I am still finding it kind of a serendipitous and unimaginable fact that NBC's Community was renewed for season 2. Then imagine my complete astonishment that a third season is forthcoming. An unfair comparison would be to say that Community is to sit-coms what Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is to late-night talkshows. I mean, there's kind of an angle there, because both shows are recent entrants to their format, somewhat irreverent and Modern-Quirky and all, but it's an unfair comparison to both shows. Mostly because Community was possibly an even longer shot, and it came out of the proverbial darkness, and it airs less often which makes it easier to love.
Yeah, a third season. It's so good I ought to tweet it, but alas, nobody gives two fucks about my twitter account – myself included. I use it primarily as a sort of 'one-way mirror facebook including celebrities and nonsense'. I don't know how to work that system. I guess I'm a failure. Or, maybe, 140 characters per post doesn't fly with my propensity for lyrical largesse*.
(* - also available on Twitter, see user: FitzQuatzlevsky)
Obviously the real and serious matter at hand is to praise the one television program that's brought me any joy, and to write a little more about it. In order to do this I have to take notice of what has been said about the show's creator, Dan Harmon, who allegedly considers the second Halloween Episode to have been too much, too soon, too far, or some other overweening gesture. I can see whereat he draws the line: how the fuck does anyone cure a zombie outbreak with no plot-related casualties? It's outrageous.
But then again, look at how the season ended. Yes, the finale duo of episodes was entertaining, funny, and hit many of the right notes. The scene with Abed and the janitor seems evocative of whichever of the shows admirers were feeling let-down or burdened by the recurrence of a paintball apocalypse. You shouldn't have been. But, then again, people complained about the Christmas Episode at first. How they sobbed and bitched.
As if the show owed them less effort than what went into that impressive stylistic gesture. Even the opening credits (which include a song that almost nobody I know can stand) were changed for the Christmas episode. People still bitched. There was still doubt, and that's alright, because people have different ideas about thing. By the way, Harmon's discomfort with the Halloween episode is reflected in the plot when Chang does not end up being the father of Shirley's baby. That's some metavision shit wherein he says: "Nay, the father is the character representant of progress; not the character representing madness."
I really dug the zombie outbreak episode. It wasn't perfect. Yes, other things might've happened. Whatever. It's a TV show. It does not belong to a single person, and no single idea rules it (except perhaps the sudden aversion to making it the Jeff Winger show). So the episode was great, for me, especially the scene with the cat towards the end, or, well, basically any part of it. There's not much I'm able to take from Halloween 2010, except for a sense that I was cheated out of glory once again.
Then they topped that off with a wicked Christmas episode and the Paradigms of Human Memory (or whatever) episode. Holy shit, it's still alive! Therefore, ultimately, the show becomes its own zombie episode, and you know there will be a vampire pastiche next Halloween.
6/21/11
Spazmoid Reactions
Sometimes you got really snappy reflexes and people might say a thing about them. Often it is only a small matter. No matter at all, really, but the only acceptable response to these situations is to talk about your spazmoid reflex ability. Clumsiness is its own blessing, but combined with spazmoid reflexes (aka freak knock-overs, perpetually stubbed toes, etc) it is an unforgivable curse.
Why talk about reflex? No, I'm not really going to do that. Lame shit is what I aim to avoid in writing: it is the loftiest goal. Bullshit is far more welcome in my eyes than lame shit. But when there's a critique on, water in the blood and so forth, I really enjoy calling out the lame shit. I like writing sentences, dropping the phrase lame shit in them, and it's ultimately a reflex.
What's most ironic is that reflex is not reflective. At all. Wait. Those words... something's wrong about them. Misunderstood, the first sentence in this paragraph may come off as a shitty joke. You ought to know better by now. That was real shit, such as what I do not casually drop. Wow...
I might just have to give up the business. Set those writing dreams on their proverbial iceberg, watch them recede into the distance – and best of all: never even know when they sink. That lack of finality would make for such a good literary project about hundreds of small, constantly interrupted stories. There's your neo-novel, you grovelling panicmongers. Average length: 200 pages; average # of chapters: 238.
