This Is Not News

Small rant to get off my chest before I either go to sleep or do something constructive. Earl sent me a copy of The Anthology at the End of the Universe, a Benbella “Smart Pop” book devoted to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Books. I found the book kind of uneven, but I don’t want to do a full-blown review here. There’s one essay, though, that I have not been able to get out of my head, and I would like to exorcise the ghost here. Susan Sizemore writes the only really negative essay about Adams, called “You Can’t Go Home Again – Damn It! Even If Your Planet Hasn’t Been Blown Up By Vogons.” Sizemore basically reports that when she was doing research for her essay in the book, she discovered she didn’t like any of the Hitchhiker stuff anymore, but she had already agreed to write an essay, so she was stuck talking about all the things she no longer liked. At one point she brings up subsequent stories that she thinks have explored the same material as Adams, only better. I’m not sure I agree with many of her points, but I didn’t come skidding to a mental halt until I read on page 116:

Then there’s Farscape. When this show whips an everyman from Earth onto an alien spaceship, they make him far funnier and tougher than Arthur Dent and his adventures far more relevant.

There is no small bit of irony here, since one of John Crichton’s pop culture references is the line I used to title this post and because Hitchhiker actor Mark Wing-Davey was one of Ben Browder’s acting instructors. More to the point, and I say this as a big fan of Farscape and Ben Browder, but calling John Crichton an everyman suggests that most of us are seriously underachieving.

For starters, Crichton gets flung through space in the first place because he’s a test pilot. Test pilots are pretty mythologized figures, certainly not considered your average folks. But just being a test pilot isn’t enough for ol’ John. He designed the spaceship that he’s test flying, because he has a Ph.D. in Theoretical Sciences. (Man, I never see that department in the college brochures.) He’s such a smart, stand-up guy that he impresses a wise alien, who then plants super-secret information in his head such that John Crichton becomes the target of multiple interstellar empires.

All of which eventually drives Crichton just about as stark raving bonkers as Arthur Dent chasing a sofa, but anyway.

The point is, Crichton’s not an everyman. Crichton’s a hero, one of the best and the brightest, just waiting for the circumstances to test him and reveal his potential. Arthur Dent is just a guy who got up one morning. Much as I wish most of us were Crichton, I tend to think we’re a lot more like Arthur.

On the other hand, Arthur does learn to fly. So it’s not all bad.

Today is the 29th anniversary of the release of Star Wars, an event responsible for the loss of one-third of my disposable income over the course of my lifetime. One bit of Star Wars merchandise I am unlikely to buy is this year’s release of the original trilogy. This is the first time the three movies have been released individually on DVD – they’ve been available in a 4-disc set since 2004, and a 3-disc set (minus the bonus feature disc from the previous set) since last year. I have the 2004 set, and there appear to be two differences between the movie discs from my set and this upcoming release:

1) The new discs have much snazzier packaging, with photo montages that are based on classic movie posters.
2) The new discs have an extra disc with the original theatrical versions of the movies bundled with them.

Now, at the moment, a lot of home theater fans are understandably upset that this extra disc isn’t going to be in anamorphic widescreen. (If you don’t know what that means, you can head over to The Digital Bits. If you have a widescreen TV, this is significant. If you don’t, probably not quite so much.) It’s a fascinating difference in perspectives, really. Lucasfilm is treating the theatrical cuts like a throw-on bonus feature. The fans are saying “That’s the only reason we would want to buy the thing in the first place!

But that’s not the reason I’m probably going to skip this. No, for me, the key is that whole “29th anniversary” thing. I will be utterly shocked if there’s not a huge set out next year for the 30th anniversary, with more behind the scenes and documentary extras. And I am just not going to buy the same movies three times in as many years. I just don’t have that much plasma to sell.

It was pretty much a dead cinch we were gonna buy the Dixie Chicks’ new album, Taking the Long Way, because a) we like the Chicks’ last three albums and b) we figure we should do our part to ruin some boycotter’s day.

But then I just read that their co-writers on this album include Neil Finn and Pete Yorn. So now it’s really just overkill.

