Tag: internet

Cultural engagement

I happened to have gone to a panel at FantaCon this month with Steve Bissette, Kris Gilpin and Dennis Daniel, all of whom used to swap bootleg horror films, fifth-generation recording dubbed in German or Dutch. THEY are ecstatic that those films are now available in a nice Criterion collection.

The cover of the September 20/27, 2013 Entertainment Weekly, its Fall TV Preview, says “get the scoop on 119 shows, PLUS the best new series.” If I need a reminder that the medium has diffused, that’ll do it.

Yet on two successive episodes of the Bat Segundo Show podcast, host Ed Champion declares that there is an “American epidemic of gravitating to mainstream culture in an age of limitless choice.” He and guest Kiese Laymon discuss “why America is terrified of rich and variegated cultural engagement.” Then Champion and Alissa Quart dissect “how outsiders and iconoclasts have been appropriated by institutional forces. Why have we shifted to a culture hostile to original voices? Why is it all about being liked?”

I found myself arguing and agreeing with the dialogues in about equal measure. On one hand, there’s no doubt that a lot of the “outsiders” get co-opted. And there’s the “you’re an idiot if you’re not watching this” meme that Jaquandor discussed, in this case, about Breaking Bad. He’s seen two episodes more than I have and is disinclined not to see any more, which SHOULD be OK, but apparently is not, at least for some tastemakers. (Hey, I haven’t seen either Game of Thrones (and won’t) or Downton Abbey (Bought the Wife the DVDs, so I probably will – eventually).

On the other hand, when there are so many movies, so many TV shows, and I have a finite amount of time and money, why CAN’T I at least look at Rotten Tomatoes, and get a sense of the critical mass of movie reviewers? Maybe I WILL go see that movie with the 12% positive reviews, though probably not.

There was this whole argument on one of those podcasts about finding the obscure films, it seems, for the sake of seeking them out, proving one is “cutting edge” or “outre”; it all felt a bit affected to me. I happened to have gone to a panel at FantaCon this month with Steve Bissette, Kris Gilpin, and Dennis Daniel, all of whom used to swap bootleg horror films, fifth-generation recording dubbed in German or Dutch. THEY are ecstatic that those films are now available in a nice Criterion collection.

Speaking of Mr. Byzantium Shores, he called BS on the Louis CK rant about smartphones. He may be correct about the inauthentic specifics, yet I found it oddly affecting theater. I think a commenter describing smartphones enabling “a sort of rude, in-the-bubble behavior” feels right. Or maybe it’s just my reaction to the people on the bus I see every day, about 2/3s of which are totally detached from the person sitting three feet from them makes me more than a bit melancholy.

Going back to that EW issue, one of the “best new shows” this season is supposed to be the FOX comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Our local social media maven posted one of those flippant comments on Facebook, “Where have all the sitcoms gone?” to which a guy noted that he was watching one at that moment, Brooklyn Nine-Nine. She wrote back, “Isn’t that a drama, and an hour?” Well, no, a simple Google search would reveal that was a new “ensemble comedy about what happens when a talented, but carefree, detective [Andy Samberg] and his diverse group of colleagues get a new captain [Andre Braugher of Homicide: Life on the Street] with a lot to prove.” I thought his information (which I augmented) required an acknowledgment at least to him, but I guess that’s just my projection.

Oh, and I can tell you that many of the sitcoms are now on the Disney Channel. I’ve seen several, none of which are particularly good.
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Lots of folks are upset that the Emmys had an individual tribute for, as one person put it, “that filthy drug addict Cory Monteith” by “that no talent Jane Lynch” (I actually read that, naturally on Facebook) while not doing so for Jack Klugman, who was one of my favorite actors, or for Larry Hagman. I thought Mark Evanier addressed this rather well, which is that these things are never “fair.”

Talk Like a Pirate, but don’t walk the plank

The Pirates, who had not had a winning season since 1992, got to 81 wins, then had a four-game losing streak, before winning #82 last week.

