I'm in the middle of a conversation with one of my fellow Counter-Strike clan members about growing up, and I was talking about my motivation for the rapid expansion of my intellect. At the current moment, however, I am not depressed, I am merely examining my own motives for why I started on this journey, and how I might have gone too far.
Most people who know me know that I wasn't a happy camper in high school and middle school. I will spare the details, but that is a gross understatement. What ended up happening was that I did the exact opposite of what everyone else did for two reasons of equal importance: 1) I learned vicariously and paid extreme attention to the consequences of their actions, and 2) I hated them. I did what I did to separate myself from them, and according to some reports from sparsely-seen friends, I was an asshole. I actually am glad I know that, in order to avoid it now. It was one of my good friends in high school, and I really should thank her for telling me.
I continued this behavior into college until I had a real group of friends (this did not take long), but I was still disappointed in my freshman and sophomore years when my classmates expressed blatant disinterest in what was going on. This is where I excelled, but I was upset that people could be so far behind, because I wished to meet people like me, though there were none. Sure I met good people, and I still like all of them, but I need more people who can really go toe-to-toe with me on my beloved topics.
It wasn't until junior and senior years in college that things really began to take shape in this essential area. Two major things happened:
1) My roommate in junior year, chosen by another great friend to whom I am eternally grateful for having selected him, was my first true equal, and at times he was actually smarter than I was, and was able to refine and discard rough--and sometimes altogether undesirable--views from my system. It was a long process, but it ultimately paid off a million-fold.
2) My classmates--the lesser ones having been filtered out from my classes, having gone their separate ways--were more active in class, and I began to finally value other people's opinions. Senior year was the greatest year in this regard, because that's truly when other people truly cared about what we were doing, and were as engaged in the material as I was.
I have, however, replaced my motives for my behavior from simple rebellion into something more constructive, if only just as alienating. The search for meaning, the inverse of Walter in The Big Lebowski, who plants meaning where there is none; great is the ability to recognize were there is no meaning. This is my gripe--at its core--with most American media generally. It means nothing to me. What may surprise some people is that I extend this to music--and even video games (hence my love for Gabriel Knight)--as well: I expect the same as what I get out of books and foreign or old movies from music and games. This is ultimately why I would give BE, 01011001, The Human Equation, or 10,000 Days (by an American band, but as they say, the exception proves the rule) "album of the decade."
Here's the problem, however:
I think I've gone too far. I think I have a hard time relating even to people my own age because of what I did/do. Hell, I talk to people in their 40s and 50s about The Brothers Karamazov; most people my age don't even know how to respond when I open my mouth. But much like any transformative life change, you can't be happy by regressing. I can't be happy listening to Lady Gaga, or watching comedy movies. It just isn't who I am.
I ended up, in a way, not only alienating those I did deliberately want to alienate, but I alienated even people my current age as well, and I'm sure quite many more as I grow older. Hell, even in jury duty, I was like that girl in the live-fire exercise in the first Men in Black movie, the girl Smith's character shot because she was holding an advanced physics textbook. What business does a 20-something have reading War & Peace and quoting Plato or Camus?
Is there any other way I can be seen other than as a potentially dangerous anachronism?
"Eewww...what's wrong with this kid? Doesn't he have a life?"
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
The Entire Model of the RIAA/MPAA's Approach to Digital Piracy Is Bunk
Let's start with an amusing incident: Uwe Boll made a Far Cry movie. Yes, yes he did. I know, right? It follows almost automatically that his Far Cry made no money. What is Boll going to do? He's gonna sue you, that's what! He's going to sue you because you didn't watch his movie. He thinks you downloaded it. But the truth is, why in the hell would people download his movie in the first place?
Then the producer of The Hurt Locker, Nicholas Chartier, the small-minded, greedy tyrant he is, also wants to sue you because his movie was also a financial failure (it's not even technically his movie, it's Katheryne Bigelow's movie. He just stood around berating everyone.). But wait a minute, it was a limited release in theaters! How do you expect to make money if you don't get a wide release? (And if any evidence at all is needed to back up my charge that he is a small-minded, avaricious tyrant, here it is: http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2010/02/the-hurt-locker-producer-apology-oscars-academy-awards-news.html . He was also banned from the Oscars after trying to solicit votes for his movie.)
The Hurt Locker, despite being aborted at the box office (via the limited release decision), went on to rank #2 in rentals, and did fairly well in BluRay sales as well (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60K0CL20100121).
When considering to fund a film, the decision is based primarily on the revenue to be gained ONLY at the theaters, which is why Opening Weekend for any film is such a big deal. There are no long-term considerations at all, save for the potential for a sequel. DVD sales and rentals do not at all factor in to the profitability at all. Why is this important? Well, who would download a handheld camcorder capture? You can't see anything!
People aren't downloading copies of films that are still in theaters. They're downloading movies when they come out on DVD. And despite the rampant downloading of The Hurt Locker, DVD sales are still pretty good, though they didn't even consider that when they actually decided to fund the movie.
It is a mistake to claim that filesharing is criminal theft, because actual theft is of a physical object: Someone breaks into a store or someone else's house, and takes something. It's subtraction. But with filesharing, that physical object still exists, nothing has been touched, what has been created is still physically accounted for.
The only argument that's even satisfactory against filesharing is the license argument, which basically says that we are paying for the "right" to view or use a product. The problem with this argument is that then absolutely EVERYTHING becomes theft. Did I violate copyright by letting my friend borrow In Bruges? Is it a violation that I rented a movie and watched it with two of my friends? Does the $5 rental fee cover multiple uses? What about selling items used on Amazon or eBay? Do I have the right, under this license argument, to sell my own property at a profit with no nod to the original creators? Will the person I bought Xenogears from at $60 be sued by Square-Enix because he took license to sell something that under this mode of thinking doesn't actually belong to him? The "license" argument, while trying to protect Intellectual Property, completely eliminates private property in a way that should make businesspeople cringe.