But that entire thought just drifts out into a global warming plastic gyre and disappears amidst the frothy waves. Goodbye, thought. Nice to know you! But you don't even need to offer those kinds of platitudinal, helpful bromides about taking leave. The thing's sunk: your future project almost at maturation disappeared without your knowledge.
Let me illustrate it: John Carpenter's The Thing on an hundred square mile ice-floe. Shit's breaking off. No trust and dwindling... wait this has probably been done. Dynamite, ideas, flying saucers. Morphing terrors from outer space. Your idea is the research station; it has its parts and bastards. The thing is your brain reclaiming the idea. Nobody wins the fight. So not only do they sink, but they sink as one final explosive climax, hissing as it submerges. The idea/non-idea admixture sinks to the bottom of the sea, lies forgotten until it is emerges from the dark waves as a dream or a nightmare.
But at least you don't have to deal with the idea! That's the awesome part. The thing about ideas is that so many of them die in worse ways than ostracism and neglect.
Why talk about reflex? No, I'm not really going to do that. Lame shit is what I aim to avoid in writing: it is the loftiest goal. Bullshit is far more welcome in my eyes than lame shit. But when there's a critique on, water in the blood and so forth, I really enjoy calling out the lame shit. I like writing sentences, dropping the phrase lame shit in them, and it's ultimately a reflex.
What's most ironic is that reflex is not reflective. At all. Wait. Those words... something's wrong about them. Misunderstood, the first sentence in this paragraph may come off as a shitty joke. You ought to know better by now. That was real shit, such as what I do not casually drop. Wow...
I might just have to give up the business. Set those writing dreams on their proverbial iceberg, watch them recede into the distance – and best of all: never even know when they sink. That lack of finality would make for such a good literary project about hundreds of small, constantly interrupted stories. There's your neo-novel, you grovelling panicmongers. Average length: 200 pages; average # of chapters: 238.
But that entire thought just drifts out into a global warming plastic gyre and disappears amidst the frothy waves. Goodbye, thought. Nice to know you! But you don't even need to offer those kinds of platitudinal, helpful bromides about taking leave. The thing's sunk: your future project almost at maturation disappeared without your knowledge.
Let me illustrate it: John Carpenter's The Thing on an hundred square mile ice-floe. Shit's breaking off. No trust and dwindling... wait this has probably been done. Dynamite, ideas, flying saucers. Morphing terrors from outer space. Your idea is the research station; it has its parts and bastards. The thing is your brain reclaiming the idea. Nobody wins the fight. So not only do they sink, but they sink as one final explosive climax, hissing as it submerges. The idea/non-idea admixture sinks to the bottom of the sea, lies forgotten until it is emerges from the dark waves as a dream or a nightmare.
But at least you don't have to deal with the idea! That's the awesome part. The thing about ideas is that so many of them die in worse ways than ostracism and neglect.
6/13/11
Photography Exhibit, Pt.1
One of the few things I find myself thinking about often is that I'm not taking enough pictures. I've taken a fair number in my time and reviewing them is one of those self-made luxuries. Digital photography is pretty versatile. I am no connoisseur of digital photography or even of photography in general, but some of the images I have taken with a relatively old and unimpressive camera are excellent. To me at least, the best of them are small works of art that encapsulate something of their moment; the worst are lessons that I know can be understood and mastered.
My American Midwest series is probably some of the finest (I'm tempted to type 'phinest' but that reads wrongly) photography I've ever gotten up to. At one point, however, I went insane and scored artistic merit points only on the number of flags per picture. This led to a period of artistic distraction that almost destroyed me. More on that later. My focus was the American highway:
Oh the thing was very worthwhile in the end, but I doubted myself for many years. There are pictures I'm not brave enough to take. For instance the pure and haunting recollection of a motorcycle roaring across a rural intersection with an extra large flag. I was too slow to catch it and there is no way I can express that sort of thing in words, because I've seen it, goddamnit! Words will never do it justice. On the other hand, there was interstate commentary to be made:
The best I could try for was a photographic syllogism, but I think it only really resolved itself in a half-assed Velvet Underground homage. It is also vaguely an allusion to certain stereotypically midwest politics, I guess, but you'd need to read the image critically for that. Something about that midwest sky is different than what I'm used to, and I know expansive skies.
