Everything that rises must converge
So now then.
i don’t really have much to say at the moment. I still despise 95% of our culture, but at least we have Lost.
Not so much:
It’s really a shame that newspapers are dying, because blogging can’t fill that gap in real journalism, and having to rely on the AP, well…
…We’ll always have Yahoo! Front Page. Thanks to them, I know it’s a bad thing for a girl to call Benjamin “pal” in a flirtext.
I’m too lazy to link to anything today. Fuck it, it’s Friday. Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?
Addendum: Benjamin Light has consumed significant amounts of generic vodka. I was attending a screening of Star Trek last week with Occam Razor when, pre lens-flare-o-rama, the theater aired the trailer for the Night at the Museum sequel. At then end of this travesty of cinema, a girl behind and to the left of us declared: “I have to see it! I HAVE to see it! I HAVE TO SEE IT!”
… I don’t even know what to say to that. Judging by the demograph of the crowd, I can only assume she was sincere in her desire to view said movie. Is there a less significant film in the history of cinema? I don’t know. But it cements my feeling that Television (or, at least serialized narratives) is the future of motion pictures, and not film. Take one peak at the trailer to The Road and it becomes painfully clear that some stories should not be made into movies.
For instance, I would love to see certain scenes from Cryptonomicon realized on a big screen, especially the Bobby Shaftoe stuff, but you can take a step back and admit that, yes, some narratives were intended to be digested as books, not movies. And where movies fail to deliver the nuance of a novel, perhaps a serialized narrative in the format of a television show can succeed. I feel, lately, that too many properties are being converted into movies, despite the fact that the structure is incompatible: see The Watchmen. Somehow the motion picture has established itself as the high point of media saturation, so we get subpar “adaptations” of The Golden Compass and the like.
Note to hollywood: if you want to make a movie, make a movie, but not all stories should be adapted so. Most people love books not for the plot, but for the personality of the narrator, and the intimate connection between reader and storyteller. In short, if Hollywood can’t duplicate that in Script Form a la Fight Club, then it’s probably not worth the money to make a film of it. In other words: hire better screenwriters or make better tv shows. Not every property can be condensed into a 105-minute feature.
I have no doubt in my mind that the Night at the Museum sequel will make shitloads of money. I don’t fully understand it, but I know better that to vote against it. Although I’d love to see bits of The Baroque Cycle on the big screen, if only to expose the material to a wider audience, there’s a kind of comfort in the knowledge that only the truly committed will appreciate the nuances of literature.
Comparing bloggers to “real journalists” (I put this in quotes because there are bloggers who are doing much better work than mainstream press and no I do not count myself among them) isn’t fair. Working for a newsroom or magazine you have access to research, fact checkers, your work gets edited and you get paid (hopefully) something resembling a living wage.
Bloggers, for the most part, don’t have access to any of those things and are doing the job of several people while trying to update constantly to stay on top of Google because page views are how we get paid. So, the gap will be filled when someone comes around who recognizes the work we do, pays us what we’re worth and gives us help.
Well, I didn’t actually compare bloggers to real journalists because it’s not fair: they aren’t in the same line of work. We call the Press the Fourth Estate for a reason.
Perhaps I should use the term “reporting.” I know it’s an unpopular position to take amongst the net-roots — who see the “MSM” mostly through parasitic news outlets like Cable TV and Magazines with Agendas — but information wants gatekeepers. As highly-skilled as a blogger might be at research, he or she can’t fill the void that a highly-trained journalist with the backing of an editorial board can provide in terms of reporting and not reporting.
“Real journalists,” few of whom actually work at the organizations where most people get their news from, are the world’s Bullshit Detectors. I’m aware that the idea of informational gatekeepers seems incredibly bourgeois, but the alternative is, I think, less pleasing. But I should really just let Gary Kamiya take it away.
jack face!!!!! yahoo is just becoming less and less credible. even going to cnn sometimes is just painful. they do, after all, employee nancy grace. now real newspapers, it’s sad to see them go. even though the ink gets your fingers dirty, they also double as a disciplining tool with small animals, and sometimes children.
Very true, Peanut. Hitting a small child with your iPhone just isn’t as satisfying.
Do they have an app for that now?
there effing should be an app for that! i’ll get an iphone if they create an app for that! you can only break a child so many ways. hitting, that def does the trick, but so many bystanders disapprove and getting arrested is inconvenient. and the “there is no santa claus” truth, that doesn’t quite sting like it used to….what to do….
There’s an app for just about anything…
…I feel we’re all ignoring the most salient point of my post, which was that JACK HAS A BOMB!
In all seriousness, you should not strike a child with an iPhone, it might damage the phone.
what if you have insurance on the iphone? is it ok then?
and jack has a bomb!!!! what’s going to happen? we don’t find out till 2010! it’s 2k9! omg!
who’s jake?
AppleCare doesn’t cover accidental damage.
fu.