Watching Enchanted, 10:39pm. It's a real good movie. When a world icon like Disney can make fun of itself, and do it with a great picture, you've got something there, kid. The heroine right now is singing A Happy Working Song. Think Whistle While You Work, but more real.

We’ll keep singing without fail
Otherwise we’d spoil it
Hosing down the garbage pail
And scrubbing up the toilet
Ooh!

Disney should, however, fall back on its original feature animation style. Check out the animation in Snow White vs. Enchanted. Pay attention to the character animation. More on this after the videos.



Pigeons are not ok to kiss. . .



One wonders if rabies exists in these animated worlds. . .

The contemporary style found in Enchanted focuses on sharp and dynamic lines, turning the animation into something that looks sleek. And caricatured. One can definitely see the influence from Japanese animation--note the enlarged eyes and elongated features such as arms and legs, the neck, the sharp angle of the face's T-Line (a new vocabulary word I learned from watching women apply make-up. Long story). Whereas the older style looks like there were real actors filmed, and the animators drew over that film. This is called Rotoscopy party people.

In the past, one saw a very different relationship between cultures and animation. It was American animation, namely Disney animation, that influenced other nations. If one were to look at Disney's biography, a definite power emanated from the Disney studio while Walt was himself closely involved in the animation . As the studio became bigger, more staff, more ideas, more in-house rebellion against Walt Disney's vision of animation as art, animation married with realism, he became distant and lost control and thus the animation changed. Take a look at the vast differences between Snow White and the next few features: Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, a difference of only four years. I'd say, the Disney vision ended early, with Fantasia.

Irony: as Walt Disney became more successful and gained more power, Disney quality as Walt himself strived for, and subsequently Walt's power over animation, became something he could no longer control.

Sorcerer's Apprentice

Party People. Flash.

Hunger is a raw feeling. Whether it's hunger for sleep or food. People are obsessed with the pain, but, pain is only the surface. When comes that deeper sensation, pain is puny and shrinking away and then it's nothing. In its place is the devil.

Walking through this desert, I can't tell you on the calendar where I am. I can't tell you for how many days and nights. The number times the sun has slid across the sky, and the bowling moon. The clouds and stars both have bared witness to my walking. Forever.

Several times when the sun and moon are there there with me in the waste, I have contemplated eating sand. My stomach has stopped. My piss is gone. The sun and moon both say, "yes, you should."

The stars shout, "do it."

Sharp wind. I walk and my lips are chapped. I crest a dune. I descend. So many times.

When my neck turns, I hear the crackling of something brittle. All I see is the sand and the heat dancing with the air. The sound was my neck's skin falling away, now there is only flesh and muscle. Across my forehead is another small tear the wind fingers open. The wind grips a flap and pulls, rips and there it is my skin carried away and falling away behind me.

Sharper wind, my head lowers to shield my eyes and my skull is a white cap. A gust finds the groove of my skeleton and rides down my spine, a skin cape is sent off. The wider view of my back shows muscle ropes untying. Falling off in wires.

I look up for a moment and it stings, I raise my hand, I close my eyes. The last thing I saw was the skin around fingers fraying, shredding off. Sand has made it into my bones and every movement there is the grind of grit against gristle.

Like it has been unzipped, the skin along my arm parts in half. Then the stuff it held underneath is loosed. There is no feeling anymore, anywhere.

You can see my radius bone, ulna. The humerus, the long bone, my shoulder blade, both shoulder blades like rough plates. My arms are still raised and my hands are outstretched to hold the wind back but the wind gets through, through the spaces between my bones, into my bones, killing the marrow.

Small bit by small bit those bones in my wrist fly off and my hands go limp. I am blasted back and my legs stumble to keep balance while the whole of my front is ripped away and there is the rib cage, the heart beating behind it, the heart that tears away and joins everything else in the wind, still beating and tumbling into the bright void. I fall to the sand. The last thing I hear is the wind whistling through my bones.

Party People!!!!!!!

Quick premise of the flash story - it's done on the fly. No editing, no real preparation, just putting the skills on the spot and seeing if they can kick ass. My brain got steel toed boots. They better. . .

The Paper and the Ditch

He clenches his fist and he walks from the table to the kitchen window. Back to the table. Morning is cold and the steam from his tea cup is a long tendril. Looks like if he reaches for it he'll grab silk. Instead, he puts his hands down on the table, looks down at nothing.

The morning paper says they found the body in the ditch several miles from home. If he had a time machine, he would have stopped himself from saying anything at all. If he had a hand ax and a name, or even a picture of how that man looks like, he wouldn't be here in the kitchen walking back to the window, turning on the water without knowing why he was doing it. Maybe it would drown his crying. He falls to one knee.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

--Thomas Jefferson

So, here's the project:

The Tree of Liberty will be a linguistic and syntactical exploration of the quote above. I envision a piece of writing that breaks apart this assertion and discovers every possible meaning that can be decyphered from it in the English language. No punches held back. No hold barred.

All letters here will be used in each sentence, will have meaning and will maintain a logical and syntactical order to tell its story.