It suddenly occurred to me a while back that all these deals whereby you get something, and you are required to pay for it over and over (and over and over) again through mandated leases, such as Software as a Service (SaaS), are forms of corporate piracy. As my buddy Steve Bissette ranted – I think it was regarding a policy by Adobe or Microsoft: “We can afford them once and that’s what we can afford. We want to own almost all things we buy. With few exceptions, we don’t wish to buy or support those things which do not wish to be purchased outright. We do not need more monthly bills. We do not wish to interact with you regularly for permission to be permitted to use what we purchase to use.”

Did you know you can’t buy an electronic copy of the Oxford English Dictionary? It is “only available as monthly rentals, services that come with expansive data-collecting policies and which cannot be owned.” Cory Doctorow “mentioned this to some librarians at the American Library Association conference in Chicago this spring and they all said, effectively: ‘Welcome to the club. This is what we have to put up with all the time.'”

Speaking of whom: The site for Cory Doctorow’s 2012 novel Pirate Radio, which I have not read, makes it sound intriguing. “When Trent McCauley’s obsession for making movies by reassembling footage from popular films causes his home s internet to be cut off, it nearly destroys his family. Shamed, Trent runs away to London. A new bill threatens to criminalize even harmless internet creativity. Things look bad, but the powers-that-be haven’t entirely reckoned with the power of a gripping movie to change people’s minds…”

A sensible Internet policy platform.

Author Scott Lynch responds to a critic of the character Zamira Drakasha, a black woman pirate in his fantasy book Red Seas Under Red Skies, the second novel of the Gentleman Bastard series.

Democracy ruled under the Jolly Roger?
***
We’re talking baseball here: At the All-Star break, the St. Louis Cardinals were 57-36, .613. The Pittsburgh PIRATES were 56-37, .602. Since then, these two teams, plus the Cincinnati Reds have continued to be in a heated pennant race. One of the teams will win the National League Central Division, and almost certainly, the other two will play a one-game playoff. The Pirates, who had not had a winning season since 1992, got to 81 wins, then had a four-game losing streak, before winning #82 last week, breaking that terrible string. I’m rooting for them. How could I not?

The FBI is sending me money!

This sounds pretty authentic. Odd numbering, bad punctuation, and everything.

Like too many of us, I get a lot of junk e-mail. Fortunately, most of it goes into my spam folder. A recent one came from the “Anti-Terrorist And Monetary Crimes Division” of the FBI, but signed by Mr. Robert Mueller, the director, informing me that they have “have completed an investigation on an International Payment in which was issued to you by an International Lottery Company. With the help of our newly developed technology (International Monitoring Network System)” – WOW! – “we discovered that your e-mail address was automatically selected by an Online Balloting System, this has legally won you the sum of $2.4million USD from a Lottery Company outside the United States of America.”

Yay, I’m practically rich!

“You will be required to settle the following bills directly to the Lottery Agent in charge of this transaction who is located in Cotonou, Benin Republic. According to our discoveries, you were required to pay for the following,
(1) Deposit Fee’s ( IMF INTERNATIONAL CLEARANCE CERTIFICATE )
(3) Shipping Fee’s ( This is the charge for shipping the Cashier’s Check to your home address)
The total amount for everything is $96.00 We have tried our possible best to indicate that this $96.00 should be deducted from your winning prize but we found out that the funds have already been deposited IMF and cannot be accessed by anyone apart from you the winner, therefore you will be required to pay the required fee’s.”

This sounds pretty authentic. Odd numbering, bad punctuation, and everything.

Seriously, usually, I ignore these things, but in this case, I thought I ought to report it to the REAL FBI, in case someone else is foolish naive enough to believe this rubbish. Surprisingly the FBI doesn’t seem to have an e-mail address in Estonia. I went to the FBI website and reported this scam to The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the FBI “and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), funded in part by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).” I dutifully filled on the form, then submitted it. Or tried. It took me FOUR times to send it because the word verification was so tricky – it’s really difficult to tell the difference between m and rn, for instance, when any given letter has TWO colors.