I think they're suing people because they're bitter that they made poor decisions on behalf of their media, and as such they have nowhere else to turn, as desperation has turned to blind panic, and greed is the only thing they know.
So you really want to stop piracy? OK. Let me tell you how BitTorrent works: You go on a torrent site, and you select what you want to download. You download a file that orders your Torrent program to find people who have what you want, and one full copy is constructed by constructing copies of that file. If there are more people with faster connections, then your file will be finished faster. That's from the client end.
Here's what you need to know: People upload files onto Torrent sites by ripping DVDs and CDs (or computer games/books/audiobooks/you name it) and uploading them onto sites. The tricky part is that more often than not these are the people who have actually purchased your media. In order to effectively stop filesharing, you would have to sue the pants off of people who actually gave you their money. The only person who probably doesn't have any misgivings about doing this is one Nicholas Chartier.
The RIAA, however, is much worse off simply because they know how badly their lawsuits have backfired because of the negative publicity and extremely negative popular opinion that they have garnered by ruining teenagers with exorbitant penalties (upwards of $1,000/song). Artists themselves immediately know that it is wrong, and advised others NOT to enter into a contract with record companies.
It's kind of like pimping, really. No, scratch that. It's exactly like pimping: The artist signs a contract that stipulates how much money s/he makes per record sale (usually around $1/album, and NOTHING for digital distribution outlets), and how much they have to borrow to use the studio in the first place. What ended up happening after the music industry lawsuits is that the artists themselves never got the money they had supposedly lost because of the downloads in the first place, because all of it went to astronomical legal fees and to "recover" company profits, thus defeating the original point of the lawsuits (the claim that the artists were being disenfranchised).
What's worse is that VP Joe Biden has come on record as having been drafting a plan to vindicate the avarice of these two acronyms at the expense of innocent people (http://www.dailytech.com/Obama%20Administration%20Announces%20Massive%20Piracy%20Crackdown/article18815.htm)
From that same article: "Another noteworthy study from three years back notes that virtually every citizen violates intellectual property laws in some way on a daily basis."
Great. We're all criminals.
Then the producer of The Hurt Locker, Nicholas Chartier, the small-minded, greedy tyrant he is, also wants to sue you because his movie was also a financial failure (it's not even technically his movie, it's Katheryne Bigelow's movie. He just stood around berating everyone.). But wait a minute, it was a limited release in theaters! How do you expect to make money if you don't get a wide release? (And if any evidence at all is needed to back up my charge that he is a small-minded, avaricious tyrant, here it is: http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2010/02/the-hurt-locker-producer-apology-oscars-academy-awards-news.html . He was also banned from the Oscars after trying to solicit votes for his movie.)
The Hurt Locker, despite being aborted at the box office (via the limited release decision), went on to rank #2 in rentals, and did fairly well in BluRay sales as well (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60K0CL20100121).
When considering to fund a film, the decision is based primarily on the revenue to be gained ONLY at the theaters, which is why Opening Weekend for any film is such a big deal. There are no long-term considerations at all, save for the potential for a sequel. DVD sales and rentals do not at all factor in to the profitability at all. Why is this important? Well, who would download a handheld camcorder capture? You can't see anything!
People aren't downloading copies of films that are still in theaters. They're downloading movies when they come out on DVD. And despite the rampant downloading of The Hurt Locker, DVD sales are still pretty good, though they didn't even consider that when they actually decided to fund the movie.
It is a mistake to claim that filesharing is criminal theft, because actual theft is of a physical object: Someone breaks into a store or someone else's house, and takes something. It's subtraction. But with filesharing, that physical object still exists, nothing has been touched, what has been created is still physically accounted for.
The only argument that's even satisfactory against filesharing is the license argument, which basically says that we are paying for the "right" to view or use a product. The problem with this argument is that then absolutely EVERYTHING becomes theft. Did I violate copyright by letting my friend borrow In Bruges? Is it a violation that I rented a movie and watched it with two of my friends? Does the $5 rental fee cover multiple uses? What about selling items used on Amazon or eBay? Do I have the right, under this license argument, to sell my own property at a profit with no nod to the original creators? Will the person I bought Xenogears from at $60 be sued by Square-Enix because he took license to sell something that under this mode of thinking doesn't actually belong to him? The "license" argument, while trying to protect Intellectual Property, completely eliminates private property in a way that should make businesspeople cringe.
I think they're suing people because they're bitter that they made poor decisions on behalf of their media, and as such they have nowhere else to turn, as desperation has turned to blind panic, and greed is the only thing they know.
So you really want to stop piracy? OK. Let me tell you how BitTorrent works: You go on a torrent site, and you select what you want to download. You download a file that orders your Torrent program to find people who have what you want, and one full copy is constructed by constructing copies of that file. If there are more people with faster connections, then your file will be finished faster. That's from the client end.
Here's what you need to know: People upload files onto Torrent sites by ripping DVDs and CDs (or computer games/books/audiobooks/you name it) and uploading them onto sites. The tricky part is that more often than not these are the people who have actually purchased your media. In order to effectively stop filesharing, you would have to sue the pants off of people who actually gave you their money. The only person who probably doesn't have any misgivings about doing this is one Nicholas Chartier.
The RIAA, however, is much worse off simply because they know how badly their lawsuits have backfired because of the negative publicity and extremely negative popular opinion that they have garnered by ruining teenagers with exorbitant penalties (upwards of $1,000/song). Artists themselves immediately know that it is wrong, and advised others NOT to enter into a contract with record companies.