With my experience of projects of a similar nature, and influence of a Canadian writer named Christian Bok, the idea is to exhaust this particularly famous (and in some circles, infamous)statement of all meaning and present it as an unfolded piece of written fabric.

I plan on letting you all know how it is going here, in KnowMuch.

Peace, Party People. Be safe.

Party People,

His eyes were the struck sulphur, his eyelashes the thinnest matchsticks that never shortened no matter how long they were lit. When he smiled you saw the sharp dancing flame ends. Opened wider his mouth spread wild rumors with a tongue of blue. And his kiss which softly melted the skin his lips touched, left gentle scars.

As he breathed in stoking air and out propane festooned in bright orange, his chest expanded and came back like a backdraft. Flame shot out his nostrils and out his mouth. He walked leaving a trail of burnt earth the shape of his feet, and his footsteps in the grass smoking with embers shown the path of his stern and haunted pacing. Twisting all around him the air.

But what happened deeper beneath that pulsing torso, a heart set by an affair as all burning does, from some sweet word whispered in his ear, or bitter as "I'm leaving you" - the diction of combustion. Now he will set the world in his image, this man on fire, and let die what will caught in his conflagration, and let live what like the stars holding their position in the firmament without smoke for what seems like an eternity.

Thanks to the Kazuya-Akimoto Art Museum.

Peace and God Bless.

I don't like it unless it's brand new.
--Rhymefest

Party People! Long time no see! How are you? Anything new?

I guess it's as good a time as any to drop you a line. So many things have happened in the course of a one week period. 7 days. You're gracious host caught pink eye, a cold, was told that his cat was put to sleep and has an unyielding twitch in his eye that flares up when he's stressed. That twitch is great, it let's me know when I'm being stressed out.

Ok, that was a lie, or partially. My cat died a year ago. But I did catch pink eye. And I did catch a cold (which I killed expediently with many hot cups of Throat Coat tea). That twitch is there, but that's nothing new.

So, why am I telling you all this?

Well, let's play a little game.

Lies, All Lies

What lies do: deceive people into believing in a world that does not exist. Yes, we all know that. But where does it take us from there? Say, someone tells you that s/he love you, when s/he doesn't, can't, and you believe him/her. Then, the initial postulate is 's/he loves me.' Yes? Good. Lets ride the telescope now.



You now see the world from a foundation that includes 's/he loves me.' You look up to the sky, see with your own eyes that the sky is blue. The sky is indeed blue in a world where, 's/he loves me.' However, if 's/he loves me' is not true, then the world in which it exists is not true. Therefore, the sky is not blue in that world because there is no sky. Follow?

All interactions within a world that does not exist actually do not happen.

Now I hear you saying, "so what? S/He does not love me. In reality, even though I may be deceived, there is a real world, and in that world the sky is really blue." Here is where things explode, party people, because even though that statement may be true, you are not in that world, are you? I'm talking about you, your mind, your soul, your perception, your body. All that makes you you is grounded in that world where 's/he loves me'.

You are not in the real world where the sky is blue. Your are in the world where 's/he loves me' and the sky is blue. Therefore, you are not in the real world. Your are in a world that does not exist, therefore you do not exist. Get it?

So, what do lies do: they deceive people into believing that a world does not exist, they pull people into that non-existent world, therefore making these people non-existent themselves.



There are many people and groups of people out there who gain from lying to others, whether it be commercials showing happy people running down the beach, because they took a magic potion that makes them lose weight, or clears up their herpes. They are happy running down the beach. We laugh, "I guess everyone who has herpes are happy running down the beach." But, even in these areas, there are subtle lies inherent which makes these 'advertisements of the world' even more devious. Whether it be someone telling you s/he loves you and really doesn't, can't, for some reason or another.

The only way to truly exist, party people, is to be active in divesting ourselves of lies. Lies told by other people (who don't like to party, I guess), lies told by television, lies told by the radio. Any person or thing whose aim is to manipulate your reasoning and perception. At all cost we must remain steadfast in seeking out the truth in order to really be.

Here's a painting, not done by me, of someone lying to another.

Be safe, party people, and may God bless you.

Party People,

FS3's Read and Watch List continued:

Read

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
The Elephant Vanishes, Haruki Murakami
Catch 22, Joseph Heller (I haven't read this one yet, it's on my personal list just as it is on yours)
The People of Paper, Salvador Placencias (I've recommended this one before, but it begs repetition)

Watch

Fight Club
Divorzio Al'italiana
Detour
Being John Malkovich
The Good German

Burn After Reading

This past Sunday, my wife and I met my parents at the Empress Theatre in Vallejo, CA. My wife and I drove up, around 5:45 in the evening, when it was already dark, through the old neighborhood of Victorian Houses and alleyways. Who knows what they did there in the old mildewed basements and what smells came from the alleys. We were in the car, windows rolled up. You couldn't be too safe.

"Damnit, I told you we couldn't turn from this street. It's one way. Now we have to drive around."

"Just drive around."

I drove to the next street and circled around.

