On Mediocrity.

"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was."
-Joseph Heller, Catch-22.

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Last night I watched Tevye dance and sing.

I envied him, despite the fact that he has to deal with

things I would not wish to deal with:

poverty

pogroms

and daughters who do not respect tradition.

I wondered:

Where am I in all this? 

Pololū Valley

     On January first 2011 my traveling companions (most of them family) and I took a road trip and then a hike down into a tropical valley on the north-east side of Hawaii. This valley, called Pololū, is one of several that descends from the big island's oldest volcano, Kohala. Due to its age and long inactivity, Kohala is home to an impressive rain forest and was also a home to native Hawaiians from nearly the earliest time that Polynesians arrived on them. The series of valleys are each basically storm drains for the rain forest that dominates the mountain; this makes them ideal for agricultural and static communities due to the constant inflow of freshwater and easy access to the ocean. This place is truly dominated by its own history and culture, but possesses relatively few of the part and parcel that are commonly associated by those two things. I felt like I'd wandered into a valley of forgotten gods. Undeniably human, but decidedly distinct.

  

    The hike down into the valley was short and steep, covering about five-hundred feet of elevation over around one-half of a mile. The trail itself is not so much a trail anymore as it it a poorly maintained creek-bed; the frequent rains seems to favor being able to lazily zig-zag their way down into the valley rather than having to tumble straight down as in the days of old. 

Another look into the valley. The mouth of its southern neighbor can be seen as well.

Looking back up a typical section of the trail.

When I die I hope to find myself on familiar paths.

Pine trees grow alongside other tropical plants at the bottom of the valley. 

The pines are referred to commonly as "ironwood pines"

     The presence of pine trees at the bottom of this tropical valley struck me as somewhat odd. Even this tropical variety usually only grows at higher elevations were they are less opposed by the warm-climate-sensitive tropical plants. Just where the hell was I?

 The ocean and the lagoon are only separated by a few feet of beach

    The sand itself is black and very fine, it holds like ash and in a way that's exactly what it is.

The lagoon water is brackish (a mixture of saltwater and freshwater), but had a surprisingly high freshwater content considering its close proximity to the sea. 

Along the beach we encountered shrines constructed out of the lava rock.  

What ancient gods are worshiped here?  

I constructed one such shrine at the foot of a hill on the south side of the lagoon. I took a pumice stone off the beach when I was done. 

My mother warned me that taking things from the beach would lead to misfortune. I laughed and told her that the gods living in this valley were not so materialistic. 

  Those that are especially sensitive to its calls may come to live in the valley for a time and dance with the gods in the night.

Of those that come, a few will be able to hear the music of the gods. They will dance until their ears are burnt of all other sounds. They are the mortal shaman of these ancient forces. After many years they will forget the tongues of their births. We might call this enlightenment, although they would not.  

     I saw a few of these souls watching me from the hills. Others slept, but a few were going about the labors that their mortality necessitated with chilling efficiency and all the concern of men that were already dead. I dared not photograph them. 

     One of the younger shaman spoke a few haunting words to me, revealing what kind of tree would one day grow over my grave. I said nothing, and he said no more. 

     I hope one day to return to Pololū, although not for some time. 

Paprika image-blog

While I really enjoyed the general storyline and themes of Paprika, I couldn't help but pick out several of what I saw as references to other styles, directors and even specific examples of animation within the film. (this being from the same writer/director of Millennium Actress, which I saw as an animated mash-up of various film styles/genres) With that being said I thought I'd make this final blog primarily an image blog in order to try and point out the similarities I saw, and also just to try something I haven't really done. I wasn't always able to find ideal images to use, but I think they work alright

here goes 

    

I saw an eerie resemblance between the chairman from Paprika and Kim from Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Both characters creeped me out. 

   

 The Chairman's "nightmare form" also reminded me of the Night Walker from Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke

  

In fact, most of Kon's "spirits" (if you will) just kind of generally reminded me of Miyazaki's 

(a lot of the early parade-dream sequences are silly and nonsensical, possibly a reference to the goof-ball Saturday morning cartoons of many a child-hood) 

  

In a less specific context, Tokita's robot transformation may very well be a reference to the mecha sub-genre of anime 

Disney. 

Your guess is as good as mine on this one. why butterflies? 

There are probably more that I missed. 

I see this as, among other things, the film equivalent to literature's mash-up. I think it's pretty interesting to see what new ideas emerge from combing things in new ways; although in regards to this also being a commentary on how different styles interact I am admittedly a bit lost.

also, what do we make of the concept of the "alter-ego" presented in this film. are we really that separate in our dreams?  

ghost in the shell blog for 313

I’m in trouble now –after reading part (I’m working on it) of the manga for Akira, and realizing how much insight I gained from it, and then to not have that with Ghost in the Shell definitely makes me want to read the manga versions of all of these films.


I do not have time.


Anyway, it probably goes without saying that I have several questions left over after watching the film, here goes.


