun and feature simple icons that make it easy (in an ideal world) to understand how each card operates. There are barrels to hide behind, jails to throw people into, horses to ride, guns to collect, duels to be had, and dynamite to throw. And for added flavour, everything is in Italian (with helpful English subtitles).
The only real problem I've found with the game is what to do with players who have been eliminated (as the game can meander on without them for some time, it can become particularly boring for those who get killed off early in the game). As a partial means of salvation, fans of the game have developed a variety of "ghost's rules"—ways in which ex-players can continue to affect the game even as the dearly departed (albeit with less direct influence than the living players). I'm tempted to give this game 3 stars out of 4, but will bump it up as it's my favourite card game.
Notes: In addition to the full game, both the Dodge City Expansion and the Fistful of Cards Expansion add some real fun to the game without overly complicating the rules.
Rating:
After having come to appreciate Neil Gaiman's voice as expression in the delectable Anansi Boys and other treats (MirrorMask and select episodes from The Absolute Sandman), I thought I'd give American Gods another shot. Years ago, after it had first been released, I purchased it on the strength of rave reviews. I got about two-fifths through and just lost steam. The book is not exciting. Still, maybe it was worth it, so I began anew a couple months ago and read the thing through over the course of a week and a half.
In some ways, American Gods is a bit of a prequel to Anansi Boys (a fact I found encouraging). The real world, it seems is populated by a number of the lords and deities of myths long dead. Anansi lives and breaths and wears a funny suit. Odin wanders this mortal plain - with a taste for young Nordic girls. Czernobog, Loki, Kali, Baldur. They all play their parts. Fighting a war against forces of pop expression in an unforgiving, godless land.
Gaiman approaches the work in an understated manner with an eye for detail that amazes in its scope. Things that you hope and beg to see wrap up really do wrap up. And in the end, everything is mostly satisfying. It was well-crafted and is a quality piece of fiction. Still, it's a rather sleepy work and despite its technical grandeur, I just couldn't really say that I loved it. It just didn't have the heart.
Plus, if I never read another scene in which a woman swallows a man whole into her vagina, I will be able to say I led a charmed life.
Rating:
Thinking it was about time to read some teen fiction marketed to/at girls, I picked up Aimee Friedman and Christine Norrie's Breaking Up (the cover lists it as "A Fashion High graphic novel", so I assumed that Fashion High was an established brand in the teen-fiction arena, but a quick Googling has turned up nothing that would suggest the series is actually a series).
The read, naturally, was light and breezy. It's an understandably inconsequential book, but one that's enjoyable in its excess of both drama and melodrama. Breaking Up charts the well-balanced cacophony that crops up in the lives of four girls who, until their tumultuous junior year of high school, have been best friends since time began. Now, growing into their own personalities and dreams and goals and tastes, they find that nothing lasts forever.
It doesn't even last very long when everyone is petty, self-absorbed, and governed entirely by the convictions of others. Ah, high school.
After all is said, the book was enjoyable. It would function perfectly as poolside reading as you sip margaritas out of mugs shaped like palm trees in Cancun. It never gets too heavy or depressing. The characters are cliched enough to keep you from too much mental heavy lifting (you know the geeky boy is a geek, despite dressing nonchalantly and looking halfway handsome, because he has a Star Trek t-shirt "not worn in an ironic/hipster way" and he mentions a friend wanting to have a Star Wars marathon). And Norrie's art is, as always, fluid and tells the story well (I'm a fan!).
Rating:
Labels: comics, games, literature, reviews
Somebody named Craig is preparing to write about American politics and twenty- to thirty-somethings in the PCA. He asked some questions and I offered my perspective. I was gonna post it here on the 4th of July, but I was busy sleeping off a game night from the slightly less illustrious holiday, the 3rd of July. Anyway, here are his questions and my responses.