Then again it is pretty ubiquitous, and the above picture isn't really an homage to anything in particular. That sky is pretty typical dusk fare. Some of that is pretty nice, though. It's reassuring, even, in a weird sort of way - as if the crane is waving goodnight. Yeesh. I need a break from this business. Stay tuned for Part 2, which may feature several iconic images of the legendary American Flag in Real America.
My American Midwest series is probably some of the finest (I'm tempted to type 'phinest' but that reads wrongly) photography I've ever gotten up to. At one point, however, I went insane and scored artistic merit points only on the number of flags per picture. This led to a period of artistic distraction that almost destroyed me. More on that later. My focus was the American highway:
Oh the thing was very worthwhile in the end, but I doubted myself for many years. There are pictures I'm not brave enough to take. For instance the pure and haunting recollection of a motorcycle roaring across a rural intersection with an extra large flag. I was too slow to catch it and there is no way I can express that sort of thing in words, because I've seen it, goddamnit! Words will never do it justice. On the other hand, there was interstate commentary to be made:
The best I could try for was a photographic syllogism, but I think it only really resolved itself in a half-assed Velvet Underground homage. It is also vaguely an allusion to certain stereotypically midwest politics, I guess, but you'd need to read the image critically for that. Something about that midwest sky is different than what I'm used to, and I know expansive skies.
Then again it is pretty ubiquitous, and the above picture isn't really an homage to anything in particular. That sky is pretty typical dusk fare. Some of that is pretty nice, though. It's reassuring, even, in a weird sort of way - as if the crane is waving goodnight. Yeesh. I need a break from this business. Stay tuned for Part 2, which may feature several iconic images of the legendary American Flag in Real America.
6/12/11
Hey MSN! Stop trying to compete with TMZ!
I know it's way stupid to always write about how stupid the internet is and how useless news is getting what with its stupid obsession with the rich, overexposed, and useless. Most of the time I visit real news sites intentionally and I read geo/envrio/legal/political/economic news with a smattering of art and culture stuff. I should be following all these things with beady eyes, but I can interpolate exactly how the world is doing during the three-month intervals where I burn out entirely on the idea of news. At times like this I pick up a little news from word-of-mouth or whatever I manage to scan on the internet.
So I check one of my many email accounts and there's that log-out page where MSN proves everyone right for ignoring it by pandering to whatever crowd who surf casually enough that they'll spend a half-hour reading about vapid 'news' stories and greasy gossip. Yeah, the species is in decline. But that's how the majority of human history is, so I'm not trying to be sensationalistic by saying that we're on a bit of a downward spiral. I mean globally, too. You can shit out your mouth about the West all day, but it's not the only place that's fucked, you dim-witted provincialist. But the West definitely deserves your vituperation.
Exhibit A:
= unimportant
= trivial
= obvious, self-evident
= YouTube video
This is consumer news. These stories are all headline news. So, you know what? Fuck MSN. They obviously do not care: they've given up the fight entirely. They don't want to be relevant, competitive, or innovative. They could replace this tiny headline section with a Twitter feed and it'd be more interesting and newsworthy. Those dumb fucks.
In fact, they're mocking the very notion of headlines, which makes me angrier at them – they're trampling the newspaper when it's down with belittling meta-commentary like this. Let me consider how each of those four worthless stories may enrich a person's life:
"Will and Kate stun at lavish gala" : Obviously someone gave them a taser and then it was time for some plutocrat-on-plutocrat violence. People who read this story are likely to learn about things they will never properly experience. Fantasy escapism with a twist of a high-class sneer: "You really care about us, little people? Here, feed your imagination on our table scraps..."
"Miami Beach mayhem caught on video" : My original assessment was wrong. This will be the article that ends up being a link to YouTube and a small summary paragraph. The biggest part of the story is that someone was paid for the video and that someone was paid to write the article. Now I understand why the Huffington Post doesn't pay shit to her bloggers.