It's kind of like pimping, really. No, scratch that. It's exactly like pimping: The artist signs a contract that stipulates how much money s/he makes per record sale (usually around $1/album, and NOTHING for digital distribution outlets), and how much they have to borrow to use the studio in the first place. What ended up happening after the music industry lawsuits is that the artists themselves never got the money they had supposedly lost because of the downloads in the first place, because all of it went to astronomical legal fees and to "recover" company profits, thus defeating the original point of the lawsuits (the claim that the artists were being disenfranchised).
What's worse is that VP Joe Biden has come on record as having been drafting a plan to vindicate the avarice of these two acronyms at the expense of innocent people (http://www.dailytech.com/Obama%20Administration%20Announces%20Massive%20Piracy%20Crackdown/article18815.htm)
From that same article: "Another noteworthy study from three years back notes that virtually every citizen violates intellectual property laws in some way on a daily basis."
Great. We're all criminals.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Is it Really Obama's Katrina?
The BP oil spill has poisoned the Gulf of Mexico for over two months now, and not only has the leak not been stopped, but all efforts seem to have more potential to exacerbate the problem instead of fixing it as we discover that BP ignored safety warnings in the final hour and installed sub-par emergency equipment at their installation.
Everyone is pointing fingers at Obama, and in a sense, they're right to do so--he's the President! But there comes a point where even I, though I favor a bigger government that can get things done, recognize that government may not be able to solve all of society's problems. The point is to employ it when it can. To echo Rachel Maddow, we do not currently have the knowledge or the technology to stop this disaster.
BP has continually made promises that it knows it cannot keep, such as siphoning a miraculous amount of barrels per day from the sea, and it's credit in the bank of public trust had truly gone bust when Tony Hayward went to some yacht club after that farce some describe as a congressional hearing. Reminds me of some other people we saw recently.... "I'm truly sorry [for all I want to do is go home and isolate myself with my money. Ayn Rand says I don't have to listen to you insects!]"
The problem here is that nothing is working, and we can't figure out whether BP is actually trying to clean it up, or if they're just fooling around. But I don't really think its fair to pin everything on Obama. And look who's doing it: The people who don't have any confidence in government to start with! On Meet the Press last Sunday, Californian GOP Congressional candidate Carly Fiorina felt incensed: "Where were the regulators on this?" Thankfully, Rep. Debbie Wasserman of Florida was there to set her straight: "What right do you people have to talk about regulation?" [meaning Republicans], and she continued to recall how the regulators under a certain previous administration...allowed energy companies like BP to get away with what I described above (faulty equipment and incomplete emergency procedures).
What right to people who don't have confidence in government have to complain when government fails them? Shouldn't the GOP be celebrating right about now? No, it doesn't make sense. But those disenfranchised racists need to come to power somehow and fight any way they can against the Evil Black Man. Its a bizarre circus, really: A slightly-veiled anarchist party 1) still wants to tell people when, with whom, and under what conditions they can have sex, and 2) actually gets angry when conditions serve to seem to prove them right, even when it doesn't, really.
What do I mean? Well, did the government cause the oil spill? Is Obama doing nothing? I don't think so. To say that the BP spill is Obama's Katrina is to ignore the fact that Bush could have had the National Guard down there in 30 minutes, and it was the job of the government to clean up after a natural disaster.
"Wait, what? What about all that stuff you talk about in previous posts about how the government had to clean up the economic mess? You better not be backpedaling!" I'm not backpedaling. Consider the fact that the oil industry--we could assume, but that's stretching it, given BP's "attempts"--I'll use "supposedly"-- has the best people to deal with this crisis: The engineers, the mechanics, the geologists, and the operators--to control the machines in case something goes terribly wrong. The banks were not in any position to repair the damage they caused to our economy. BP is in a position where it can be held accountable for its irresponsibility and at the very least stop the leak. The government is getting involved where it should--holding BP legally responsible and overseeing the cleanup effort. The government should not be the entity that plugs the leak because, as I said before, it is entirely BP's responsibility given that BP is in the best position to be able to solve the problem.
This isn't like the economy, because our regulatory system in that sector is long-established for about 70-80 years since the Great Depression. This is THE WORST oil spill in our history, and it would truly be hoping for too much to believe that we have the equipment and expertise to deal with it before being exposed to enormous risk, the same way 9/11 woke us up to the true violence of the Middle East, or Columbine to teen psychopathy.
It is extremely unfortunate that something has to happen before we collectively act, but the major problem here and now with this BP spill is that we cannot act. Where our collective frustration comes from is that we--even myself, though I sometimes seem to believe that government can do everything--understand that neither BP or the federal government of the most powerful nation on Earth do not have the capacity to act.
Everyone is pointing fingers at Obama, and in a sense, they're right to do so--he's the President! But there comes a point where even I, though I favor a bigger government that can get things done, recognize that government may not be able to solve all of society's problems. The point is to employ it when it can. To echo Rachel Maddow, we do not currently have the knowledge or the technology to stop this disaster.
BP has continually made promises that it knows it cannot keep, such as siphoning a miraculous amount of barrels per day from the sea, and it's credit in the bank of public trust had truly gone bust when Tony Hayward went to some yacht club after that farce some describe as a congressional hearing. Reminds me of some other people we saw recently.... "I'm truly sorry [for all I want to do is go home and isolate myself with my money. Ayn Rand says I don't have to listen to you insects!]"
The problem here is that nothing is working, and we can't figure out whether BP is actually trying to clean it up, or if they're just fooling around. But I don't really think its fair to pin everything on Obama. And look who's doing it: The people who don't have any confidence in government to start with! On Meet the Press last Sunday, Californian GOP Congressional candidate Carly Fiorina felt incensed: "Where were the regulators on this?" Thankfully, Rep. Debbie Wasserman of Florida was there to set her straight: "What right do you people have to talk about regulation?" [meaning Republicans], and she continued to recall how the regulators under a certain previous administration...allowed energy companies like BP to get away with what I described above (faulty equipment and incomplete emergency procedures).