I wonder what you all think about the American body politic in general, and to what degree do you (and friends you know) involve yourself (mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually) in its goings-on? My goal is to use this week for research into how twenty- and thirty-something PCA-types (and others) think politically so as to formulate questions to go deeper in understanding and representing your perspectives.
I'll be 34 in three weeks. In my twenties (especially late twenties) I was far more politically interested than I am now. I saw a horrifying number of things wrong with both of the two big parties and began looking into lesser party politics in my idealism. This sometimes alienated me from fellow members in several bodies. Over the years, my confidence that political involvement of the citizenry matters in any meaningful way has waned to the point where I may talk politics with friends, but I find it hard to care about elections (as every result seems to fall under the heading: More of the Same). And it doesn't help that there aren't really any news sources that aren't agenda-driven, from which one can garner "pure" news. If one had no job or responsibilities, I can see how they might be able to sift through everything out there and have an inkling of an idea what is going on, but I don't see how the average player can possible responsibly vote with any sense of honesty within his conscience.
What I'd like to see from the PCA is an active distancing in the leadership (and following their example, the membership) from several ideas implicit to much of conservative American Christendom:
From my vantage point, when one looks at Christian involvement in the political realm, it looks as if the bride of Christ is in bed with the world. I think it's embarrassing that people can presume the political party I would support simply by looking at the denomination from which I come. I know PCA members-in-good-standing who are Democrats and I know one who considers himself an anarcho-socialist—whatever that is ;P and they fairly consistently feel alienated by the believers around them. Occasionally from the pulpit but more often from offhand comments made by fellow members and officers. Most of us keep our political thoughts a quiet secret for fear of unhappy and inappropriate reactions (I was once accused of being a nihilist simply because I couldn't find it in my heart to vote for Bush).
And really, how healthy is it for some church members to live in fear of other church members for something as trivial as a political perspective?
Do you remember a time when you didn’t feel disenfranchised by or cynical regarding our current democratic political system/process? What was different? What changed in your political understanding and when? Who influenced you the most in the midst of this transition and how?
The last time I didn't feel cynical toward the American politic and disenfranchised by the church in regard to the political realm (for the two unfortunately go hand-in-hand) was as I was leaving high school. Up until that point, I bought into the system and the primacy of the Religious Right. As I entered the workplace, the change began to come on gradually. I was no longer merely feeding off what I was told but absorbing information (in large quantities) on my own.
At first my cynicism was directed toward the Republican Party, as I saw that it very little resembled my Christian beliefs and in many ways was stood antithetical to the Christianity I saw represented in Scripture. I felt betrayed by those in the church from whom I learned that the Republican way coincided with the Christian way, but I still held hope for political good. For a few years anyway. I dabbled in supporting a variety of forms of socially conscious libertarianism (or classical liberalism) and voted in ways appropriate to my newfound political hope.
By the end of my twenties, however, political interests had nearly entirely lost their sheen for me. I recognized that political movements were powerful in what they could accomplish but I did not see myself in any movement that was actually accomplishing anything. I also saw a degree of unhealthy mania in those who looked to political solutions for their hope in this world. Otherwise stable people would become apoplectic at the merest mention of the opposition party's candidate. It seemed like madness to me.
And madness with precious little fruit to show for it. For every good that a movement accomplished, it also ushered in ill. For every tyrant's regime that was crushed tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians lay dead for the sake of another man's democracy. For every trade success, some got richer while others suffered (the poor in one country or the poor in another).
There are too many questions that have no pat or adequate answers. Illegal immigration hurts the livelihoods of the poor in our nation, but the prevention of it hurts those in other nations. How can I be asked to decide an issue that I cannot understand? How is it responsible for me to judge these things if I don't have adequate information with which to render judgment? I work full-time, have a wife with whom I spend time, spend myself on a variety of projects in the evenings, and minister to my local congregation. I am a responsible member of my community - which shows by the fact that I don't have the time to research these political questions (and moreso by the fact that I do not vote for that which I have not adequately researched).