The Empress stood beautiful. No other place in this diminishing city has kept to its original mission of pushing non-discriminating art and culture to the people. Let them taste and savor every bit of it. Let the politics explode here and all the protests for Gay Marriage and Good Christian Values meet and see what happens. This mission.

Somehow its flashing marquee lights told me this.

They haven't strayed from the original design. Just looking up at the lights after we got out of the car and hearing the electric hum, feeling its rhythm as the red and yellow blinked in some fashion, like electricity trying to be fire, the original designer and architect were laughing at the hold they had on the nostalgic minds who renovated this place. Laughing maniacally - what other way could they laugh, they're old and dead?

The theatre first opened its doors on Valentine's day, 1912.

There was some confusion about whether my parents were already here. We bought our tickets. 2 for 1. This great American theatre automatically kicks any other theatre I've been too's ass because of this. What other theatre around here regularly gives out monthly discounts? Nose upturn to the financial woes of California. What crisis? California is burning, baby, lets have fun. Here's a free ticket.

That's what this theatre says. What else can you do but join the party, or be horribly, horribly shunned and shamed and made impotent from denying it. This party will go on without you.

The Empress Theatre. Run by two die hard people, Randy and Kitty. They've made it their mission to keep this theatre running after all that it has been through - a fire that burned the whole interior in the 1930's, the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, the slow sickness of neglect and a diminishing of Vallejo's Downtown - the Empress, this beautiful bitch, keeps her stiletto heel dug into the ground here and watches the seasons come an go. No man can move her. No bout of nature can topple her, but only blow up her dress and give her a little tickle. She laughs as the original architect and designer do - with insane glory as people fall around her dead.

And she continues to live.

It turned out my parents arrived after us and we went back out to meet them. Then I introduced them all to Randy and Kitty, the General Manager and Assistant Manager respectively. Randy seemed unsure of who I was. It didn't matter. I knew who they were. I damned well knew. Those good bastards who keep this theatre running. They looked tired.

We went into the theatre and my parents awed at the flourish of decor. A wave of gold colored plating curling from the screen to the back, across the ceiling, with a blue glow hinting at the majesty here. We climbed the stairs and we took our seats. In retrospect I wonder at what this place looked like during it's renovation before reopening this March.

No doubt whatever blights that existed here were done away with. The theatre was sexy now.



We watched the movie.

Then we went to eat at a Mexican restaurant called City Lights Cantina. The restaurant being just up the street, we walked. City Lights had the spirit of Old Downtown Vallejo, its square room, its wainscot ceiling, I thought it was made out of an old church. Where the bar stood now, once stood the altar, and the people feasting on their high stools, the chancel at the feet of the breaded Christ. But we soon found out it used to be a banquet hall, and before that the PG&E company.

The restaurant shares the same lovely snobbery as the Empress - that lack of fear and disregard of money. To the man of logic, this is no time to start a restaurant or renovate and re-open a theatre. We watch our cash falling to the floor and leprous hands stamping down on them, snatching them through the folds of a purple curtain. The City Lights Cantina, however, laughs at those sorry sons of bitches. It stands open to feed you while all other restaurants lose their nerve and shrink away. Fuck Starbucks. Let them lose their excess limbs until they have four left and remember what it means to be human.

Delightful Mexican food from City Lights. It tastes better when you know the food is clean.

So, we talked about the movie for a while. My mom thought that there should have been more people at the theatre. The movie was funny. I agreed. Funny. But more, you never saw a real political satire on screen in a long time. We talked more about the movie.

The food took a long while to come out. We speculated about that. Perhaps the bartender, who had by then disappeared, was also the cook. He was the one who took our orders too, served our drinks. I looked around at the people sitting at the high tables and in the booths having their separate, intimate conversations, enjoying their alcohol. They seemed to not notice. Everything was copacetic. I drank my water deliberately. That late at night, drinking soda would have sent my nerves to spark.

There's no excuse for addictive substances like caffeine that late at night when you don't plan on staying awake and listening for intruders in the dark. You think you hear voices and you want to go out and check. But what if they're breaking in and intend on raping you? Just you. Because that's their fetish.

They want to come in when everyone is asleep and abduct you, they're masters at it so they take you slowly from your bed and your wife doesn't wake. They have you and they take you to the front room where they have their way with you. Then they put you back. Quietly.

Checking on that sound will definitely alert you of their presence early if that were to really happen, you can prepare. But something inside you makes you stay awake and super alert in bed, not leaving bed, just thinking about how that could happen. As if that were the best way to be taken if then, all and prone laying down, instead of with a fight.

Well, the movie was indeed a good satire on all the paranoia that hovers around us when you find things that don't belong to you. That paranoia when you think someone is watching you. You see that person look your way and you think he's got it in for you. What agency is he a part of? What do they want from you? It's because you found that file folder on the floor of the gym locker room. There's something secret in there. It's big. It's bigger than you or me.