"Kid makes absolutely no sense" : This is impossible to anticipate. I'm not going back to see what the hell, but it's probably another stupid YouTube video. MSN makes absolutely no sense: if someone got paid for this shit work then all of America deserves its recession. Sorry, misery. You pieces of lazy fat shit should start farming in your spare time before Cargill takes over every last link in the food chain. The world used to love you.
"Incredibly Realistic Street Illusion" : Good to see MSN exporting work to Russian cyber-crime syndicates. Yes, I want to click that link, see a piece of shit of a video, and get a rootkit installed. Thanks MSN. You are exactly what you are, and if Bill Gates had any way of looking down the hierarchy at this shit you're pulling, he'd give you a goddamn kick so hard. Or is this merely his way of taking away with the other hand?
So I check one of my many email accounts and there's that log-out page where MSN proves everyone right for ignoring it by pandering to whatever crowd who surf casually enough that they'll spend a half-hour reading about vapid 'news' stories and greasy gossip. Yeah, the species is in decline. But that's how the majority of human history is, so I'm not trying to be sensationalistic by saying that we're on a bit of a downward spiral. I mean globally, too. You can shit out your mouth about the West all day, but it's not the only place that's fucked, you dim-witted provincialist. But the West definitely deserves your vituperation.
Exhibit A:
= unimportant
= trivial
= obvious, self-evident
= YouTube video
This is consumer news. These stories are all headline news. So, you know what? Fuck MSN. They obviously do not care: they've given up the fight entirely. They don't want to be relevant, competitive, or innovative. They could replace this tiny headline section with a Twitter feed and it'd be more interesting and newsworthy. Those dumb fucks.
In fact, they're mocking the very notion of headlines, which makes me angrier at them – they're trampling the newspaper when it's down with belittling meta-commentary like this. Let me consider how each of those four worthless stories may enrich a person's life:
"Will and Kate stun at lavish gala" : Obviously someone gave them a taser and then it was time for some plutocrat-on-plutocrat violence. People who read this story are likely to learn about things they will never properly experience. Fantasy escapism with a twist of a high-class sneer: "You really care about us, little people? Here, feed your imagination on our table scraps..."
"Miami Beach mayhem caught on video" : My original assessment was wrong. This will be the article that ends up being a link to YouTube and a small summary paragraph. The biggest part of the story is that someone was paid for the video and that someone was paid to write the article. Now I understand why the Huffington Post doesn't pay shit to her bloggers.
"Kid makes absolutely no sense" : This is impossible to anticipate. I'm not going back to see what the hell, but it's probably another stupid YouTube video. MSN makes absolutely no sense: if someone got paid for this shit work then all of America deserves its recession. Sorry, misery. You pieces of lazy fat shit should start farming in your spare time before Cargill takes over every last link in the food chain. The world used to love you.
"Incredibly Realistic Street Illusion" : Good to see MSN exporting work to Russian cyber-crime syndicates. Yes, I want to click that link, see a piece of shit of a video, and get a rootkit installed. Thanks MSN. You are exactly what you are, and if Bill Gates had any way of looking down the hierarchy at this shit you're pulling, he'd give you a goddamn kick so hard. Or is this merely his way of taking away with the other hand?
6/10/11
The 'Das Racist' Connection
At first I was pretty resistant to the idea of new rap. Isn't the golden era over? Okay I'm being facetious. Being aware of the continuum of things is necessary to any complete reading of the thing in its present sense, though. So I'm not against the idea of new rap. Wu Tang and Jurassic 5 are pretty much legendary, but also over, and everybody knows the Tribe broke up because they simply could not handle Fred Durst's insane delivery and flow. 1999 was a mean time.
Speaking of insane shit, there's a group going by the name of Das Racist. Their first two releases are widely available and open to interpretation and debate. I highly recommend at least 18 of the tracks you can get immediately and with little hassle. Obviously their name is rap nominative taken to the next level, so you owe it to yourself to be educated about this matter.
DR are all about a sort of absurdist neo-hip hop. Some of their rhymes are weak and papery like soggy cardboard, but often they make up for this with great imitative production and delivery, as if they're... Wait
The lyrics range from A+ to 'meh', but the A+ moments are worth it and surprisingly consistent. Allusions fly around to everything, a kind of postmodern reference machine set to nice beats with a persistently and agonizingly self-aware (one might even say 'pseudo-hipsterian') angle. If you have lived at all in the past couple of decades there are name-drops waiting for you. Some are even humorous, which is great. The track 'Nutmeg', from their first release, starts out as of the best Ghostface homages I've ever heard.