OK, I am officially happy that The West Wing has been cancelled. Because now Bradley Whitford is free to join Matthew Perry and Timothy Busfeld on Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It’s just a matter of time before Joshua Malina shows up, and I’m still holding out hope for Peter Krause. Felicity Huffman’s probably a bit busy for a while, though.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this is the show I am looking forward to most this fall. Because when Sorkin is on, there is no one who thrills, entertains and inspires me the way he does. And this cast looks top-notch. Yee ha!

I will admit that I am occasionally egotistical enough to do web searches for my name. In a small part, this is because I’m looking for folks who might be mentioning or linking to this site. Another large factor is that it reminds me that there sure is not much that gets permanently lost on the web. Since I almost always use my own name on message boards, there are any number of things I’ve said over the last decade floating around in various web archives at this point, and they go further back into my teenage years if you count Google Groups. (I’m kind of glad that it doesn’t look like a lot of FidoNet is archived on the web. I cringe enough at some of the things I said when I was 14 when I’m the only guy who remembers them.)

One thing that I am certainly glad has found an archived home is the collection of chats/interviews that Omni Interactive sponsored back in the day. I spent a couple of months working for Omni right out of college, and it was not my favorite working experience. Omni had been converted from a print magazine to a web site, and the feel of the guillotine was there . . . indeed, a few months after I left, even the site was shut down. Also, the parent company is the same one that owned Penthouse, so when I went to work I was just surrounded by Penthouse-related artwork and publications. It was not the most comfortable of environments. But one thing that did come out of the whole thing is that I got to host some of these chats, specifically within the E-Media series. I got to talk to comics artist Frank Miller about censorship, Babylon 5 composer Christopher Franke about music technology, and someone from the Henson Company Creature Shop when they were pitching this thing called Farscape. Even the Omni site is gone these days, but someone’s archived its contents, including all the chats. So you can check them out if you are so inclined.

I found this article (link) to be fascinating reading, regarding an onling game publisher’s quick action to shut down a gay/bi/transgender-friendly “guild” in a popular massively multiplayer online game, and that publisher’s reaction (or at least what’s being portrayed in the article as their reaction) to be troubling. News flash: online gaming has a social component, and will inevitably bump into some social issues. I’m sure someone will no doubt be saying “But it’s a video game, and anyone signing on to play it should know that it’s almost certainly going to be a testosterone-fest for that very reason.” (I’m assuming that anyone who would say such a thing has never ever heard of The Sims.) Online games which breed communities will have to deal with this sort of thing sooner or later, and by silencing one group trying to provide a safe gaming haven for gay, bi or transgendered gamers within World Of Warcraft, Blizzard has, intentionally or not, implicitly given its sanction to those who would harrass them. It really demands the question “So what’s the message here?” Hopefully Blizzard can be given the benefit of the doubt and will rethink this, and hopefully they just got caught flat-footed on an issue they weren’t expecting to address. And before anyone gets on my case about liberalizing the electronic landscape, take the following into account, an issue uber-conservatives should love: if, as has been charged so many times in recent years, video games are responsible for the decline of our society and for turning kids into killers, shouldn’t we be trying to police this before online harrassment turns into real-life violence…even though we’re talking about a game about hacking and slashing orcs?

Some sadistic part of me wonders why they’re banning any political or other select stripes of social interaction within the game. Just think about it. I’d rather have people who can’t let their political/social/religious differences drop beating each other up in the virtual realm rather than doing their worst to each other in real life. That way I could keep on not playing Warcraft and the real world would be a much nicer place.

Overall, though, I think the heart of the matter boils down to something even simpler:

I’ll admit, this topic of this post is ripped off from a similar blog at Bravotv.com (which is, in itself, one of my current obsessions). This list is a random collection of stuff I’m fascinated with these days. As Dave will attest, when something fascinates me, the people around me have no other choice than to become fascinated with it as well…this now includes you guys, sorry!