That Paranoia. It plays well in the movie. And something has to be said about the way all the women make out with the money in the end. About how all the men die in the end, or wind up in Venezuela. Or going on with their job because none of it has anything to do with them and they don't want the trouble because things tied themselves up well, neatly, and without any hitch. That too.

The night went famously.

Lets have some fun today, Party People. When we talk about school, life, and art, we talk about meaning. What do these things mean to you? When you hear a piece of music, what strikes you as interesting?

We ALL do this. We all find interest in something. That's why we like certain TV shows, movies, music, paintings, etc. The only thing that separates people who sound 'non-intellectual' from those who look and sound like they are 'intellectual' is the ability to speak about these things.

Check it:

I liked it. The beat was good. I liked the horn thingy in the middle.

Compare that to this:

The rhythm took on a hypnotic quality. Repetitive drums and piano in synch really draws the listener into an effective lulling. Then, when the horn sections come in on the bridge, it is wholly dissonant and contrasting. The tension in that is very intriguing.

Damnit, THEY SAY THE SAME THING. Just by the size of what the 'regular guy' is saying and what the 'intellectual' is saying, it seems like the later person is very smart. That smart guy has a lot to say. But, nope, that's not the case. It's all in how you say something, all in your ability to talk about the details.

These two people had the same reaction. One just knew how to talk about it better. So, what can you talk about? How much ass can you kick when you talk about this picture. I Googled it up, searching with the word 'art' and picked the first one that I saw. The rest is off the top of my head (remember the definition of freestyle from the Great Build series?). It took me about 30 minutes to type this up:



Let's battle our wits and observations, shall we?

Picture

Taking the picture as a whole, it's simply a man opening himself up, spilling his 'guts' out. We get a sense of confession, or perhaps an extreme case of sharing. Sharing. Even thought that sounds like a funny word to use, think about when you WANT to share something. There is some excitement, some revelation that compels you to share.

You are essentially exposing the excitement in hopes to effect the person or people in the same or in a similar way.

That this shows a man exposing the contents of his upper body, is more related to the 'soul' or 'heart'. A creative expression (sharing), rather than a physical one - physical sharing, or the Eros, would be another choice but that would require another opening, lower, around the actual physical parts related to that type of connection. This is something that can go up for subjective debate, but there can be something said about the choice of creating only the upper torso, rather than the whole body.



Spilling the guts. As I mentioned before, this is reminiscent of a confession. The fact that the contents have been splayed out, still spilling, makes the piece aire more toward this suggestion of confession.

One cannot help the fact that the subject is turning face up toward the heavens. It may be bold to further say that its a confession in the Judeo Christian sense. Man looking up to God, exposing and therefore recognizing his sins, hoping to purge himself of them.

The Christian argument can be taken further when we notice the aspect of anonymity. The man has no discerning features. No eyes, no lips, no recognizable marks that would make him unique. The idea that all are God's children. There is no uniqueness.

Even so, a similar argument can be made that it is a societal message, man, further reduced to an unrecognizable object, a number, as is the case often in a capitalistic society, individualistic society, where the observer does not recognize others as unique as him/herself. We then, are the observer in this case.



Legos

The medium is an interesting choice. It lends easily to erasing the unique features of our subject, almost creating a digitized look, a man almost pixelated. Pixelation, a prevalent aspect of technology, entertainment and the computer age. This would lend to the argument that its more of a modern societal view than a one of religious. How about that?

Taking it further, the subject looks upward to the sky in anguish, the pressures almost breaking the psyche down, and there is no real hope present since the prospect of religion is but a mere part of the rest of society, if we're using the argument that this art is an expression of modern society. Therefore, religion, just another part of the modern dilemma, is yet a participant of the antagonism.

Legos as a medium also suggests the toy/childhood aspect. On one level, it's a contradiction, displaying such an 'adult crisis' or 'real-world dilemma' rather than the toys, monsters and fantasy that is usually attached to Legos.

However, this tension can also be seen from a view that this subject is reacting to the fact that that childhood fantasy cannot be accessed anymore. The innocence can never be visited again and this visage is but a mere pitiful attempt.

The genius comes with hope. Although hope is taken away by the smothering of religion, it remains with the medium. When a confession is told, when you spill your guts out, there is a relief accompanying that purge that can only be compared with childhood innocence. Indeed, that innocence is somewhat revisited, regained, if not wholly then partially. Therefore, using legos as a suggestion of childhood, in this piece a reaching back toward childhood, is a compelling and good choice.



Beat that, party people.

Thanks to Nathan Sawaya for the cool art! Check out his other work.

Party people,

Paranoia has had a strange place in my life. Periodically I think that people are stealing my ideas, so I keep my notebook closed whenever I go out in public. I think that, when I'm away from my work desk, the IT people come in and hack into my account to review my internet browsing history (and for some reason I don't delete my history before I go on break, as if subconsciously I enjoy this paranoia, as if it is a basic need for my psyche to always be cautious and wary and untrusting [also, why do I screw around on the internet when I should be at work?]).



