Now, see, if they’d done this (warning: QuickTime ahead) in Footloose, Kevin Bacon wouldn’t have been so darned rebellious. Free State High School, in Lawrence, Kansas, has apparently been having a problem with “provocative” dancing. So they made a video to show students what sorts of things weren’t permissible. The dancer in the video, as it happens, is the school mascot in full costume.
Month: September 2003
Arref and Ginger are talking about “sticky PCs” today — characters who really touch and affect other PCs by their very nature. It’s an excellent concept, and one I’ve used without having a good name for it for a while. In gaming, the easiest way for a PC to get screen time is to draw out the other PCs.
“Tell me your story — it sounds interesting.” The key is to enable screen time for other people, and get your screen time from the reflection, rather than trying to draw others into your story. Popular characters are those who facilitate someone else’s roleplay. The dynamic is most visible in large-cast games, like LARPs and MUDs, but I think it applies even in smaller face to face groups.
California Indian tribes have donated $6.7 million to various recall candidates this year. Most of that’s gone to Bustamante (and he’s had to return most of them). Schwarzenegger has reacted with attack ads directed at the tribal gaming lobby; deeply ironic, considering his anti-immigration stance. Then again, he’s not really anti-immigration; he’s pro European males. It’s ok to immigrate illegally if you’re him.
Speaking of Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson has caused a Quicksilver wiki to be generated. Clever man.
Earlier tonight, while I was sitting around enjoying an evening of daring adventure, we heard a huge cheer from across the Boston rooftops. Brant’s place is not far from Fenway, so it was pretty clear what was going on. About fifteen minutes later, there was another cheer — this one even bigger, and longer, and more passionate.
It was a three run homer in the bottom of the ninth, and a homer in the tenth. The reporters are calling it the comeback victory of the year. I knew, from the sound and timbre of the crowd, that it must have been something of the sort. From the time I heard the second cheer to the time I got home and read the news, I had the warm glow of satisfaction that comes from knowing the Red Sox did something spectacular. And now, I’m just happy that the sounds of cheering from across the Boston rooftops told me what was going on.
It’s a good time to live in Boston. I’m glad I’m back.
Somewhat later than I would like, it’s time for another Monday Mashup. I was forcibly restrained from doing Finnegan’s Wake. People have no sense of fun.
So instead I’ll do something classic. Dukes of Hazzard.
It’s a fun-loving family who’s continually plagued by incompetent venal lawmen for no good reason — kind of an updated Robin Hood, in a way, but without the political aspect. There are lots of car chases, which are close to any gamer’s heart. Have at it, and damned be him who first cries “Hold, enough!” (Couldn’t figure out how to mash Macbeth, but maybe next week.)
Quicksilver is so damned big. My god, it’s big. It’s 900 pages, and it’s really really big, and it’s the first volume of three.
And it’s Neal Stephenson, so you know it’s going to be even more wordy than that.
I’m about halfway through, thanks to an early shipment to a bookstore which will remain nameless. The book’s divided into thirds, more or less. The first third is Daniel Waterhouse’s story, which can in no way be considered to have a plot. Halfway through the second third, one character mentions the picaresque genre, in which a random character wanders through an interesting landscape without direction. That would be the first third of the book. Just to put a cherry on top of it, the story opens quite late in Waterhouse’s life, and then proceeds to tell us all about his earlier history in flashback. So no tension, unless you count the pirates.
Fortunately, the second third has characters who are actually going somewhere and experiencing difficulties getting there. I have hopes for the third portion. I note with some interest that all the characters mentioned on the bookflap are from the first two sections. I’m wondering if anyone has actually gotten to the third bit.
I’m also enjoying the hell out of the monster, of course. Stephenson is nothing if not informative, and the book is a prime example of what transfictionalism might have been if it had been invented centuries ago; it’s geek SF, just like Cryptonomicon, except that the geeks are seventeenth century mathematicians and alchemists. It’s utterly delightful. I love it.
Just it’s a good thing that I’ve already come to terms with the knowledge that Stephenson is not wedded to traditional narrative structures.
Busy day, but I take time to note the following additions to the list of VeriSign referrals:
bareinnocence.net
innocencetop.com
Underworld did very impressive numbers at the box office this weekend, bringing in $22 million. That’s about a million bucks under what it cost to make it, which means it’s going to be a solid moneymaker. Expect Underworld 2 sometime in the next couple of years.
Bravo finished showing the first season of The West Wing, which seems like as good a time as any to talk about it.
I’m gonna keep watching, and I might even buy the DVD set. When you get right down to it, Aaron Sorkin knows how to write really good dialogue, and he knows how to pluck the heartstrings. The closing moments of "In Excelsis Deo" are really drop dead beautiful and touching. I care about the characters, too.
On the other hand, in some ways I almost feel like Sorkin cares too much about these guys. The staffers have their flaws, so that’s OK, but Bartlet is just too perfect for my tastes. He always knows what’s going on in everyone’s life, he’s fatherly, he cares, and he’s incredibly smart. The one big flaw Bartlet has during the first season is letting politics get in the way of his ideals, and he conquers that before the season’s done.
Sorkin knows Bartlet needs problems, so he gives him one, but it’s an external issue — an affliction that is in no way Barlet’s fault. Thus, he gets his dramatic tension and eats it too, as it were.
Fortunately, I’ve got House of Cards to sate my desire for a little more cynicism in my political theater. It’s a nasty, nasty piece of satire starring Ian Richardson as Tory MP Francis Urquhart, Chief Whip of the House of Commons. (Random BBC connection of the week: Susannah Harker, who played Dr. March in Ultraviolet, co-stars as a young political reporter.)
I started out being amused by Urquhart’s nasty little intrigues and his asides to the camera, but by the last episode of the first miniseries, I was horrified. Excellent management of mood.