Bravo’s Project Runway (Season 2) – I know very little about fashion, less about design, and my sewing skills are so low they might as well be rated by negative numbers. Still, this show featuring supermodels, wannabe superstar designers, and arcane fashion jargon has replaced Law and Order as my essential Wednesday night viewing. (What’s the difference, I can just catch the L&O shows I miss, or ones that are eeerily similar to them, later, on any of twenty cable channels.) I’m not going to be one of these people who swears they don’t watch any other reality TV because I have been known to sit through episodes of Survivor, The Amazing Race, and The Real World. Reality TV can be fun, if done well. But even when it’s done poorly, it’s hard to turn it off!

What sets Project Runway apart for me is at the end of the day, the competition is (mostly) about talent and creativity. Yes, there’s some drama, yes, there are male and female divas-aplenty but it’s still fun to watch. One of the things I like best is that there’s very little attempt to distinguish the designer from their design. Everyone is very frank about how much of themselves they put in their work. Having worked in business for close to ten years and been told repeatedly “it’s not personal, it’s just business� it’s refreshing to see that there is a flipside out there somewhere, even if it’s not my field. My take has always been that if you did it, and worked hard on it, it is personal, no matter what it is. Call me crazy, but the more I think the more you separate yourself from what you do, the less successful and rewarding that work is. Fine, maybe I am crazy.

The Olympics – They opening ceremonies are just days away (as I write this) and you can feel the anticipation in the Gillett-Thomer household. We are Olympic junkies, especially for the Winter Games. We’re also geeks but you knew that already. In the summer games, you can see quite clearly how most of the sports connect to the human experience: swimming, running, even archery. In the winter games, the connection is not always so clear. I mean, I doubt the Scottish highlanders invented curling as a means of survival. And figure skating? Unless someone comes forth with irrefutable proof that triple salchows were the only way for our ancestors to escape hungry Alpine bears, I’m standing by my assessment that this sport is as much about sex appeal as it is about athleticism. Dave will no doubt protest me calling figure skating a sport but hey, it wouldn’t be an Olympic year if he didn’t.

Many of the winter games seem to have been created out of boredom than real need for human survival, which is what makes them so darn entertaining. And for those of us at home, it is just that, entertainment. Yes the Olympics themselves are about athleticism, but they are as much about pageantry, hence the multi-million dollar opening and closing ceremonies. They’re also about making money, hence the billion dollar sponsorship deals. Still, I love my figure skating (and speed skating, and ski-jump) and Dave loves his curling. I’ll be watching as much of the 16-day extravaganza as I can. Mostly to see if any Alpine bears show up.

Enron, The Smartest Guys in the Room – Being a business grad student and resident of planet Earth, I was certainly aware of the accounting scandal that this documentary, and the book it was based on, chronicled. But, as with many things following the birth if my daughter, the details were a little fuzzy. I have heard that this documentary was good so I decided to pop it in my DVD player one quiet afternoon. The afternoon didn’t stay quiet for very long because I was soon shouting at my TV. To me, what happened here is truly human nature at its worst. Between what I always knew about Enron’s execs, and evidence brought forth in this documentary, I have to wonder how Skilling, Lay and company plan to survive their upcoming trials. I’m not speaking metaphorically, either. They must live in constant fear that some devastated ex-Enron employee or family member is simply going to exact their own form of justice one way or another. To quote a dear friend of mine, who is often mortified at the sheer callousness of human beings, “one Hell cannot possibly be big enough� to house people who do things like this.

But back to the documentary, it’s the rare non-fiction film work that can create kind of drama about a story you more or less already know. Armed with music, striking imagery, tasteful re-enactments, and some stunning pieces of evidence, the creators did just that.
Obviously, I have my own opinions about the guilt and innocence of the principals in this case; it’s almost impossible not to. However, there are those, even among the filmmakers, who do see a difference between criminal culpability and moral culpability. Is there one? Rent or buy this DVD and decide for yourself.