Somehow, gamers all have a paranoia that their idea was stolen for the fighting game Marvel v. Capcom. This is the game where all Capcom characters such as those from the Street Fighter series come together to fight those from Marvel Comics, Spider-Man, X-Men, Iron Man, etc. Indeed, a LARGE number of gamers often think about putting certain characters together in a game to see them fight. A 'who would win' curiosity. You know you have the same kind of ideas some time:

--For you literary folk, who would win in a great American battle, Edgar Allen Poe or Walt Whitman (forget that fairy, talking about how the grass grows, Poe's a savage!!)

--Or, would Han Solo win against Indiana Jones? Nope. Mr. Ford said it himself, Han Solo's a pansy who needs his blaster. Dr. Jones would lay him out with one punch.

Anyway, gamers often have ideas like this about their favorite video game characters. And just a few years ago, we'd have to wait for the developers to come out with games like Marvel v. Capcom or Super Smash Bros. to answer these curiosities.

Now, we're more computer savvy.

Check out a few videos from a guy called Monty Oum (google him if you're interested, he also does cool photography and digital work). This first one meets the curiosity about who'd win, Samus (Nintendo's Metroid) or Master Chief (Bungi's Halo). You can definitely see inspiration from the Matrix. Surprise ending, gamers! It has a long intro, but once the action kicks in. . .



Oum is currently working on a series involving the female characters of Final Fantasy and the Dead or Alive series. If you're unfamiliar with these titles, Final Fantasy is an epic RPG that never really ends. There is no real 'Final' about that fantasy. Whatever. Dead or Alive is a 3D fighting game where the fighting is cool, but the developers thought that the women should all be busty and have their breasts jiggle in all directions whenever they move.

Misogyny aside, the fighting in these movies are super intense.This guy turns them into super fighting machines, for real. Check out part I and II of the three part series, Dead Fantasy:

Let me tell you 'bout the protoculture.
--Del tha Funkee Homosapien

Yes, all you nerds and geeks and techno gadgetry freaks, we're talking video games! But all spectacular language aside, party people, we have a great phenomenon here that has generated a culture that breaks through the boundaries of race, class and even the barriers of other cultures themselves.

About thirty years and some change ago we get the first 'video game', a missile flight simulator which basically was movement of a bright dot that you controlled on a screen. Nothing poetic about it. Not too long after came the original video game. Raise your hand if you remember when this came out and were old enough to be excited and stimulated both socially and creatively:

If you raised your hand (or if you acknowledged that this was you and you didn't raise your hand out of spite), you're now quite old. Not to diss anyone, but, some people who were alive when Pong came out have now passed away. Party people, this simple 'ball and bat' game marked a coming revolution of entertainment and I wish I was alive when this came out, just to say 'I remember when Pong was released. It was exciting. And watching how everything else came about afterward, wow, what a ride.'

1970's

Challengers: Atari, Magnavox (yes, Magnavox), Coleco, RCA, Wonder Wizard

Winner: Atari--Grand Champion of Gaming by default with Pong.*

1980's

Challengers: Atari, Magnavox, Bally, Zircon, Mattel, Emerson, Vectrex, NEC, Nintendo, Sega

Winners: Nintendo & Sega

(what, plural? Yes, party people. Here, we see the beginning of the Console Wars. It is as if Nintendo and Sega are two dueling superpowers who emerge victorious after a very chaotic and long war. They remain amicable after the end of the decade, the two late comers, respectively coming into the war near the end of the '80s. However, they are strong. They recognize their own power. They recognize the power of one another. They stoke their individual fires and prepare to win over the hearts of gamers for the next few decades, while tearing the other's heart out.)

1990's

Challengers: Atari, NEC, Nintendo, Sega, Panasonic, SNK, Sony

Winners: Nintendo & Sony

(RIP: Sega-- After a good long decade, Sega bowed out in 1999, with the release of the Sega Dreamcast. Although this console ran strong for a few years into the '00s, [yes, those are zeros] Sega then announced it would no longer make video game consoles and focus more on game production. So, we see a good warrior, though gone in the physical/console , living strong in the force/game-culture.)

2000 - 2008
Challengers: Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Sega, XaviX

Winners: Nintendo, Sony & Microsoft

Nearing the end of this decade, we find more and more gaming companies filling their respective niches (which we'll talk about later), therefore, the number of consoles surviving this 'war' is on the rise. Remember, even though this was a short scroll down, thirty plus years have passed. People are older. Some gamers were born and are 10, 20, 30 years old right now. They have their own tastes, depending on when they grew up, where they grew up, et cetera. But, the single defining term that unifies them all is Gamer. They can all call themselves gamers. We all call ourselves gamers.

Actually, somewhere along the line, this Console War transformed into a Great Community Build. Someone way up on the top floor of a skyscraper who makes the decisions, pushes the buttons and levers, realized they were making a new form of art, and those who bought them and shared them with their friends deserved the best because these pieces of art were large agents of shaping culture. They've started massive trade shows and conferences (alas, I've never yet gone to an E3 or CES or Tokyo Game Show). Tournaments. Something definitely has to be said about the highly competitive nature of the video game culture. PWN'ed! I already beat that game on hard, collected all the hidden items, saw the secret ending, et cetera.

