Shockingly Literate

William Gibson (@GreatDismal) was kind enough to retweet this article by author David Foster Wallace which was drudged up through the interwebs from all the way back to the year of our Lord, 1998, by @mrphoenix.

Wallace blames James Cameron’s Terminator 2 for “inaugurating what’s become this [the 90's] decade’s special new genre of big-budget film: Special Effects Porn.” He’s referring to the blockbusters we’ve all become used to seeing every Summer: 2012, Transformers, etc. He describes them as a “half a dozen or so isolated, spectacular scenes … strung together via another sixty to ninety minutes of flat, dead, and often hilariously insipid narrative.”

The reason I find this article so ironic is that if you just cut and paste Avatar for Terminator 2, all of Wallace’s points stand strong. Thank the good Lord that Mr. Wallace, rest his soul, passed away last year, when Avatar was just an ominous blip on the dark horizon.

Say what you will about his movie, this T-800 is happy to be here.

My knee-jerk reaction to Wallace’s article was to think he was some elitist fascist who saw T2 and said “This is in no way superior to David Lynch’s 1977 classic Eraserhead, therefore it is mere rubbish for the plebs.” But he cut me off before I could judge — he avows his love for both Cameron’s original Terminator and Aliens right in the article. There must be more to his criticism than meets the eye.

Is Wallace right that all movies’ budgets are inversely proportional to their quality? I love T-1000, but if Cameron hadn’t spent a bajillion dollars on that morphing technology, I still would have enjoyed T2. Despite Wallace’s critcisms, I find the plot solid, the movie entertaining and exciting, and I really like the relationship between the characters. I even like the cheesy cyborg humor.

Take Avatar on the other hand. I excuse the movie’s shallow “corporations are greedy and bad” plot because the world Cameron has made with his new mo-cap technology is so vivid and beautiful. Now, take away the CG and just paint some actors blue instead. Uh-oh, now your movie is straight to DVD.

I don’t think exciting special effects are inherently bad for a film’s depth — they are just a tool. It is the person who holds the tool who should be held accountable. If I put a hammer and some nails in the hand of an architect, when I come home I want to see a house, not one board with ten thousand nails in it.

If you missed "Avatar," try messing with your TV's color settings until people are blue. Now watch "Dances with Wolves." There, saved you $12.

The only defense I can muster is that not all film is made for critics — it’s a free market economy. If Avatar’s special effects alone are causing it to break all kinds of box office records, what does that say about what the public wants? Cameron spent nearly a decade and poured head-ache inducing amounts of money into this new mo-cap technology, so of course he wants to be as audience-friendly as possible to ensure the financial success of his movie.

Now that the technology exists, film makers can do whatever they want with it. I like to think of Avatar as a glorified tech demo, and I’m hungry to see how directors (including JC) use it in future films with more discriminating tastes. Whenever technology moves forward, people are usually loathe to move with it. Somebody had to blow a ton of time and money developing the first camera, and all the Lumiere brothers shot with it was a train coming at the screen. Avatar’s plot holds up a little better.

The other day, Seth Godin posted this article on his blog (which is really a great site for when you’re looking for a little motivation, by the way).

In the post, Seth suggests that you shouldn’t look to the rats as warning of your boat sinking — you should look to the rich people. When all the major companies switched to faxes, letter delivery services had to go. It didn’t matter if Grandma would still use them to deliver a letter every six months — that’s not how the services made their money.

The Kindle is arguably the hottest gift this holiday season. It makes buying and owning books convenient for ravenous book buyers. It’s not a big deal for the average American though – all the reasons a Kindle is convenient don’t matter to someone who only buys one book a year. But, as with the fax machine example, these light readers aren’t how bookstores make their money. Seth predicts bookstores are the next to go, and it’s hard to disagree with him.

With the impending e-Book revolution, we’re one step closer to Star Trek technology, which I always assumed would excite me (first the Kindle, next the Holo-deck!). So why do I have a preemptive case of nostalgia instead?

An artist's representation of a Kindle actually incinerating a bookstore (image from telos.tv/blog).

Reading is already an isolating hobby. It’s comfy to curl up in bed with a good book, but sometimes I like to trick myself into thinking I’m social, and I’ll go into public to read at the Barnes and Noble up the street. It’s quiet, it has a nice atmosphere, and you may even look up from your book and actually meet another human being that reads (which is a trait that becomes rarer by the year). If I can buy and read all the books I could ever want right at home on my Kindle, my carefully constructed illusion of getting out of the house is shattered!

I wonder what place this leaves for libraries in our society. They’re already the victims of constant budget cuts. When reading words on paper becomes a laughable antiquity, how long will we set aside funds for libraries? And if libraries simply become a place to go to read digital files, why have a physical location at all? Just put it all online. I’ve never been one for the library — I generally like to keep books I’ve read. A full bookshelf is a comforting thing to me — evidence of my literary adventures. The Kindle, however, both defeats the purpose of the library and takes away the need for my shamefully large bookshelf. I hate the infernal device, but the technophile in me still wants one!

What do you guys think? Any of you get a Kindle this holiday season? Would you read more if you had the convenience of one? And do you think this e-Book thing is just a fad? Or is it the future?

This is something I wrote my first year in grad school. I really like the world I’ve set up in this short, and I’ll probably revisit it again someday. This kind of setting is right up my alley. Dystopias are where it’s at!

Fear of the Dark

Good morning Caesarea.

Pure air slithered through the widening gap as David’s glass bedcover detached, retracting to the ceiling. He lay there under the covers, letting the familiar radio voice of Tom Tolleran erode away the sleep still in his eyes.

It’s a steamy ninety-two degrees today, no chance of rain. Forecasters predict no end to the draught any time soon. The Order of Health has extended their call for conservation of water. Daily allowances per household are still in effect, so don’t get your hopes up for long showers just yet, and keep praying for rain.

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