What right to people who don't have confidence in government have to complain when government fails them? Shouldn't the GOP be celebrating right about now? No, it doesn't make sense. But those disenfranchised racists need to come to power somehow and fight any way they can against the Evil Black Man. Its a bizarre circus, really: A slightly-veiled anarchist party 1) still wants to tell people when, with whom, and under what conditions they can have sex, and 2) actually gets angry when conditions serve to seem to prove them right, even when it doesn't, really.
What do I mean? Well, did the government cause the oil spill? Is Obama doing nothing? I don't think so. To say that the BP spill is Obama's Katrina is to ignore the fact that Bush could have had the National Guard down there in 30 minutes, and it was the job of the government to clean up after a natural disaster.
"Wait, what? What about all that stuff you talk about in previous posts about how the government had to clean up the economic mess? You better not be backpedaling!" I'm not backpedaling. Consider the fact that the oil industry--we could assume, but that's stretching it, given BP's "attempts"--I'll use "supposedly"-- has the best people to deal with this crisis: The engineers, the mechanics, the geologists, and the operators--to control the machines in case something goes terribly wrong. The banks were not in any position to repair the damage they caused to our economy. BP is in a position where it can be held accountable for its irresponsibility and at the very least stop the leak. The government is getting involved where it should--holding BP legally responsible and overseeing the cleanup effort. The government should not be the entity that plugs the leak because, as I said before, it is entirely BP's responsibility given that BP is in the best position to be able to solve the problem.
This isn't like the economy, because our regulatory system in that sector is long-established for about 70-80 years since the Great Depression. This is THE WORST oil spill in our history, and it would truly be hoping for too much to believe that we have the equipment and expertise to deal with it before being exposed to enormous risk, the same way 9/11 woke us up to the true violence of the Middle East, or Columbine to teen psychopathy.
It is extremely unfortunate that something has to happen before we collectively act, but the major problem here and now with this BP spill is that we cannot act. Where our collective frustration comes from is that we--even myself, though I sometimes seem to believe that government can do everything--understand that neither BP or the federal government of the most powerful nation on Earth do not have the capacity to act.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Harlequin Forest Analysis
"'What' Forest?" Harlequin Forest is my current favorite song by Opeth, and in this post, I want to figure out what the song actually means, much like I did in "American Bands Have Become Boring Pt II." The meaning of the song is not immediately obvious, and only in the second half of the song do we get any indication of what's really going on.
Without further ado, Harlequin Forest:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1
Into the trees
Past meadow grounds
And further away from my home
Baying behind me
I hear the hounds
Flock's chasing to find me alone
2
A trail of sickness
Leading to me
If I am haunted
Then you will see
3
Searching the darkness
And emptiness
I'm hiding away from the sun
Will never rest
Will never be at ease
All my matter's expired so I run
4
There falls another
Vapor hands released the blade
Insane regrets at the drop
Instruments of death before me
5
Lose all to save a little
At your peril it's justified
And dismiss your demons
As death becomes a jest
You are the laughing stock
Of the absinthe minded
Confessions stuck in your mouth
And long gone fevers reappear
---------------------------------
It's not until this stanza where things start to get interesting, when it might be that the song really isn't talking about any literal forest. This stanza is the first hint that the song is about religious belief, as was the theme in Still Life (1999), which featured Face of Melinda. "Lose all to save a little" and "Dismiss your demons" makes me think of how one may not be living fully, discarding this life in favor of the next, and this hypothesis seems to be backed up by "As death becomes a jest". I'm not entirely sure at all, however, where the next two lines fit in to this notion, however, for absinthe is a hallucinogenic, and the point of the song--if I'm right--would be that he is hallucinating, then why would others with the same ideas be laughing at him? "Confessions stuck in your mouth / And long gone fevers reappear" would indicate, continuing with my hypothesis, that our narrator has strayed somehow from his religious doctrine...
----------------------------------------------------
6
Nocturnally helpless
And weak in the light
Depending on a prayer
Pacing deserted roads to find
A seed of hope
---------------------------------------------------
This is where it begins to fall apart. Why would our narrator hide from the sun (light), as in Stanza 3? Something has gone seriously wrong. He's terrified of the truth: "Depending on a prayer / Pacing deserted roads to find / A seed of hope" is fairly straightforward in my view. Praying may save his faith, but he finds it deserted; he may not receive any sign that could save him.
--------------------------------------------------
7
They are the trees
Rotten pulp inside and never well
Roots sucking, thieving from my source
Tired boughs reaching for the light
--------------------------------------------------
Who are the trees? Wake up! It is worth noting that the song is completely different between stanzas 5 and 6, with a beautiful, slow bridge lasting about 1-2 minutes between them. Our narrator has awoken, and he sees the forest for the [rotting] trees. He sees the truth now, and the song is calm. The trees are the people with whom he believed, who tried to keep him in darkness, siphoning from his life. I am unsure, however, whether the final line is talking about him or his parasitic community.
--------------------------------------------------
8
It is all false pretension
Harlequin forest
Awaiting redemption for a lifetime
As they die alone
With no one by their side
Are they forgiven?
--------------------------------------------------
Jackpot! The word Harlequin may either mean a foolish yet nimble character, or may be rooted into "Hellequin", which means, "a black-faced emissary of the devil, is said to have roamed the countryside with a group of demons chasing the damned souls of evil people to Hell."1 If we choose the root Hellequin, it puts us in for quite a ride. Consider the possibility, then, that all of these people are damned as emissaries of Satan, then it would follow that our narrator is vindicated in a far worse manner than he could have possibly imagined. He was being led by some collective evil, and now he sees it for what it is.
