The Gentleman Loser

I just got back from seeing The Dark Knight...er...technically last night I guess. Rather then talk about how amazing of a movie it is (and it's crazy good by all movie standards, not just as a comic book movie), I just want to leave you with a thought I had that this movie (or rather it's iconic villain), and comic book movies in general, emphasise.

Why is it that we (as in all of humanity, it dates back centuries) have such a fascination, to the point of idolatry, with the villains in our stories? Is it just because in the story structure, the hero is always the same, and the villains are the only thing that changes? If so, why is that so often the case? Throughout mythology (and comic books are, for worse or for better, our mythology) we have epic, reoccurring tales about heros and their slaying exploits. We never have it the other way around, a villain so powerful that the forces of good struggle with it again and again through many faces but to no avail. Or is that theme sublimated into the nuances of the hero's character? The Dark Knight exemplifies this as well.

Note that in more modern mythology we move away from the hero perminantly defeating thier foes, bringing about the idea of an eternal enemy. Could this be the beginning of a seiesmic shift in human mythology? Though less modern examples exist, for example the devil archetype and the mythology of Ra and Apep found in Egyptian mythology, so that argument may be weak. Further examples of an eternal fight with an enemy exist, especially in Eastern and South American mythology, but like the Ra and Apep story, they are often tied to repeating astrological patterns and were thus structured not out of theme, but out of natural phenomenom.

Posted by Josh at 12:35 AM | Permalink | Comments

So Radiohead, seemingly in an innovation penny war with Nine Inch Nails, has unveiled it's newest oddity. A music video without the video.

Radiohead's new music video for the In/Rainbows song "House of Cards" was shot not with cameras, but with a 3D modeling laser array. Instead of footage on a videotape, the "footage" was a giant spreadsheet of XYZ coordinates. Blogger: The Gentleman Loser - Create PostAfter being fed into computers that must have been running software on the bleeding edge, the points of data were plotted in three dimensional space and manipulated in such a manner to create the video you see on the right. In addition to providing the video, you can go to the Google Labs page for this little experiment and manipulate the 3D data in a (rather slow, though understandably) viewer.

More interesting is the fact that you can download the 3D "Point Cloud" data off of the site in a CSV (an open standard spreadsheet format) file, thus allowing anyone with a beefy computer and some 3D knowhow (I wonder if trusty old trueSpace can use it) to make a video. In fact some people already have. I like this trend that is occuring. Not only are we getting bands leaving their labels (even if Radiohead totally went running back to one) to make a stake on their own, but the bands simutaniously discover the merits of fan service. More specifically, getting fans invloved in the art. Nine Inch Nails uploads multitrack files for fans to remix with, Radiohead lets the fans price their CDs. Nine Inch Nails opens a "film festival" for their double album Ghosts, Radiohead essentially gives fan the video equivilant to multitrack files. So whether you are With_Teeth or In/Rainbows we all win.

Posted by Josh at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments

Posted by Josh at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments

What will happen when the next generation is not narcissistic enough to fuel Web 2.0? Will it be the end of the internets?

Posted by Josh at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments

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French Kicks take the stage and the crowd rushes to the front to...stand there and look too cool. Fear not, however, later in the show, with an adjustment of his belt and a sway of his hips, Matt Stinchcomb turns the crowd all the way up to listliss swaying and half-hearted swing dancing. To the right of me, Ryan attempts to break the mold with a brief burst of The Roboto.

Their music is conducive to this behavior, it's the sonic equivalent to Quaaludes. Matt alternates between guitar, and running over to the left side of the stage to play keyboards. The guitar buzzes into the type of haze one associates with Sonic Youth. however, out of the haze, the bass player chimes in precisely accented notes that cut through like church bells.

Vocals seem to be a mash-up of The Appleseed Cast and M83 with the enunciation of The Twighlight Singers, though their world-weary, raspy voice is replaced by youthful energy.

The music follows the indie post-Radiohead stuff most of the time, but occasionally takes a dive to some more classical styles that almost seem reminiscent of the 1950's. The vaguely retro-stylings suit the band well and leave the listener with a non-specific nostalgia. The feeling that we can remember when there was a better time, when things were okay, if only we can concentrate hard enough.

Posted by Josh at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments

Blogging is pretty much the digital extreme of the goth girl who sits in a cafe writing in her journal while exclaiming how much she doesn't want anyone to look through it when she leaves to use the restroom. I think I'm okay with that.

Posted by Josh at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments