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Sci-Fi is the Rodney Dangerfield of the book world

a completely sci-fi idea: the FT (FemaleType) robot

I just encountered an interesting article (that has absolutely nothing to do with robots) by Clive Thompson on WIRED. He says: “If you want to read books that tackle profound philosophical questions, then the best — and perhaps only — place to turn these days is sci-fi. Science fiction is the last great literature of ideas.” I completely agree…and that’s probably why I’m such a huge fan of science fiction. It’s all about the ideas.

He also asks: “So, then, why does sci-fi, the inheritor of this intellectual tradition, get short shrift among serious adult readers?” …and that is a question I’ve thought about many times. (Mostly when I recommend some type of sci-fi story to a friend and they act like I just asked them to eat their own poop. The only thing I’ve encountered that gets less respect than science fiction is comic books. And sci-fi comics? I keep those to myself…some of you just aren’t ready for things like Dreadstar. At least not until someone makes a movie. Anyway, I digress.) I’m sure the pulp adolescence of science fiction doesn’t help it’s credibility, but it seems like somebody might have noticed that sci-fi authors think. And the readers do too.

The evidence is right here: Sci-Fi Is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing

edit 1-29-08:

I just finished reading Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card and in the afterword he mentions the term “junbungaku“, which apparently means “pure literature or belles lettres“. He then goes on to say:

“I do not believe the tools of science fiction are any less suitable to the task of creating junbungaku than the tools of contemporary serious literature, though of course we who wield the tools may fail to use them to best advantage.”

I completely agree…and that’s probably why I believe that science fiction is as equally valid as contemporary serious literature. We just need more great minds wielding those sci-fi tools. And the best way for that to happen is to remove the stigma on science fiction.

Banksy print update

Some people have been searching for “banksy prints” to find my post about “free banksy prints” and I noticed that, in addition to the free stuff changing every so often, this message has popped up on the site: “Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti or mount exhibitions of screenprints in commercial galleries” Seems like good information to know if you’re interested in obtaining some of his work.

there’s also has some interesting new video in the Banksy film page.

OiNK is dead, R.I.P. OiNK

I have no words to describe how the death of OiNK makes me feel, so I will share what some others have said:

Paraphrased Wikipedia: Copyright agencies described Oink as an online pirate pre-release music club; former users described it as one of the world’s largest and most meticulously maintained online music repositories. There were around 180,000 members at the time of closure and all of their avatars had to be cute.

“If you’re not familiar with Oink, here’s a quick summary: Oink was was a free members-only site – to join it you had to be invited by a member. Members had access to an unprecedented community-driven database of music. Every album you could ever imagine was just one click away.”

[Read the rest on: When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, the Birth of Dissent, and a Brief History of Record Industry Suicide.]

…and it wasn’t just me:

What do you think about OiNK being shut down?

Trent Reznor: I’ll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world’s greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn’t the equivalent of that in the retail space right now. iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me. I don’t feel cool when I go there. I’m tired of seeing John Mayer’s face pop up. I feel like I’m being hustled when I visit there, and I don’t think their product is that great. DRM, low bit rate, etc. Amazon has potential, but none of them get around the issue of pre-release leaks. And that’s what’s such a difficult puzzle at the moment. If your favorite band in the world has a leaked record out, do you listen to it or do you not listen to it? People on those boards, they’re grateful for the person that uploaded it — they’re the hero. They’re not stealing it because they’re going to make money off of it; they’re stealing it because they love the band. I’m not saying that I think OiNK is morally correct, but I do know that it existed because it filled a void of what people want.

[the rest of the interview is on: Trent Reznor and Saul Williams Discuss Their New Collaboration, Mourn OiNK]

Disney cartoons, pretty girls, fair use and free culture?

How one Walt Disney Cartoon was made:

(Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs behind-the-scenes)

Here are a couple quotes from the documentary:
“…the thousands of pencil drawings go to the inking department. Here, hundreds of pretty girls…”
“The inked celluloids next go to the painting department where more pretty girls apply the final colors.”

Damn…Walt Disney was a bigger genius than I ever realized. Unfortunately, to some degree, we also have the Disney Company to thank for possibly being detrimental to cultural diversity. One can argue that a rich, continually replenished, public domain is necessary for continued artistic creation. Disney as we know it wouldn’t exist if the current copyright laws were in place years ago because many of Disney’s animated films are based on Nineteenth Century public domain works, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Pinocchio, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Alice in Wonderland, and The Jungle Book.

There has never been a time in history when more of our ‘culture’ was as ‘owned’ as it is now. And yet there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the uses of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as it is now. (pg. 28 of Free Culture)

Free Culture is a book about the social dimension of creativity: how creative work builds on the past and how society encourages or inhibits that building with laws and technologies.

get a digital copy of the book for free

 

And here’s a humorous, yet informative, review of copyright principles delivered through the words of the very folks we can thank for nearly endless copyright terms:

A Fair(y) Use Tale

the work that must have gone into this…woah.

Marry, Boff, or Kill?

My new work schedule doesn’t allow me much time for updates at the moment, so I thought I would share something that will help you pass the time between posts.

I first encountered this game on 30 Rock so I will mention their version first:

the 30 Rock game (and the original clip)

Watch the clip, but don’t expect much from the game. The choices are too limited and unfairly balanced…although it did seem like a calculated effort.

another version

This one distracted me for a while, but they really need to add more people. It created more groups of three that were tough decisions than any of the other games from the FMK wiki page.

Drugs: The Tripper, Shrooms and…Severance?

Severance | the Tripper | Shrooms

Psychedelic drugs already have a terrible reputation and it seems like the new trend for horror writers is to make it even worse. It’s bad enough that in some movies the characters hallucinate cartoon birds when they take cocaine, just to use one example. Unrealistic portrayal of drug-use is essentially lying and can only hurt society in the long run. The most dangerous drugs are already legal anyway, and demonizing the drugs that have the most potential to help the people of the world can’t possibly be a good thing. Maybe this is a new tactic in the war on drugs, but hopefully not…since the similarities with Prohibition and the futility of the drug war are apparent even to former narcs and police. (Sorry that I’ve gone a little link crazy with this post, but the topic has been a pet peeve of mine for quite some time now.)

(edit: this seemed too official to pass up-> Was Timothy Leary Right?)

 

Severance trailer

Severance starts out with a harmless enough drug trip, but the fact that horror-type things happen afterwards makes it almost like a Friday the 13th approach to sex…if you know what I mean. I liked the film overall and there was one scene (that they just about ruin in the trailer) involving Laura Harris (from season 2 of 24) with a shotgun that I thought was excellent, but a lot of the rest seemed like stuff I had seen before. The reviewers seem to like it a bit more than I did though: and why did they change the poster?

 

The Tripper trailer

Okay…I don’t know much about this one except the basic idea that “a Ronald Reagan-obsessed serial killer targets a bunch of hippies who are heading to a weekend-long concert”, but it seems to be continuing the thread I mentioned before. It’s David Arquette’s directorial debut though (and he supposedly did some “research” at Burning Man), so maybe the message won’t be totally counterproductive…and the fact that Jason Mewes is in it gives me even more hope.

 

Shrooms trailers (russian site)

I know even less about the movie Shrooms, but supposedly “a group of college students encounter tragedy while on hallucinogenic mushrooms” and with a premise like that it’s easy to imagine associations being made between tragedy and mushrooms (and if I’m sure of anything it’s that those two things should never go together.) The tagline, however, is “Get Ready to Get Wasted” and I have to admit…that’s pretty clever.

 

To continue the drug theme in this post I will leave you with something that I think is completely awesome: Kirsten Dunst believes the world would be a “better place” if more people smoked marijuana. I wish more people in prominent positions around the world had the guts to speak their minds when they disagree with the current system. I’ve already stated that cannabis is not my thing, but I think people should have the option if they want it. Besides…illegalizing nature just doesn’t even make sense.

a few updates

John Waters | Singer and McQuarrie | TMNT featurette

• I’m a big fan of John Waters, but not of the movies he makes. The only film of his that I’ve seen is Cecil B. Demented and, while I loved the premise, I felt that the movie did not live up to it’s potential. You might even say the story zig’d where I would have zag’d. In fact, I didn’t know he was the director when I saw the movie…I found out later when I watched a documentary on him. That documentary made me a fan. I really like what he’s about and what he was trying to do with his earlier films…even though they’re not really my thing (sidenote: cannabis is not my thing either and I don’t smoke it, but I wouldn’t want to live in a world where it didn’t exist…I don’t even like the fact that it’s illegal.) I will say this: John Waters is absolutely one of my favorite movie stars (he says that “a movie star is someone you want to either get drunk with or have sex with” and I’d love to get drunk with him) and I wish there were more people with such unique perspectives in the world. I like people that do their own thing and push the boundaries, so I think it’s delightful that he may soon be influencing young minds through film. This is what he had to say about the children’s movie he’s planning: “It’s a terribly wonderful children’s adventure called Fruitcake. It is a children’s film. One that I’ve been working on a long time, and I’m hoping to start shooting it in the fall. It’s a very special film, and it’s one that could appeal to children that are especially creative.” I can’t wait. And maybe I’ll get around to watching some of his other movies before this one comes out.

• Bryan Singer (X2, Superman Returns) and Christopher McQuarrie (Way of the Gun) are teaming up again for a multi-character ensemble piece set in World War II. The last time they worked together was The Usual Suspects, so you can guess how much I will be looking forward to this project. (edit 2: oh yeah…they’re saying that the next Superman movie will NOT be delayed because of this.)

• There’s a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles featurette with footage (heh) that isn’t in the trailers. It’s worth a watch and it touches on the individual personalities of each turtle.

James Gunn has a question

You might be thinking “who?”, but if you’ve seen Dawn of the Dead (the remake: 77% fresh), Slither (84% fresh) , or even Scooby Doo (I liked it: bite me.) then you know him through his writing. On his mySpace blog he asks a question…and since I was wondering the exact same thing I have copied it here:

This is James Gunn (words in the quotes are his)

…and he has “one question for you guys –

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

 

52 million for fucking GHOST RIDER? What are you thinking? Are you all 11 year old boys? Did you not see DAREDEVIL? With what’s going on at the box office lately, I’m going to have to start reading the Goddamn LEFT BEHIND series, because the apocalypse is most certainly coming soon.

 

 

Here’s the thing, guys. The critics don’t always get things right. But when the studios don’t screen a movie for critics – especially a big budget one with a major star – it’s a pretty sure sign the movie’s a piece of shit.”

 

back to my thoughts:
Daredevil (44% fresh) not only destroyed the core idea of the main character, but it also contained pointless, rip-off, unexplainable scenes and was genuinely one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Now why would I want to go see Ghost Rider (27% fresh) by the same director? Exactly…I wouldn’t.

…and if you people keep supporting the BAD FILMS the studios are going to keep making BAD FILMS because those are the ones making money. SMARTEN UP, PEOPLE…this is one you should have downloaded.

Toy Story Requiem

this is completely amazing:

Toy Story 2 + Requiem for a Dream