Othertimes they're kicking it about corporations, the racism inherent in society; celebrities, weed, other drugs, themselves, parties, even franchise restaurants. I may just be ignorant but I have caught no G. Bush references, so, while there is the temptation to call them pure joke rappers, they at least are not taking the path of least resistance. Of course Obama is name-dropped.
On the other hand, they are an elaboration of something about their time. From the hyper-allusive, brand aware, irony-deficient lyrics, to the casual genre-hopping, Das Racist evoke the image of a multicultural goof troop on the coolest street corner in town, jocosely fooling around with a band of elite-level-hipness groupies and some production equipment they stole from MF Doom and LCD Soundsystem.
But there really is ultimately something fresh about DR's lyrics, that cannot be explained without audio reference. I could try posting lyrics, but seriously, now: I already posted a pretty swell hyperlink reference.
Speaking of insane shit, there's a group going by the name of Das Racist. Their first two releases are widely available and open to interpretation and debate. I highly recommend at least 18 of the tracks you can get immediately and with little hassle. Obviously their name is rap nominative taken to the next level, so you owe it to yourself to be educated about this matter.
DR are all about a sort of absurdist neo-hip hop. Some of their rhymes are weak and papery like soggy cardboard, but often they make up for this with great imitative production and delivery, as if they're... Wait
The lyrics range from A+ to 'meh', but the A+ moments are worth it and surprisingly consistent. Allusions fly around to everything, a kind of postmodern reference machine set to nice beats with a persistently and agonizingly self-aware (one might even say 'pseudo-hipsterian') angle. If you have lived at all in the past couple of decades there are name-drops waiting for you. Some are even humorous, which is great. The track 'Nutmeg', from their first release, starts out as of the best Ghostface homages I've ever heard.
Othertimes they're kicking it about corporations, the racism inherent in society; celebrities, weed, other drugs, themselves, parties, even franchise restaurants. I may just be ignorant but I have caught no G. Bush references, so, while there is the temptation to call them pure joke rappers, they at least are not taking the path of least resistance. Of course Obama is name-dropped.
On the other hand, they are an elaboration of something about their time. From the hyper-allusive, brand aware, irony-deficient lyrics, to the casual genre-hopping, Das Racist evoke the image of a multicultural goof troop on the coolest street corner in town, jocosely fooling around with a band of elite-level-hipness groupies and some production equipment they stole from MF Doom and LCD Soundsystem.
But there really is ultimately something fresh about DR's lyrics, that cannot be explained without audio reference. I could try posting lyrics, but seriously, now: I already posted a pretty swell hyperlink reference.
6/8/11
News for the Internet: I do not Not have a mobile phone.
I am sick to death of mobile content and the big existential stink about that shit. It's not going to end the world if people start having Pavlovian responses to touchscreens and ringtones. If anything we can construct an industry on that business, which is good, because our current vacuum economy is starting to sump. Whaddup?
Here on the internet you get a lot of offers to use, say, some useless app on your mobile device. Mobile devices (will we even call them phones without any sense of irony in 20 years?) already do all kinds of shit. But as I log into my account here I get news that something will look great in my mobile. I guess I owe it to the 3.4 people who have viewed this blog once with a mobile phone to ensure it looks good on a tiny screen when you could probably be talking to the people you're with, watching the road, interpreting your surroundings, or facing an uncomfortable situation bravely.
I'm hardly even in step or in touch or in contact with my generation, but they look at their phones enough times each day that you could harness that action for enough electricity to power their electronics with energy left to sell into the grid. If we do enough little things like this we could eventually create localized, public, energy markets. Maybe just electricity, but we can do things with electricity now.
Anyways I'm tired of mobile content. Give it up, internet. You and I both know I'm not on my phone right now.