Even without Hellequin, the meaning of the stanza is fairly obvious, and it refers back to what I said about Stanza 5. Forgiven may not even refer to any specific god(s), or even merely some Karmic metaphysic. Later on in the song, our narrator himself passes judgment upon his oppressors...
-----------------------------------------------
9
Stark determination
Poisoning the soul
Unfettered beast inside
Claiming sovereign control
---------------------------------------------
I'm not sure about "Poisoning the soul" because up to now, it has been for good that the narrator has broken free of his binds, but "unfettered beast" may refer to his anger at having been kept in ignorance for so long, as we will see in the final stanza...
----------------------------------------------
10
And now the woods are burning
Tearing life crops asunder
Useless blackened remains
Still pyre smoldering
---------------------------------------------
Here is where "Poisoning the soul" and the Unfettered Beast may have negative consequences, as would it not have been good enough for him to simply flee the Harlequin Forest? There is reason to believe that he is responsible for its destruction, much like The Moor went berserk in Still Life after Melinda was executed. Here, however, the narrator had considered the possibility of forgiveness (Stanza 8), and ruled against it with "stark determination."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I like doing these, and you can expect more of them, as news these days is quite slow. I'm considering doing Fandango by Pain of Salvation next, but I also fear that I may be giving myself away. Still, it is a lovely song.
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin#cite_note-Grantham-2
Without further ado, Harlequin Forest:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1
Into the trees
Past meadow grounds
And further away from my home
Baying behind me
I hear the hounds
Flock's chasing to find me alone
2
A trail of sickness
Leading to me
If I am haunted
Then you will see
3
Searching the darkness
And emptiness
I'm hiding away from the sun
Will never rest
Will never be at ease
All my matter's expired so I run
4
There falls another
Vapor hands released the blade
Insane regrets at the drop
Instruments of death before me
5
Lose all to save a little
At your peril it's justified
And dismiss your demons
As death becomes a jest
You are the laughing stock
Of the absinthe minded
Confessions stuck in your mouth
And long gone fevers reappear
---------------------------------
It's not until this stanza where things start to get interesting, when it might be that the song really isn't talking about any literal forest. This stanza is the first hint that the song is about religious belief, as was the theme in Still Life (1999), which featured Face of Melinda. "Lose all to save a little" and "Dismiss your demons" makes me think of how one may not be living fully, discarding this life in favor of the next, and this hypothesis seems to be backed up by "As death becomes a jest". I'm not entirely sure at all, however, where the next two lines fit in to this notion, however, for absinthe is a hallucinogenic, and the point of the song--if I'm right--would be that he is hallucinating, then why would others with the same ideas be laughing at him? "Confessions stuck in your mouth / And long gone fevers reappear" would indicate, continuing with my hypothesis, that our narrator has strayed somehow from his religious doctrine...
----------------------------------------------------
6
Nocturnally helpless
And weak in the light
Depending on a prayer
Pacing deserted roads to find
A seed of hope
---------------------------------------------------
This is where it begins to fall apart. Why would our narrator hide from the sun (light), as in Stanza 3? Something has gone seriously wrong. He's terrified of the truth: "Depending on a prayer / Pacing deserted roads to find / A seed of hope" is fairly straightforward in my view. Praying may save his faith, but he finds it deserted; he may not receive any sign that could save him.
--------------------------------------------------
7
They are the trees
Rotten pulp inside and never well
Roots sucking, thieving from my source
Tired boughs reaching for the light
--------------------------------------------------
Who are the trees? Wake up! It is worth noting that the song is completely different between stanzas 5 and 6, with a beautiful, slow bridge lasting about 1-2 minutes between them. Our narrator has awoken, and he sees the forest for the [rotting] trees. He sees the truth now, and the song is calm. The trees are the people with whom he believed, who tried to keep him in darkness, siphoning from his life. I am unsure, however, whether the final line is talking about him or his parasitic community.
--------------------------------------------------
8
It is all false pretension
Harlequin forest
Awaiting redemption for a lifetime
As they die alone
With no one by their side
Are they forgiven?
--------------------------------------------------
Jackpot! The word Harlequin may either mean a foolish yet nimble character, or may be rooted into "Hellequin", which means, "a black-faced emissary of the devil, is said to have roamed the countryside with a group of demons chasing the damned souls of evil people to Hell."1 If we choose the root Hellequin, it puts us in for quite a ride. Consider the possibility, then, that all of these people are damned as emissaries of Satan, then it would follow that our narrator is vindicated in a far worse manner than he could have possibly imagined. He was being led by some collective evil, and now he sees it for what it is.
Even without Hellequin, the meaning of the stanza is fairly obvious, and it refers back to what I said about Stanza 5. Forgiven may not even refer to any specific god(s), or even merely some Karmic metaphysic. Later on in the song, our narrator himself passes judgment upon his oppressors...
-----------------------------------------------
9
Stark determination
Poisoning the soul
Unfettered beast inside
Claiming sovereign control
---------------------------------------------
I'm not sure about "Poisoning the soul" because up to now, it has been for good that the narrator has broken free of his binds, but "unfettered beast" may refer to his anger at having been kept in ignorance for so long, as we will see in the final stanza...
----------------------------------------------
10
And now the woods are burning
Tearing life crops asunder
Useless blackened remains
Still pyre smoldering
---------------------------------------------
Here is where "Poisoning the soul" and the Unfettered Beast may have negative consequences, as would it not have been good enough for him to simply flee the Harlequin Forest? There is reason to believe that he is responsible for its destruction, much like The Moor went berserk in Still Life after Melinda was executed. Here, however, the narrator had considered the possibility of forgiveness (Stanza 8), and ruled against it with "stark determination."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I like doing these, and you can expect more of them, as news these days is quite slow. I'm considering doing Fandango by Pain of Salvation next, but I also fear that I may be giving myself away. Still, it is a lovely song.
