is a program deeply loved by those with whom I roll.
My introduction to the Bluths was scattershot. The first episode I saw was the one where the giant guy flies the handicapped uncle-type guy around. The in-joking and the absurdity were smug and off-putting, and though I now recognize them as elements of brilliance, first impressions are enduring.
The entire. ever. lovin. series. is just one long joke, which is a premise claiming predecessors as notable as One Hundred Years of Solitude, Catch 22, and The Infinite Jest. The doilies and wondrously interconnected celebrations of shock and awe from nothingness dig right in to the heart of Humor, and damn this show is funny. And what an experiment to perform on televised media! This is as "forward-thinking" or "experimental" as network television will ever get.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
RETURNS
Posts I owe THE BLOGOSPHERE:
Arrested Development
Deadwood
Grey's Anatomy
These, though worthy of great discussion, do not comprise my mission today. Nay, my purpose runs deeper, like a torrential underground chasm, or a cosmic tsunami wrecking house in the fifth dimension. A mystery, whispering odd vibrations and anxieties to the body in idle moments.
I went back to Azeroth.
For you noobs who don't know what that means, it means that after a year-long struggle with addiction and two and a half years clean, I took a taste of the virtual crack some deign to call the WORLD OF WARCRAFT, to see what it would do me.
The game is still the game. Quest-lines and story-boarding have been streamlined; there's less pointless running around and time wasted in travel; you can mount up at level 30; the new content is varied, fun, and challenging. New world areas are incredibly tightly designed. Most importantly, the continued refinement and balance of different character classes has created even better tools which grant users extensive control in interacting with the virtual world, which means more freedom and creativity. Blizzard has really learned as they've gone, not to mention the whole venture takes on a new sort of meaning when ELEVEN AND A HALF MILLION people are paying monthly to play the game.
Basically, you get to pretend you're living Lord of the Rings. You work for power and stature in this impossibly huge virtual world with its own living economy. You efficiently manage a set of abilities to slay evil and to achieve goals set before you by the game's writers, whether epic (get twenty-four of your friends into a group and slay the lich king!) or trivial (go pick some flowers for me!). You combat other players for loot and glory. You can spend hours not moving and fishing. Watching a bobber on the ocean, and clicking on it to pull in the fish. Literally.
I'm endlessly captivated. It's funny, the addictive element hasn't really surfaced, probably because I have honest-to-god responsibilities and sustaining commitments in my life, as opposed to times past, and the pull to "win" the game, to get all of the best gear and kill the hardest bosses, has lessened in the face of perspective.
The bottom line for me is this: we have language and tools to create simulacra of the world. It's like TV, except you're IN it. It's part creationary--your avatar is not you, you get to define the terms of the character as well as its actions--but it also incorporates that strange and life-like element of risk, in which you don't know exactly what repercussions your actions will have and you can see, in patterns rising from the foundational elements of the "game," the potential to build something.
Arrested Development
Deadwood
Grey's Anatomy
These, though worthy of great discussion, do not comprise my mission today. Nay, my purpose runs deeper, like a torrential underground chasm, or a cosmic tsunami wrecking house in the fifth dimension. A mystery, whispering odd vibrations and anxieties to the body in idle moments.
I went back to Azeroth.
For you noobs who don't know what that means, it means that after a year-long struggle with addiction and two and a half years clean, I took a taste of the virtual crack some deign to call the WORLD OF WARCRAFT, to see what it would do me.
The game is still the game. Quest-lines and story-boarding have been streamlined; there's less pointless running around and time wasted in travel; you can mount up at level 30; the new content is varied, fun, and challenging. New world areas are incredibly tightly designed. Most importantly, the continued refinement and balance of different character classes has created even better tools which grant users extensive control in interacting with the virtual world, which means more freedom and creativity. Blizzard has really learned as they've gone, not to mention the whole venture takes on a new sort of meaning when ELEVEN AND A HALF MILLION people are paying monthly to play the game.
Basically, you get to pretend you're living Lord of the Rings. You work for power and stature in this impossibly huge virtual world with its own living economy. You efficiently manage a set of abilities to slay evil and to achieve goals set before you by the game's writers, whether epic (get twenty-four of your friends into a group and slay the lich king!) or trivial (go pick some flowers for me!). You combat other players for loot and glory. You can spend hours not moving and fishing. Watching a bobber on the ocean, and clicking on it to pull in the fish. Literally.
I'm endlessly captivated. It's funny, the addictive element hasn't really surfaced, probably because I have honest-to-god responsibilities and sustaining commitments in my life, as opposed to times past, and the pull to "win" the game, to get all of the best gear and kill the hardest bosses, has lessened in the face of perspective.
The bottom line for me is this: we have language and tools to create simulacra of the world. It's like TV, except you're IN it. It's part creationary--your avatar is not you, you get to define the terms of the character as well as its actions--but it also incorporates that strange and life-like element of risk, in which you don't know exactly what repercussions your actions will have and you can see, in patterns rising from the foundational elements of the "game," the potential to build something.
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