That the church (sometimes officially, most times unofficially) expected to dictate to me the answer to all these abstract questions of political theory angered me. It discouraged me that those who were meant to show me the heavenly kingdom were trying to get me to help them take over the earthly. I see no impetus for that in Scripture (though I see plenty of it in church history).
So to quickly answer the first question: The difference between when I wasn't cynical and now is simply that I was naive then and am less so now.
As for who influenced this change in me? I don't think I can attribute it to anything greater than the fact that I was studying everyday. Both Scripture and secular concerns. As my comprehension of the biblical record grew, I noted the it fit less and less the life and system to which I had accustomed myself. Rather than change what Scripture meant by ignoring it, I allowed Scripture to change me. I am, quite obviously, not wholly a work of Scripture and the work of Christ in me, but I am enough changed that I could not accept my beliefs as they were.
Labels: christian culture, politics
Work on the graphic novel has stalled at the art stage. My thumb has not gotten better and may be progressing toward the other direction. The torn ligament seems to have healed and built up scar tissue inside the ligament itself. I have little strength in the thumb and can only draw or write for an hour before my hand is a throbbing mess. I have drawn exactly one panel of my 280-page story and that alone was a lot of work. I'm seeing a hand therapist once a week and if therapy and a splinty-contraption doesn't work, then they want to try a cortozone shot. If that doesn't work, then... surgery? All I know is that I can't work with my thumb as it is. I wanted to carve a watermelon for 4th of July, but that may not even be possible either. I'm grumpy.
So I'm rereading Book 6 on my lunch breaks so that I'll be fresh and ready to assimilate Book 7 and all its accompanying glory. And just as a point of interest, it's really astounding how much better Book 6 is when compared to the lamentable work in Book 5; Book 6 is one that I actually enjoy reading, while Book 5 called forth nearly like feelings from the dark places of my soul as do visits to the dentist in which only blood and wrath result (that is, for the less astute among our present readers: Book 5 was a very bad thing).
In any case, reacquainting myself with the milieu, I came to the conclusion that Ron Weasley is nothing but a hanger-on. He realizes that Harry is going places and, in the remarkable unremarkability of any socially marketable skill, talent, or personable trait of his own, he has decided that his Best Last Chance is to take on the role of Harry's "best friend and confidante." And so, he fawns. And Harry allows it.
It's the stereotypical cool guy/loser relationship. We see this thing all the time. The popular kid with the slightly nerdy friend. The beautiful girl with the slightly chunky, acne-ridden friend. It was almost a staple from my juniour high and high school days. Ron needs it because he is desperate for cred of any kind (it doesn't even have to be "street"). Harry participates for reasons that I imagine either have to do with the typical inadequacies of those at the top of the social game (he actively fears the removal of his status and so surrounds himself with those who just can't compete) or he's simply engaging in an age-old requirement of those in his social class, take pity on one who is pitiful but not so pitiful that he'll cause your status undue damage (note: it's not until Neville grows a spine that Harry will deign to allow him to hang - petrification greet Longbottom's prior attempt to join in the clique).
As proof that Ron is a hanger-on, think back to the sum total of his contribution to the collected HP endeavors. Well, let's see. He... uh. Hm, well... He... I guess he helped with the chess portion of the security placed around the sorcerer's/philosopher's stone. Oh, and he got in the way a lot. He obliviously harboured and defended someone responsible for the death of Harry's Parents (tm) and hoped to kill the kid himself. He pouts a lot that Harry garners more popularity, press, and attention - even though he entered into the relationship knowing that this is the way it must be.
So yeah, he a pretty fair player of Wizard's Chess. That's his sole contribution to the Harry Potter legacy. Way to go, guy! Harry might not be a great wizard (relying on Hermione or his deceased mother for anything that doesn't involve some strange, quirky skill that only he possesses - e.g. parseltongue, patronus, preternatural quidditch talent, etc)., but at least he has some self-respect.
Labels: harry potter, literature
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