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin#cite_note-Grantham-2
Xenogears: 20 Hours In
I've been posting about this game intermittently on Facebook, and I'm maybe 75-80% through disc 1, and I thought I would tell you guys what it's actually like.
Xenogears is both similar and different from most RPGs I've played, for it's not often that we get to control towering mechs in combat.
The first thing you really notice playing the game is the linearity. My only problem with the pacing is that though in terms of storytelling, the pacing ranges from very good to excellent, I occasionally worry that I am not strong enough for where I am, and the game does not give many opportunities at all to farm (grind). Grind when you can, and get as much money as you can so you can improve your mechs (Gears; think, strangely, Metal Gear Solid). It is also IMPERATIVE that you upgrade your gear equipment at every available opportunity.
However, having only played for 20 hours, I will tell you that I feel like a lot of things have happened. The game even to a degree outpaces even Final Fantasy 8, which, as we all remember, had an incredibly epic first disc (from Dollet to Timbre to the assassination attempt on the Sorceress). Granted, Xenogears is only 2 discs as opposed to FF8's 4 discs, but even still, a lot of things are happening.
The plot reminds me a little of Evangelion, and I could write a paper on how Fei Fong Wong is simply a less-depressed Shinji Ikari, but you probably don't quite care enough about that for me to actually do it. The narrative is quite confusing, and all of these different characters and factions are introduced but never adequately explained (hopefully that will be taken care of in the second disc), but still I hold on, because the game's real strong point is its character development. I really like these characters, and I really like how they're dealing with their problems (unlike Vanille in FF13 being an oblivious little kid for half the friggin game).
One character is a military officer who encounters Fei early in the game, but she returns to her homeland soon after we meet up with her, and the whole game she expresses the desire to flee, but she is unable to, because at least she has somewhere to belong, except: There is one sequence where this character's country commences an operation to *NUKE!* the enemy capital city, and Fei is able to show her the destruction her complacency has caused, and she finally joins with you to change the course of the main bomber and save the city. This is the coolest event in the game thus far.
On an aesthetic front, the characters are sprites, but they are beautifully animated, and this especially evident during combat: Models will fall when hit, and execute intricate combos (more on that later) with a level of detail normally reserved for fighting games. They may be "miniature" RPG sprites, but never before have they been so well-animated.
The game's soundtrack is much the same as what we would expect from a Square-Enix (-Soft) title, except for one small problem: There are spots in the game without any music. I don't immediately care about there being no music, but it's the fact that the music is so good otherwise that I miss it when it isn't there.
There's one thing that's funny about the Gears: It's sometimes as if you're carrying them in your pocket, and you can simply board or disembark from them at any time (even during combat, which, while occasionally extremely necessary, is sometimes ridiculous).
I haven't decided if Xenogears is better than Final Fantasy, but it absolutely has my attention and I love it enough to want to see it through.
A+
Xenogears is both similar and different from most RPGs I've played, for it's not often that we get to control towering mechs in combat.
The first thing you really notice playing the game is the linearity. My only problem with the pacing is that though in terms of storytelling, the pacing ranges from very good to excellent, I occasionally worry that I am not strong enough for where I am, and the game does not give many opportunities at all to farm (grind). Grind when you can, and get as much money as you can so you can improve your mechs (Gears; think, strangely, Metal Gear Solid). It is also IMPERATIVE that you upgrade your gear equipment at every available opportunity.
However, having only played for 20 hours, I will tell you that I feel like a lot of things have happened. The game even to a degree outpaces even Final Fantasy 8, which, as we all remember, had an incredibly epic first disc (from Dollet to Timbre to the assassination attempt on the Sorceress). Granted, Xenogears is only 2 discs as opposed to FF8's 4 discs, but even still, a lot of things are happening.
The plot reminds me a little of Evangelion, and I could write a paper on how Fei Fong Wong is simply a less-depressed Shinji Ikari, but you probably don't quite care enough about that for me to actually do it. The narrative is quite confusing, and all of these different characters and factions are introduced but never adequately explained (hopefully that will be taken care of in the second disc), but still I hold on, because the game's real strong point is its character development. I really like these characters, and I really like how they're dealing with their problems (unlike Vanille in FF13 being an oblivious little kid for half the friggin game).
One character is a military officer who encounters Fei early in the game, but she returns to her homeland soon after we meet up with her, and the whole game she expresses the desire to flee, but she is unable to, because at least she has somewhere to belong, except: There is one sequence where this character's country commences an operation to *NUKE!* the enemy capital city, and Fei is able to show her the destruction her complacency has caused, and she finally joins with you to change the course of the main bomber and save the city. This is the coolest event in the game thus far.
On an aesthetic front, the characters are sprites, but they are beautifully animated, and this especially evident during combat: Models will fall when hit, and execute intricate combos (more on that later) with a level of detail normally reserved for fighting games. They may be "miniature" RPG sprites, but never before have they been so well-animated.
The game's soundtrack is much the same as what we would expect from a Square-Enix (-Soft) title, except for one small problem: There are spots in the game without any music. I don't immediately care about there being no music, but it's the fact that the music is so good otherwise that I miss it when it isn't there.
There's one thing that's funny about the Gears: It's sometimes as if you're carrying them in your pocket, and you can simply board or disembark from them at any time (even during combat, which, while occasionally extremely necessary, is sometimes ridiculous).
I haven't decided if Xenogears is better than Final Fantasy, but it absolutely has my attention and I love it enough to want to see it through.
A+
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
American Bands Have Become Boring Pt II
In the last post, I dealt specifically with metal. Of course, it isn't entirely true that all American bands are boring (because there are quite a few I enjoyed from the 90s and beginning of the 2000s), but the output of American music by and large took an enormous plunge: Even my cousin earlier wrote about bands he enjoyed (although a few he mentioned were of British origin, he did mention Metallica) being currently awful.