Something called a “ghost” is mentioned multiple times throughout the film (a major theme really) but I am unclear as to what one is. My best guess is that it is one’s persona within the net, an avatar of sorts. This concept is muddled, however, by adding the idea of a soul, something that is also mentioned and quantifiable apparently. (characters discuss whether a cyborg has a soul in a way that seems to be decidable by logical procession… although they do not seem to reach a conclusion.) Is this the same thing as a ghost –something that all cyber-constructs seem to possess-- and is the net also an afterlife of sorts? Or is there a distinction between a soul and a ghost. I feel like it is worth noting that it is not debated whether or not non-augmented humans have a soul, although it seems implied that they do not have ghosts.


Next, don’ t cyborgs know their own strength?

Great time to try and be a human Motoko, that's going to leave a mark.

And finally, as an open question, any thoughts on the puppet master’s arguments for machines as life forms? I personally don’t even know where to start with this one, but I think it might be worth coming back to for the paper. His (its) arguments about DNA being a memory-machine seem pretty sound to me.


Anyway, a few other thoughts,


Motoko seemed incredibly similar to the character of Molly from W. Gibson’s Neuromancer and Napier also definitely hints at this. Her unblinking eyes are basically an equivalent to Molly’s surgically attached lenses that cover her eyes. It seems to me that when creating any kick-ass female assassin characters in cyberpunk settings, Gibson definitely deserves a nod. Pair that up with P.K. Dicks “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and I think you’ve got the better part of the inspiration for this film nailed down. (Pris’ s existential crisis + Molly’s deadliness – sex = Motoko, imo).

Sorry cowboy, looks like the future belongs to the girls.

Something that really stood out to me in this film was the scene showing cuts of the city from the perspective of the canals.

somewhere around here...

I was stuck by the bobbing of the boats on the water, creating the illusion of breathing bodies, alongside the images of the mannequins in the storefronts. I feel like there’s a huge message here, especially if we think of ships in their rather classical metaphorical status, as vessels made to contain and protect souls. There are places we just cannot go without ships. In a sense, the vessels (the shell) is the true life form in such a harsh technological time, and the human within it is merely a puppet to be posed or disposed of.

untitled.

The first assignment for 351. one of the first times I've written (obviously a very short piece) a main female character. on the whole, it's pretty cliche.

She hadn’t been afraid her whole life, but at the same time, her fear had no distinguishable point of origin. In a sense, she had been afraid for as long as she could remember. This fear was certainly intangible; although even to call it irrational would seem to be an overstatement. There was no reason for her fear to exist, so in way, there was no reason for it to cease to exist either. Whenever she was alone in the house at night she found herself routinely opening every door, turning on every light, and then methodically locking down the whole house room by room to be sure it was empty. She never really knew what she was looking for, but looking for it was the only thing that could even partially quell the entirety of the fear, that of it finding her first. What made it infinitely worse was that she could never ask anyone for help. The great wisdom of human logic: “it isn’t real” was of no use to her. It was incredibly real in the way only fear can become real; completely confined to the limits of an individual. For hours at a time it would consume her waking mind; fighting herself, fighting it, and never being able to tell the difference. In the end, her war died with a breeze through her window in the middle of the night. She woke up and knew that it was as close as it had ever been, but she also knew that it was as close as it could get. She hadn’t defeated or destroyed her fear but had instead harnessed it. A strange energy to be put to whatever use she saw fit.

an early take on augmented realities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6yantixZ5c&ob=av3e

Apparently I cannot embed this video, but watch it anyway. I could say that any video in itself is an augmented reality, but Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett have, I feel, taken this idea to a different level. The organization of the visual aspect of their music calls up an interesting question; how do you work a musical group based on cartoon characters, but then make that group rely heavily on the contributions of guest (real) musicians? This is not the first time that the Gorrilaz have tackled this problem, but what is interesting about this particular video as an augmented reality is the interaction between creation and creator. In this case Shaun Ryder, who collaborated on the song with Albarn and Hewlett, has been given the role of "soundsystem" to the Gorillaz. The metaphor is not incredibly complicated; the relationship of artist and art is not one of a god lording over his subjects, but more of a dynamic of push and pull. True, without Albarn and Hewlett the Gorrilaz would not exist, but without the Gorillaz, who would Albarn and Hewlett be? Speculation is pointless, what I am trying to get at is that this relationship has evolved to become something that neither party can easily be separated from, if at all. But there is also a third part of this dynamic, the audience. What is transferred to us from this interaction? A message maybe, or perhaps stimulation on some level, certainly not code-able to words, but necessary none the less. We get a unique opportunity to shape, on some level, where the creative flow will take the artist and her art, but we ourselves cannot render what she can. Still; it is not the artist that gives us what we need, she only gives her creation what it initially needs, then the transfer takes place.

This relationship is all very parasitic of course. It took me a long time to get a handle on what Serres refers to as "noise", "static" or "interruption". Now I think I will simply call these things the audience.