The '00s will definitely be remembered for the era of massive online connection in video gaming. We connected with people from all around the world whenever we wanted. We created more and more tournaments. We created mini videos of cool gameplay and episodes of our own creative dramas using the characters we found in video games (think, red team v. blue team). Definitely, video games became an outlet of creative expression, community building in addition to entertainment.

Peace, party people. Next up, The Great Build, pt. 2 (the software)

*the timeline above focuses on the gaming consoles, not the actual video games. One can argue that the home gaming console now is the largest avenue pursued when a gamer wishes to game (outside the PC or MAC). For my purposes, it was the easiest and fastest way to frame the past 30+ years of video gaming. You try creating a timeline of the actual video games that were landmarks of each decade. Have fun with that. . .

Special thanks to http://www.thegameconsole.com/

Time v. Chaos

Whoa, what was that? Time said.

Somewhere far off, laughter. The guffaw of Chaos.

I thought I told you to stay away, you slut bitch.

Can't handle a little bit of craziness in your life? The guffaw of Chaos rasped in Time's ears. A little bit of split personality?

Time swung his long arm at her.

How ungentlemanly of you, Time.

I don't need to waste myself with you. I've got things to do.

March along then, Time. I'm staying right here.

What if I want to stay right here?

This is so unlike you too. You're not the type to take such a liberty as standing still. This is intriguing. What are you up to?

Time frowned.

Time didn't pass.

You bore me. Chaos swung her arms up and lowered cacophony. Voices whispering, laughing, screaming. Forgotten horns from the past that used to herald war and horns now that brought the union of Jazz. Chaos was Chaos. Chaos was a bitch and a calm one.

Stop that.

Stop what? She launched lights into the air, big swirls of stars changing color and exploding and then coming back together again. Stars turning into people. People waving their arms up and yelling. People in pain, bringing their hands to their heads and showing horror with wide open mouths screaming, but unheard.

You can't do that. You can't make people from stars. Time waved his hands, the world turned. Then, when time waved his hands back up, the world turned the other way. A man somewhere deep into the world was looking into the mirror and saw the hair on his face grow, then recede. He freaked out and killed himself with the razor he was using to shave. Down the wrist, he got the vein that counted.

Why not? Chaos said.

Time harrumphed.

You made people out of stars.

Time said, well. You can't make them so anguished. Look at that. Their screaming. You can't be so cruel that their voices can't be heard.

What, the same as you? Oh, you let their voices be heard but you don't do a thing. You just keep on marching. My man, Chaos approached and rubbed her hand down Time's body. You're not marching now, though. What are you doing?

Time harrumphed.

Fine, Chaos crushed those people made from stars and let their screams stay mute. But, displayed them in subtitles.

--Oh my God. Oh my God. I'm being crushed---

--Why? I've done good things. I'm a good person. Argh--

--Now I know how a tube of toothpaste feels--

--Ooo. Yeah. Mfm. Yeah. Aw. Aw. Aw--

Oo look, Chaos said. The last one's a sadomasochist.

Damn, you're a bitch.

You're a bitch. Tell me. Why are you so closed off. I've asked you nicely. What more do you want? I thought Time reveals all.

I. . .

You what?

I. . . I can't do it anymore. I can't go on.

What are you talking about, my man? Do you need me to recharge your batteries? Chaos smiled.

No. I mean, I can't go on living like this. It's all fake.

What?

Me.

I could have told you that.

. . .

What do you think, I'm as real as can be? Chaos made like she was taking in a big breath. Her breasts pointed out at him. Then disappeared.

It's not a game. It's not a laughing matter.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Get over yourself, Time. None of this is real. Let me ask you a question, do you end?

Huh?

Do you end? Will you die. Like these people?

--Uhuh. Yeah. Squeeeze. Harder. Harder--

I just love that guy, Chaos said. Look, man, none of this is real. People made you up to do their silly little things. Schedule appointments. To figure out a way of cooking without touching the food to see its done. They built a whole lot of things out of nothing. Think about it, what real purpose do you serve? What's the main reason you were put here?

I. . . I don't know.

No one knows. That's the point. No one knows why I'm here. You think I care. I have fun with it. Check this out:

That is a freakin' armadillo in a bucket. How did that armadillo get there? Whose bucket is that? Would you care if I told you that that armadillo speaks German? Would it matter? None of it does. Those people down in the world think it does. But it doesn't. People live, people die. They think of us. They forget us. They use us to describe things and they curse us to describe their pain. That's a freakin' armadillo in a bucket.

Time harrumphed.

You're useless.

Shut up.

I figured you wouldn't listen. One more time then. Look at this:
We live our lives and we learn how to interact with people. But, where did all the rules come from? You have to do one thing this way, the other thing that way. You have to pay for parking Mondays through Saturdays and it's free on Sundays, and the price to park, if it's a day you have to pay, is $1. $1 is 47 pesos in the exchange rate. Why?

The markets?