At my birthday party, one of my very good friends talked about the length of current songs. Now, my sister earlier than that defended song length as a staple of a certain genre, but I would have to agree with the friend that it may be a sign of our dwindling attention span. Maybe I am already skewed because in my view, any song less than 5-7 minutes long is extremely short. But even before I started listening to Prog, my satisfaction usually rested at 4 minutes as a decent length, and I remember feeling that even Linkin Park's songs were too short, and they were around 2:30.
But on the subject of song length, I think what's happening may be reciprocating. That is, the industry is producing artists and songs that are shorter and that people are listening to them. Many of the industry's target demographic don't really have a choice of what to listen to, and the only option left to them is to either force themselves to enjoy the auditory rape or go back in time, which explains why there are so many little kids running around saying they listen to bands from the 60s and 70s. Not that bands from that era are bad in any way (I happen to really enjoy listening to YES and Pink Floyd), but it's kind of anachronistic: How could these kids possibly find out about The Grateful Dead?
I think part of the problem is how new artists are produced, and we need to look no further than American Idol and Disney. I happened to actually like watching American Idol, except that it seemed to prove me right. There are people on the show who can actually sing and have actual talent, but there is an enormous discrepancy: The discrepancy exists between talent and marketing; to clarify, the best performer may not win, hence why Adam Lambert lost to Kris Allen last year, and Crystal Bowersox lost to Lee Dwayze this year. As it happens, Kris Allen and Lee Dwayze are exactly the same artist: Little scruffy kids with an acoustic guitar, annoying nasally voice, and zero stage presence. However, it is also true that Adam Lambert managed to land a record contract. The interesting thing is that at the end of AI, the records that are actually released by the winner(s) are pretty awful.
Let's move on to Disney. Two words: Miley Cyrus. She started off in a Disney sitcom in which she has a "rock star" (term used extremely loosely) alter-ego called Hannah Montana. Soon the two personalities became one, and Disney milked the cash cow for all it was worth. It also helps that her father was responsible for "Achy Breaky Heart." And then she displayed the depth of her ignorance when she went on to insult Radiohead.
The problem is that all of these franchises at least appear to be artificial and manufactured. They are signed and then have songs written for them, and they don't often really express any ideas at all (see also: Justin Bieber, who doesn't know that German is a language)
There are two redeeming pop artists in the United States, however, and they are Alicia Keys and Lady Gaga. As annoying and nonsensical as Lady Gaga is, she at least is classically trained and able to compose her own music.
You know what else is fun? Rap. Let me tell you a story. In the old days (circa 1980s), rap used to mean something. Scholars rejoiced at the new medium's giving voice to an oppressed minority, but then late in the 90s something amazing happened: The record labels went fishing for the next big thing and caught themselves gangsta rap, from which they were able to exorcise its relevance and turn it into a remarkably successful marketing ploy (see Sprite, Nike, Boost mobile). Only the most repulsive aspects of the original genre remained: Blatant misogyny, hedonism and violence. The plight of the inner city was abandoned when the rappers were featured on MTV Cribs.
Much like everything else, to find the cream of the crop, one needs to go underground, overseas, or in the past. A few decent rappers remain, and they are Overseer, Del the Funkee Homosapien, and Danger Doom. I prefer Del.
"Fuckin' magnets, how do they work?" Sometimes the indie scene isn't too much better than the corporate nightmare of Z100. Take, for example, Insane Clown Posse, whose song Miracles is the most poisonous piece of putridity that only perpetuates the worst possible Philistinism. The following line proves my point, and is the source of a large Internet phenomenon: "I don’t wannna talk to a scientist, ya’ll motherfuckers're lyin' and gettin' me pissed" That's the worst America has to offer in a nutshell.
It would be unfair, however, to claim that the record industry is not the same everywhere. French pop sounds just as repulsive as American pop, and the chavs' broken English in Britain are almost more repulsive than their American counterparts (see Lady Sovereign). But it's strange to me how it is easier to find good bands overseas than it is in my own country, where one would think they would be more easily available. It doesn't make much sense, because if the recording industry is the same absolutely everywhere, then I should have the same or even more limited access to decent bands in Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands. Unless, metal is simply more widespread in Europe than it is here.
What about Evanescence or Marilyn Manson? It is quite evident that Evanescence's debut album was excellent, but much like a lot of bands, their second album was cliched and quite uninteresting. The brains behind the band, Ben Moody, has since abandoned Amy Lee to her fate.
Marilyn Manson's latest album, Eat Me, Drink Me, had almost zero cultural relevance, which is sad because a few weeks ago I read the lyrics from Holywood, and they were absolutely beautiful. While I couldn't listen to him again, his lyrics are often among the best I've ever heard in domestic music, even if they appeal just to alienated middle-schoolers. MM remains one of the two most intelligent metal artists in the United States, the other being Trent Reznor.
I focus mostly on pop in this essay simply because it is the most widespread genre in music today, much like how first person shooters were biggest during the Halo Era (between the release dates of Halo 2 and a few months after Halo 3), and few examples in either genre have anything truly relevant to say. Much like the way another cousin described Ecstasy, they are simply "brain candy": They may make you feel good, but they don't do anything for you.
I'm not trying to say *all* American music is boring or not worth listening to--that would be a grossly inaccurate generalization, and there are many, many examples that even I know of that would prove me wrong were I ignorant enough to make that claim, but I will absolutely postulate that what is emitted from popular radio stations today by and large is uninteresting and not worth listening to.
It's kind of funny about contemporary pop. There is one band in particular I want to mention in its defense, but it turns out they're British, and their latest album absolutely has something very deep and insightful to say--in fact, I would never in my life expect a counterculture band to say what the Gorillaz have said in Plastic Beach.