So when I got a SECOND, totally different message from the FBI in Atlanta (Japanese e-mail), I didn’t bother reporting it. Ya got to make it easier, FBI.
***
My URL shows up in Dustbury’s spam. Oy.

 

Fixing the Internet, episode 1057

In the course of my job, I’m on the Internet. A LOT. And invariably, I find items that are incorrect. Whether I bother to correct them depends on whether I think it’s substantial enough that someone else might assume it’s correct and restate it as fact.

I’ve only fixed two things on Wikipedia, as far as I can recall. One, which I did with Steve Bissette, was a major overhaul of the FantaCo post; still imperfect. The other was back in 2006 when someone indicated that the next Presidential campaign was in 2007, rather than 2008. But I do not find the need to add something insubstantial; e.g., another advertisement that made use of a cover of the Kinks’ All Day and All of the Night.

I’m listening to my favorite music podcast, Coverville. Episode #894 is an all-request show. The second song is listed as She’s All Liquored Up by Dash Rip Rock, a cover of the Mojo Nixon original [listen]; I’m not familiar with either version. But the song sounds very much like Dizzy Miss Lizzy, the old Larry Williams song covered by the Beatles [listen], which appeared on Beatles VI, the very first LP I owned, as well as the UK Help! album. Now, I’m not positive, because songs do get adapted and changed.

As it turns out Amazon lists the samples for the Tiger Town album by Dash Rip Rock, at least for tracks 5-9, one song off:
5. says True Drunk Love, IS Fallin’ Apart
6. says Shine A Light, IS True Drunk Love
7. says Dizzy Miss Lizzy, IS Shine A Light
8. says All Liquored Up, IS Dizzy Miss Lizzy
9. says Livin’ Breathin’, IS All Liquored Up

The sorta good fortune is that the error created an unintentional Beatles-related medley:
Gimme Some Truth by Sam Phillips (orig. John Lennon)
Dizzy Miss Lizzie by Dash Rip Rock (orig. Larry Williams, made famous by the Beatles)
Revolution by Grandaddy (orig. Beatles)

Host Brian Ibbott noted the error, and mentioned me, at about the 18-minute mark of the next show, Episode #895 featuring Van Morrison. He also mocked Amazon’s spelling of Martha Reeves’ name (as Reeeves) on this item, from which he culled a song for the show.

I’m trying to get Amazon to rectify these problems. Fixing the Internet: a full-time task.

Example #74 of why the Internet is weird: Samantha Brick

nt Laura Logan, assuming – ASSUMING – that she was merely hired for her looks.

Shortly before I went on vacation, or holiday, if you prefer, last month, there was this great Internet kerfuffle about this 41-year-old writer named Samantha Brick, who graced the Daily Mail [UK] with a long article about, according to this assessment, “the advantages of her great pulchritude (lots of attention from men, who only have to drive past her in their cars to be overcome with the need to purchase a gift for her) and the disadvantages (unerring hatred from all women, who are jealous of the threat Brick’s very existence poses to their own relationships with said men).”

She took a lot of heat for this from literally, all over the world, including some people who suggested she wasn’t “all that” physically, in that nasty way the Internet can be. I probably would ignore it except for this subsequent article from Salon, which noted that “the backlash to the backlash kicked in.” Too much piling on; enough is enough. She was compared with performer Rebecca Black, noted for the oft-watched, oft-loathed song Friday.

I’m less interested in Samantha Brick (or Rebecca Black, for that matter) than with the notion that women, particularly attractive ones in the workplace, may not be taken seriously, with the assumption that they are gliding by on their physical features. I still recall a prominent newspaper editor make a disparaging remark about CBS News correspondent Laura Logan, assuming – ASSUMING – that she was merely hired for her looks when she in fact had been working in war zones. Brick’s point, if better presented, might have actually been a teachable moment.

Instead, as we’ve seen so often before, we recognize that there seem to be no boundaries as to what people seem to have been given permission online. 

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