Monday, May 28, 2012
Great Mad Men episode...or the greatest Mad Men episode?
Aw man...usually, I can identify parts of an episode that I liked better than others; not so tonight--nothing out of place, and not a moment wasted. A fucking triumph.
SPOILER AFTER JUMP
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SPOILER AFTER JUMP
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Sunday, May 27, 2012
"Are you the creator of Hi and Lois? Because you are making me puke."
Am I overstating things by describing today's comic as "quasi-fascist?"
Well, maybe--but you have to admit, that bit with everyone saluting the flag is creepy as fuck. Not that this hasn't been hashed out jillions of times before, but while there's something to be said for a solemn occasion memorializing the fallen, reminding us of the price of war, that's just not something that fits into our culture. Fuck that noise--we're not gonna remind ourselves of shit. Sixty-three percent of Americans support starting a war with Iran. We're fundamentally bloodthirsty, and we don't want some Debbie Downer telling us that there's a downside to that. We enjoy, in a pornographic way, getting all teary-eyed patriotic and noble and dulce-et-decorum-est-pro-patria-mori, but only as long as it remains all theater. We certainly don't want to engage with the issue in any serious way. It's why Memorial Day now seems to be more about veterans than about fallen soldiers; it's also why Armistice Day became Veterans Day. Who wants to think about consequences? Note that the Flagstons aren't "saluting the fallen heroes."
So instead of any real engagement, we get crud like this, mindlessly lionizing soldiers without for a moment thinking about the underlying issues here. This serves the malignant dual purposes of A) drowning out anti-war sentiment in bullying fashion ("you support the troops, don't you? Don't you?"); and B) actually hurting veterans by making them into a fetish object and letting us feel good about ourselves while ignoring their real needs and never for a moment considering whether making more of them might not be a kinda bad idea. Today's Doonesbury is a good counterpoint--and I'm actually sort of amazed Trudeau can get away with talking so bluntly about these things in the comics page--but it's all for naught. We don't care about that! C'mon! Big sale at wal-mart!
Well, maybe--but you have to admit, that bit with everyone saluting the flag is creepy as fuck. Not that this hasn't been hashed out jillions of times before, but while there's something to be said for a solemn occasion memorializing the fallen, reminding us of the price of war, that's just not something that fits into our culture. Fuck that noise--we're not gonna remind ourselves of shit. Sixty-three percent of Americans support starting a war with Iran. We're fundamentally bloodthirsty, and we don't want some Debbie Downer telling us that there's a downside to that. We enjoy, in a pornographic way, getting all teary-eyed patriotic and noble and dulce-et-decorum-est-pro-patria-mori, but only as long as it remains all theater. We certainly don't want to engage with the issue in any serious way. It's why Memorial Day now seems to be more about veterans than about fallen soldiers; it's also why Armistice Day became Veterans Day. Who wants to think about consequences? Note that the Flagstons aren't "saluting the fallen heroes."
So instead of any real engagement, we get crud like this, mindlessly lionizing soldiers without for a moment thinking about the underlying issues here. This serves the malignant dual purposes of A) drowning out anti-war sentiment in bullying fashion ("you support the troops, don't you? Don't you?"); and B) actually hurting veterans by making them into a fetish object and letting us feel good about ourselves while ignoring their real needs and never for a moment considering whether making more of them might not be a kinda bad idea. Today's Doonesbury is a good counterpoint--and I'm actually sort of amazed Trudeau can get away with talking so bluntly about these things in the comics page--but it's all for naught. We don't care about that! C'mon! Big sale at wal-mart!
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Miscellaneous Chick Tract Bullshit
Am I just noticing things I haven't in the past, or is this new Chick tract even weirder than usual?
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Thursday, May 10, 2012
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
RIP Maurice Sendak
As far as children's literature goes, I would not hesitate to place Sendak on the same level as Dr. Seuss and Carl Barks. I grew up with a lot of his books, and looking down his wikipedia page, I was actually surprised to find how many others that I'd read or had read to me he'd done the art for. A truly great artist. He wrote Where the Wild Things Are when he was thirty-two. What have I done that's so great lately? And he wasn't just a great artist, either. I heard this interview he did with Bill Moyers when it first aired, and I was just blown away by how wise and good he was. You look at someone like him and you think, oh yeah--so this is how it can be. People like this provide a justification for human existence.
And then you remember how horribly diseased our political culture is, and you get depressed. But for one shining moment it seemed like humanity could be redeemed and maybe, some wildly, implausibly utopian part of my mind says, still can be.
And then you remember how horribly diseased our political culture is, and you get depressed. But for one shining moment it seemed like humanity could be redeemed and maybe, some wildly, implausibly utopian part of my mind says, still can be.
Friday, May 04, 2012
Levels Five, Six, & Seven
Ready for the final installment, people? You can tell easily enough that I was running out of steam by the fact that level six is a gimmick (almost certainly inspired by the part in Final Fantasy Legend II where you have to go inside Ki's body), and level seven is tragically unfinished. It's the fuckin' Mystery of Edwin Drood of the series.
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Thursday, May 03, 2012
Levels Three & Four
Had time to absorb the first two? Well, have you? There WILL be a test, you know.
The main thing I remember is that I realized that I was going to burn out if I continued with the precedent set by level two of compulsively filling in every bit of the paper with ever-more-intricate corridors, so I scaled back a bit.
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The main thing I remember is that I realized that I was going to burn out if I continued with the precedent set by level two of compulsively filling in every bit of the paper with ever-more-intricate corridors, so I scaled back a bit.
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Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Levels One & Two
Wanna see some MORE maps I made when I was small? I was probably eleven or twelve when I made these. They were vaguely conceived as video game levels, though as you'll see, at different points it appears that they would be both top-down and side-scrolling. I would like it known that I had the idea for what a third-person exploration game would look like well before such a thing became a reality. Lotta good that does me!
Theoretically, it is possible for the little guy to get from start to finish in each of these. I wouldn't think about it too hard, though. There are more than a few of them and they're kinda big, so I'll stick 'em in multiple posts, after a jump.
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Theoretically, it is possible for the little guy to get from start to finish in each of these. I wouldn't think about it too hard, though. There are more than a few of them and they're kinda big, so I'll stick 'em in multiple posts, after a jump.
Read more »