Sherlock Holmes – Santa was kind to me this year and brought me The Complete Sherlock Holmes in a single collected edition. I’ve decided, after re-reading the first few Holmes tales, that I will try to reread most of the books that I really enjoyed when I was in my teens and early twenties now, as I creep ever nearer to the big 3-0. When I first read Doyle, I was blown away by the details of each mystery and focused almost entirely on those aspects. I missed a great deal of Doyle’s character development, wit and detail the first time around, perhaps because I was too impatient, too naïve, or too preoccupied with term papers the first time around. Now, I truly am reading it for fun. Of course, now I need to fit in my leisure reading around finger painting and episodes of Dora the Explorer but you see my point.
In the ensuing years, I’ve become familiar with several Hollywood versions of Holmes, some brilliant (Jeremy Brett), some questionable (Rupert Everett), but none really equals picking p the books and reading them, or rather, re-reading them, for myself.

Home Improvements – Replacement windows, repainting, new doors, new rugs, refinishing the floors, retiling…the homeowners’ work is never done. No, really, it’s NEVER done. One of the joys of owning a home is that you get to choose the renovations and improvements that you make. One of the problems of home-ownership is that you have to pay for the renovations and improvements that you make. Every once and while, though, Uncle Sam cuts you a break on the costs of your home renovations, which is probably how most ever happen at all. Let’s face it, a large percentage of homeowners are probably as motivated by this stuff as I am. Which is why I tend to want to make improvements in large bursts of activity; these bursts are then followed by long periods of inactivity during which I watch television and read mystery books while the house creaks beneath me.

I know there are some folks who were irked when VH1 Classic expanded its playlist to include songs from the early 90s. (I think their rule went from “must be from the 80s or earlier” to “must be at least ten years old.”) But me, I don’t mind at all. While trying to get Alex to sleep I checked out tonight’s “The Alternative” block, and within an hour they played They Might Be Giants’ “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” R.E.M.’s “Feeling Gravitys Pull,” Matthew Sweet’s “Sick of Myself” and Dada’s “Dizz Knee Land.” That would’ve been a good hour’s listening back in the heyday of WDRE (the modern rock station I listened to in high school).

And that reminds me, I have to see if I can get tickets to Dada’s show in Philly next month . . .

Stephen Colbert may well be my new journalistic hero. His “The Word” segment on The Colbert Report is almost always a funny and intelligent commentary on current affairs, never more so than on his first episode where he coined the word “truthiness” – or at least a new meaning for it. The American Dialect Society apparently agreed, and named truthiness their word of the year for 2005. Well, when the Associated Press ran a story on the decision, they neglected to mention Colbert. So he took a shot at them on last night’s episode, and in this AP article. The guy stays in character to skewer the AP, the war on Iraq, and the linguistic expert that the AP quoted in their first article. Great stuff.

Today is a day I am so glad I didn’t pursue a career in newspapers. The West Virginian coal mine tragedy was compounded by a lapse in communication that led families and the public to think for three hours or so that most of the miners had survived, when in reality only one did. The timing of the events could not have been worse from a newspaper perspective. The initial word of survivors hit around midnight Eastern time, right as East Coast newspapers were hitting their deadlines. So many of them scrambled to get the news into their Thursday editions; unfortunately for them, they were rather successful. The corrected information didn’t start reaching anyone until around 2:30, 3:00 in the morning, by which point the editions had been printed. All most East Coast papers could do was update their web sites and know that they were sending out a horribly wrong front page.

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a short piece on its site tonight trying to answer the question How did we get it wrong? It’s a fairly short piece, with less information than I’d like. It does include a link to a larger Editor & Publisher piece, and Inquirer blogger Daniel Rubin has a much more substantial post on the subject which includes a link to an even more critical piece on the Columbia Journalism Review‘s site.

Now, it sure does look like this is a sourcing nightmare, probably compounded by the deadline. But when the governor’s making announcements, there are problems all around. And I do hope that this doesn’t fuel the idea that the media have no business reporting on tragedies like this. I know there are problems of sensationalism and story selection, but those are problems of execution, not concept. Media coverage of these stories help remind us of our connections and show us a glimpse of how people outside our own circles deal with challenging circumstances. It has occurred to me a few times that the energy that lets me write and publish these words is produced in part by men like those miners; in a very real way, their sacrifice was on my behalf. And I’m not sure I, or my fellow citizens, have valued their contribution enough, in terms of the wages we’re willing to support or the safety measures we’re willing to demand – and pay for. The trick will be to keep that in mind once the shock to the system wears off.