Part III: What happened?
At my birthday party, one of my very good friends talked about the length of current songs. Now, my sister earlier than that defended song length as a staple of a certain genre, but I would have to agree with the friend that it may be a sign of our dwindling attention span. Maybe I am already skewed because in my view, any song less than 5-7 minutes long is extremely short. But even before I started listening to Prog, my satisfaction usually rested at 4 minutes as a decent length, and I remember feeling that even Linkin Park's songs were too short, and they were around 2:30.
But on the subject of song length, I think what's happening may be reciprocating. That is, the industry is producing artists and songs that are shorter and that people are listening to them. Many of the industry's target demographic don't really have a choice of what to listen to, and the only option left to them is to either force themselves to enjoy the auditory rape or go back in time, which explains why there are so many little kids running around saying they listen to bands from the 60s and 70s. Not that bands from that era are bad in any way (I happen to really enjoy listening to YES and Pink Floyd), but it's kind of anachronistic: How could these kids possibly find out about The Grateful Dead?
I think part of the problem is how new artists are produced, and we need to look no further than American Idol and Disney. I happened to actually like watching American Idol, except that it seemed to prove me right. There are people on the show who can actually sing and have actual talent, but there is an enormous discrepancy: The discrepancy exists between talent and marketing; to clarify, the best performer may not win, hence why Adam Lambert lost to Kris Allen last year, and Crystal Bowersox lost to Lee Dwayze this year. As it happens, Kris Allen and Lee Dwayze are exactly the same artist: Little scruffy kids with an acoustic guitar, annoying nasally voice, and zero stage presence. However, it is also true that Adam Lambert managed to land a record contract. The interesting thing is that at the end of AI, the records that are actually released by the winner(s) are pretty awful.
Let's move on to Disney. Two words: Miley Cyrus. She started off in a Disney sitcom in which she has a "rock star" (term used extremely loosely) alter-ego called Hannah Montana. Soon the two personalities became one, and Disney milked the cash cow for all it was worth. It also helps that her father was responsible for "Achy Breaky Heart." And then she displayed the depth of her ignorance when she went on to insult Radiohead.
The problem is that all of these franchises at least appear to be artificial and manufactured. They are signed and then have songs written for them, and they don't often really express any ideas at all (see also: Justin Bieber, who doesn't know that German is a language)
There are two redeeming pop artists in the United States, however, and they are Alicia Keys and Lady Gaga. As annoying and nonsensical as Lady Gaga is, she at least is classically trained and able to compose her own music.
You know what else is fun? Rap. Let me tell you a story. In the old days (circa 1980s), rap used to mean something. Scholars rejoiced at the new medium's giving voice to an oppressed minority, but then late in the 90s something amazing happened: The record labels went fishing for the next big thing and caught themselves gangsta rap, from which they were able to exorcise its relevance and turn it into a remarkably successful marketing ploy (see Sprite, Nike, Boost mobile). Only the most repulsive aspects of the original genre remained: Blatant misogyny, hedonism and violence. The plight of the inner city was abandoned when the rappers were featured on MTV Cribs.
Much like everything else, to find the cream of the crop, one needs to go underground, overseas, or in the past. A few decent rappers remain, and they are Overseer, Del the Funkee Homosapien, and Danger Doom. I prefer Del.
"Fuckin' magnets, how do they work?" Sometimes the indie scene isn't too much better than the corporate nightmare of Z100. Take, for example, Insane Clown Posse, whose song Miracles is the most poisonous piece of putridity that only perpetuates the worst possible Philistinism. The following line proves my point, and is the source of a large Internet phenomenon: "I don’t wannna talk to a scientist, ya’ll motherfuckers're lyin' and gettin' me pissed" That's the worst America has to offer in a nutshell.
It would be unfair, however, to claim that the record industry is not the same everywhere. French pop sounds just as repulsive as American pop, and the chavs' broken English in Britain are almost more repulsive than their American counterparts (see Lady Sovereign). But it's strange to me how it is easier to find good bands overseas than it is in my own country, where one would think they would be more easily available. It doesn't make much sense, because if the recording industry is the same absolutely everywhere, then I should have the same or even more limited access to decent bands in Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands. Unless, metal is simply more widespread in Europe than it is here.
What about Evanescence or Marilyn Manson? It is quite evident that Evanescence's debut album was excellent, but much like a lot of bands, their second album was cliched and quite uninteresting. The brains behind the band, Ben Moody, has since abandoned Amy Lee to her fate.
Marilyn Manson's latest album, Eat Me, Drink Me, had almost zero cultural relevance, which is sad because a few weeks ago I read the lyrics from Holywood, and they were absolutely beautiful. While I couldn't listen to him again, his lyrics are often among the best I've ever heard in domestic music, even if they appeal just to alienated middle-schoolers. MM remains one of the two most intelligent metal artists in the United States, the other being Trent Reznor.
I focus mostly on pop in this essay simply because it is the most widespread genre in music today, much like how first person shooters were biggest during the Halo Era (between the release dates of Halo 2 and a few months after Halo 3), and few examples in either genre have anything truly relevant to say. Much like the way another cousin described Ecstasy, they are simply "brain candy": They may make you feel good, but they don't do anything for you.
I'm not trying to say *all* American music is boring or not worth listening to--that would be a grossly inaccurate generalization, and there are many, many examples that even I know of that would prove me wrong were I ignorant enough to make that claim, but I will absolutely postulate that what is emitted from popular radio stations today by and large is uninteresting and not worth listening to.
It's kind of funny about contemporary pop. There is one band in particular I want to mention in its defense, but it turns out they're British, and their latest album absolutely has something very deep and insightful to say--in fact, I would never in my life expect a counterculture band to say what the Gorillaz have said in Plastic Beach.
Part III: What happened?
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