Here on the internet you get a lot of offers to use, say, some useless app on your mobile device. Mobile devices (will we even call them phones without any sense of irony in 20 years?) already do all kinds of shit. But as I log into my account here I get news that something will look great in my mobile. I guess I owe it to the 3.4 people who have viewed this blog once with a mobile phone to ensure it looks good on a tiny screen when you could probably be talking to the people you're with, watching the road, interpreting your surroundings, or facing an uncomfortable situation bravely.
I'm hardly even in step or in touch or in contact with my generation, but they look at their phones enough times each day that you could harness that action for enough electricity to power their electronics with energy left to sell into the grid. If we do enough little things like this we could eventually create localized, public, energy markets. Maybe just electricity, but we can do things with electricity now.
Anyways I'm tired of mobile content. Give it up, internet. You and I both know I'm not on my phone right now.
6/5/11
Internet Recommendation Cartels
Some things exist that speak out in favor of the internet. Farlex's Free Dictionary is one of these things. On the surface of it it is of course just a standard web 2.0 site. But there are a lot of online dictionaries: plenty, in fact, so where do you go. What is the standard model for inoffensiveness? Web 2.0 is of course something like a swarm of informational bees and a robust, drunk legislational bureaucracy.
In the future we shall unironically type such things as http://WW.EMAIL-2.com/sys/sisyphus/suchafuss4628334611098249224. Which W will disappear? That's the part I don't know yet, to be truthful. It's probably impossible to know, but anyone will have a 33% chance of being right, I suppose.
In the end that's what's important. Statisticians have the dubious honor of inventing and integrating their pseudoscience into the world, a position which they violently defend even in the face of statistically unsound statistical-professions such as meteorologist or phenomenologist. Web 2.0 is like a statistician and a state-adjacent private bureaucrat/hypocrite.
That was a little out of hand. The Free Dictionary is a swell thing though. I've never seen it fail me yet. The front page has all kinds of little widget-style subsections, but the only one I ever use the Word Match Up, pictured below:
Well I technically, or at least academically failed the test. But to be fair: look at that shit. There are awesome words that are underused critically, are not obtuse, and do not sound like 'adumbrate'. Vituperate I feel bad about, because I've seen vituperative people and the entire culture of vituper sickens me when I am confronted with it. That shit is my kryptonite.
The Free Dictionary is better than Facebook, Twitter, and your favorite news site combined.
In the future we shall unironically type such things as http://WW.EMAIL-2.com/sys/sisyphus/suchafuss4628334611098249224. Which W will disappear? That's the part I don't know yet, to be truthful. It's probably impossible to know, but anyone will have a 33% chance of being right, I suppose.
In the end that's what's important. Statisticians have the dubious honor of inventing and integrating their pseudoscience into the world, a position which they violently defend even in the face of statistically unsound statistical-professions such as meteorologist or phenomenologist. Web 2.0 is like a statistician and a state-adjacent private bureaucrat/hypocrite.
That was a little out of hand. The Free Dictionary is a swell thing though. I've never seen it fail me yet. The front page has all kinds of little widget-style subsections, but the only one I ever use the Word Match Up, pictured below:
Obviously there's a lot of other stuff going on that I cropped out because, fuck, let's ignore as much of Web 2.0 whenever possible - the distractions, the personalizations, the ever-looming identity policy or threat of fraud or some other defeat.Word Match Up on Farlexionary is one of the few things I try to make a point of doing each day. It's an idle minute well spent, in my opinion – one of the few, right? Mark Twain is definitely and automatically allowed a space on my blog, at the very least.
The game can be tough. I have lost much of my prestige to obscure or polyvalent words, but most of the time I can't be bothered to truly follow all the rules, and I think most have this feeling. Words work best when they're poured out in a drunken torrent or muttered incoherently or whatever.
Match Up, yeah. I think it's just well designed is all, and it is part of a decent resource. Plus, the -
Well I technically, or at least academically failed the test. But to be fair: look at that shit. There are awesome words that are underused critically, are not obtuse, and do not sound like 'adumbrate'. Vituperate I feel bad about, because I've seen vituperative people and the entire culture of vituper sickens me when I am confronted with it. That shit is my kryptonite.
The Free Dictionary is better than Facebook, Twitter, and your favorite news site combined.
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