No, damnit. You piece of shit, Time, listen. $1 is 47 pesos because someone somewhere thought, hey, lets create some big governmental structure so we can buy things in another country. Of course, our money is better, it's worth more because we're worth more, so let's say our money exhanges at a high rate. Why the hell can't you share things? Or, why the hell can't you make up another currency, the Finger Nail. Okay. The Finger Nail is equal to $100,000,000 but only 2 pesos. Get it? None of it matters if you don't think it matters.

Huh?

If you ignore the rules someone else made, that whole structure collapses, Chaos said. If you go by your own way, do as you please, nothing matters except for the things you say matters. Your morals are the morals that matter, your thoughts and values are the ones that need to be followed. Nothing matters and nothing is nothing until you make it something.

But. . .

No 'buts'.

Why did you show me two people scuba diving.

It doesn't matter. Who cares?

But that will make a lot of people angry. If you just ignore governments. That's anarchy.

Anarchy? Anarchy is another form of government. Is that the government you subscribe to? It's not mine. NO GOVERNMENT. Get it? No one has tried that. So why should it make people angry? We don't even know what it is? Now I'm changing the subject: if everyone shared, no one would go hungry.

Wha-

What's stopping them?Think of how many households are in the world. If each household put $1 in a pot, how much money would that make?

That. . . something like that could change things.

You know what else could change things?

What?

If you listened. Chaos sighed and kept squeezing.

--Ooooh. Yesss--

It is here. The new week is upon us. A new time. A time of changes and uncertainty. People cling to their comforts and are distrusting of the 'new' more than ever. Closer we draw to one another. We find that after the revelutions of information and technology, we have not brung peace to one another, but friction. This friction causes heat. The heat stirs the blood and makes mad the minds of people.

The political climate has shifted and coupled with the financial meltdown, has caused all politicians' heads to explode. The sheer force of the tremors coming from the capital has caused a rift. Time has collided with itself and had brought two brothers onto the stage for the contemporary world to see.

Cain v. Abel















"This is no field. Where have you taken us, Cain?" Abel turns. "What's that? Is that a club in your hand?"

"No matter where we are, I have taken you away to kill you. You will serve our God no more."

As Cain brings down his club, his brother reaches with both hands to stop the blow. Fierceness on their faces, they struggle with the club above their heads. Cain's teeth bare and are feral through his beard.

Wrestling on the green of the National Mall, they have already drawn a crowd. Tourists circle with cameras clicking and flashing. Somewhere in the distance, guards are blowing their wistles and coming closer.

The club is jostled out of their hands and fallen onto the floor. The brothers separate and crab walk in circles. Their dance of battle has taken them away from the strange new world around them. They do not think of what has become of their open plains and flocks of sheep and farms. What are these strange buildings and what strange people inhabit them. Cain instead focuses on his brothers blood, how sweet the ground would taste it. Abel, ever the holy son of Adam, prays to God for his strength.


















Abel says, "you've lost it, brother."

"I will kill you."

Cain lunges and they grab one another by the shoulders. In the air, the humidity of the Eastern United States fuses and lightning cracks the clouds. In the boom of its thunder the first sons of Adam are locked in struggle and vicious. Far off, President Lincoln sits watching this epic battle.

Spittle foams amongst the hairs of Cain's beard. Abel, awestruck by his brother's ferocity, is taken away from the moment for just a second and is disgusted by his brother's appearance. So beastly, he thinks. What devils have taken my parents' from their first home have possessed my brother today.

"Abba."

Cain hisses.

"Abba."

"This bodes ill for you, brother," Cain says. "He is not here. This is a forsaken place."

Cain overtakes Abel and pushes him to the floor. As Abel falls, he strikes his head against a stone. The fall bedazzles him. Abel looks to the United States sky now, completely removed, seeing the clouds stir dark and more lighting flash. The thunder boom ripples the sky. Lighting flashes again and he suddenly sees Cain's eyes. His brother has retrieved the club and weilds it over his head ready to strike.

"Brother," Cain says. "Remember this place of desolation. See these people watching us. Watching you die. No one comes to save you. No one speaks up. No one. No one."

"Really? No one? There's like, thirty people here."

"Yeah," Cain says. His face has dropped to a confused look. "Strange." Cain lowers his club and removes his foot from Abel's chest. Helps him up.

"What's really going on here?"

Cain looks out. He is numb now, not knowing what to make of it all. The strangeness of everything has just settled in.

The people are circling now. They surround the brothers taking pictures and pointing. Japanese tourists are speaking swiftly and their voices sound like stones cascading down a hillside.

"What are you doing?" Abel says.

Someone there speaks their language. A man in a business suit. "You guys are crazy."

"Crazy? I'm about to kill my brother and you do nothing."

"What's crazy is that I can't speak to God here." Abel's head is turned up and eyes focused to the sworling grey clouds. "What's going on, where are we?"

"You're trying to talk to God and you think we're crazy. This is America. Who are you anyway?"

"Cain."

"Abel."

"Crazy," the man in the suit says. "Come to the real world. We're dealing with crisis. No one can get a house anymore. Our money is losing value. It's harder to buy food."

"Money?" Abel says. "Is that like your word for Honor? Or Dignity?"

"What?" The man in the suit says.

"Your crops won't grow? Why don't you build your house?" Cain says. "There's no materials?"

"Build?"

A Japanese tourist approaches them. She smiles and her teeth are brown. "Excuse me. What is your name?"

"What did she say?"

The man in the suit says, "she wants to know your name."

"Cain."

"McCain!" The Japanese tourist says. Her companions rush them taking pictures.

"What the hell are they doing." Cain raises his club.

"It's okay. It's okay." The man in the suit is pushing the club back down. "They're taking pictures. Good God."

"God. Abba." Abel raises his hands to the sky.

" You still haven't answered me," Cain says. "Why can't you build your house?"

"Are you kidding? I don't know how to build a house."

"And you say we're crazy?" Cain scoffs and pushes the Japanese tourists away from him.

"Abba."

"Shut up, Abel." Cain looks at the man. "What kind of man are you? Can't build a house? I bet you can't grow your food or raise herds. My brother's a weakling and he can raise herds. Come on."

"You don't know. We're in a new age. The technology age. You're stuck in the past. I can get things done with just a push of a button."

"Yeah, but you can't build a house. You can't gather your own food. That's what you need right now and you can't do it. What good are your magic buttons and money?"

"He can't raise his own food? He can't herd? What kind of man is he?"

"Yes, Abel. I know. Stop looking at the sky and lets find some place where the people have their minds right."

Watch: Maltese Falcon; Detour; The Set Up; DOA; Touch of Evil; Double Indemnity

Read: A Panorama of American Film Noir by Borde and Chaumeton

Party people and you film buffs,

Why, you ask, will we discuss this. It's so old and hokey. Old is hokey. Talk about politics and ipods and cutting edge technology.

I respond with a quick slap to the face.

This is one of the greatest eras in American Film. It began in 1941 with an epic movie and an epic leading actor: The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart. It came at a time when the United States was starving and weak from the Great Depression. Teeth bared and sharp and gritting hard from pain. The party of the 1920's was over and the hangover was here, hard, those who had become drunk from the excess now hated the world with a headache as big as Europe.



Color film had just been introduced and musicals capitalized on the goodness of it all to try to keep people in love with the saccharine. At the same time, many film directors and cinematographers from Europe were fleeing to the United States, the only nation not involved in World War II at the time. Therein began a harsh reaction that sent movies reeling away from the imagined prosperity and glee. Things weren't about smiles and happy feet anymore. People were poor. Damnit. People were hungry. Imagine you need to feed your family and you see store owners pouring good milk into the sewers, tossing produce into the trash, because they'd rather get rid of their stock and lose the money than give it away.

Films like the Maltese Falcon began to slap these musical films silly, essentially saying, "wake up. Why the hell are you dancing? You look like a fool with those tapping shoes."

Then, the morose of it all shifted films into the extreme and birthed Film Noir. With the Maltese Falcon, one saw a story line where the happy ending dissolved into an ending where no one came out clean. The good guys got beat. The bad guys wound up losing what they were after. Even in terms of character, the 'good guy' didn't even exist. The protagonist you followed on screen was often a crooked and lusty private investigator or a man who's trying to get away from his life and cheat on his girl every chance he got.

Take a look at Bogart's face. This is you're protagonist now.



The effect of these films and this kind of character acting was so profound that people on the street seriously thought that Bogart was a real tough guy like the characters he played on screen. Lucky for him, he was a real tough guy and he kicked serious ass. But I digress.

One can even attribute Film Noir to the advancement of the female character, which would soon be complimented by the 'Rosie the Riveter' campaign that promoted female independence and the image of the working woman, while the men were either enlisted or got drafted to fight in Europe and the Pacific soon after Pearl Harbor.

In Film Noir specifically, the damsel in distress and the innocent, fervently valued woman archetypes were replaced by the sly and foxy and ultimately corrupted. The woman who had her own plans and a gun to get her way. Unlike the singing dancing and melodramatic, this woman lied, had sexual hunger, was selfish and vicious just like the men. To the extreme, she was like this all the damned time.



Needless to say, all the leading ladies today can attribute the depth and complexity of their roles to this movement in film and storytelling. The men too, who the hell would want to keep singing and dancing and forgetting that across the middle part of America dust storms killed vast acres of crops and destroyed the farming economy? People were hungry. Damnit.

Film Noir also incorporated the best in film effects and in the best way--being poor. The bulk of films in this genre were produced by B-rated companies and therefore budgets were low. No color for these films. No expensive backdrops and special effects. They did it the hard way. The hard core way, through the use of dynamic camera angles and use of lighting. The most notable of techniques was Chiaroscuro--the use of shadows to create dynamic effects so to result in visual tension. Thank Film Noir for the image of the menacing shadow crawling up the wall. It began with shadowy figures of men and women running around in their dark dark world with so many secrets and guns that have fired too many bullets.