More on Arsonists

A few more thoughts on those arsonists. As I said, I was a BSC theatre major, so maybe I've got a little insight into the motivations of these kids. Just scanning the blogs I've seen a lot of speculation; some folks home in on the UAB guy's profession of Satanism. A surprising number have speculated that it was some kind of Methodists Vs. Baptists thing. The latter set of theories reminds me that however much fun armchair conspiracy theorizing is as a parlor game, it's also a good way to look silly to folks who have inside knowledge.

When I was a student I did a lot of dumb things to test the boundaries of appropriate behavior/what I could get away with. In part it's about asserting one's own power; in part it's about seeing "God still loves me" by seeing what one can get away with. I recall one time a buddy and I were on a late night grocery run. A cute gal was in line in front of us. We saw her driving away and we decided to follow her. We didn't mean any harm; we just thought it would be a hoot to play at stalking. We followed her to her house, idled across the street as she went inside, sat there for a minute, just reveling in our naughtiness, and then drove off. Maybe we scared her, though she didn't show it. I'm not at all proud of this; we should have considered that we might really upset the poor woman. But I suspect it flowed from the same source as the arsonists' "joking" escapades.

The difference, I think, is that we didn't cross that final line; we didn't get out of the car and do anything to the woman or the property. We were Dungeons and Dragons nerds-we knew how to live out our evil fantasies in imaginary, harmless ways. Perhaps respect for other people was the missing ingredient in these boys-not a "yes sir yes ma'am" respect, but an awareness that however important the assertion of your identity is, it's not more important than a respect for other peoples' needs. In other words I'd suggest that the problem wasn't that they wanted to be "bad," but that they didn't understand that there's good bad and bad bad. Good bad is more decorative than functional. It's good to sing the song of yourself, even if it's a song that not everyone likes; it's just not good to try to drown out other people singing their songs.

Arsonists

So they caught those church burners, and two of them were Theatre majors at Birmingham-Southern College.

I was a Theatre major at Birmingham-Southern College.

So my response to this is a little more shaded than I might have expected. I just wanted the perps to get caught, punished (severely) and let that be it. But now the faculty that taught me so much lo, a decade ago, and their students have a big emotional fallout. I remember what a close-knit family the theatre department is over there. I went to BSC's website and found some cute pictures of one of the perps doing theatre with several smiling, happy students. They look so innocent, so pleased to be doing something creative and fun with this guy.

Avalon

Avalon, a movie by Mamoru Oshii (best known for the Ghost in the Shell movies) is a live-action CGI-packed film about a woman who makes her living playing an immersive computer game; kind of like a Matrix version of Everquest, only with a more military concept. The film's style is so consistent with Oshii's other films that he's starting to look a bit artistically constipated; the same moody, fussily composed shots, the same quiet, joyless, tough female lead. Most of the film has a digital sepia tone that I don't care for; I like real sepia but the digital stuff just looks digital, like the high-tech equivalent of putting a color filter over the lens. But the special effects were simple and convincing to my eye.

I liked a lot of things about it. The movie has some teasing ambiguities: the logic of the game becomes disturbing in ways that reflect the logical shortcomings of most complex video and role-playing games. Not to give anything away, but there's a "little girl" who plays a key role in the game, and the way the heroine interacts with this girl is disturbing but logical according to the limitations of the seemingly realistic game. Is it misanthropy or just poor coding? We never know, but by the end it's apparent that the girl represents the morally ambiguous forces behind the game, or at least that's how the heroine seems to regard it. The final shot of the girl has a wierd wrongness that was achieved with subtle digital effects and was prompted by a minor problem with the footage, a happy accident (all this is explained in the making-of featurette on the DVD.)

The movie also plays games with the virtues and limitations of teamwork vs. going it alone, and where reality and convincing simulation phase into one another. This is nothing new for post-Philip Dick SF movies but is handled with wit. Oshii lets the ambiguities resonate and never tries to slap The Answer onto it.

The fight scenes are surprisingly dull; lots of intercut shots of people shooting, then the tank blows up or someone falls down. It makes me wonder to what extent the elegantly choreographed action scenes in Ghost in the Shell, were the work of animation directors and such.

Apologies if this reads sloppy; until I get my computer fixed I'm posting on the fly. Also apologies for posting about such nerdy and obscure stuff, but it's hard to forge in the smithy of my soul or what have you while I'm forced to wear pants. It is only while pantsless that truly great blogposts can be composed.

War For The Oaks

War For The Oaks by Emma Bull. A much-acclaimed fantasy novel from a few decades ago... I'm almost done with it, and it's got me thinking about how my literary interests have changed. The book is basically a daydream, a ready-made daydream, and if I'd read it in my school days I would have loved it. Back then a daydream was what I wanted from any story, and stories that didn't work for me as daydreams were failures as far as I was concerned. But nowadays I prefer stories about how people deal with real problems, the kind of problems you can neither enjoy nor wish away, and so I'm finding War For The Oaks a disappointing read. Emma Bull is a skillful writer but a self-indulgent one; her central character, Effi, seems to be a wish-fulfillment version of herself, and the fantasy is mostly lifestyle fantasy. She's the leader of a hot rock band that never has any problems musically or socially. She has two cute boys in love with her. All the threats and problems in the story are mostly window dressing; they're about as threatening as a screensaver, and about as easy to stop. Effi only ever has the kinds of problems you dream up for yourself during a boring class, and she gets out of those problems with the kind of solutions you dream up. In this kind of fantasy you defeat the villian by just being the wonderful person you are. I much prefer the Guy Gavriel Kay / Ursula Le Guin approach, where you defeat the villian but not before he blinds you, rips your arms off, eats your family and rapes your friends. And that's in the third chapter. So the problem isn't just how to defeat the boss monster, but how to have a good life with no eyes, no arms, no family and a bunch of miserable friends.

Actually I love a good confectionary story too, like Jeeves and Wooster, The Importance of Being Earnest, As You Like It, and perhaps I'll get into the differences between these confections and this kind of ready-made daydream story in a future post.

Why hello there!

My home internet is down and is staying down due to a Jobian series of technical mishaps, so I'll have to resign myself to updating this at work and the library. Jeez Louise!

So what's up with me? Just played a part in a video shoot-It's visual accompaniment to a live musical performance; a cellist will play an original composition while this silent film plays behind him. I play a member of a peaceful cult gone bad.

Coming soon! Some thoughts on some books (God Knows by Joseph Heller and War For The Oaks by Emma Bull) and movies (Alphaville, Avalon, Tromeo and Juliet). Edit: some of these promises were broken. Not for the first time, not for the last.

Please Stand By

I want to post about many things, but my home internet is down... got a bad wire in the wall according to Bellsouth's tech, so I'll be switching to dial-up for a while, which strikes me as a positive step back... I waste too much time on the net because it's so darn easy with DSL. Dial-up is too annoying to suck me in, and it costs less, and since this is supposed to be the year of saving money... (not doing well at all on that front.)

My phone line went down Saturday, the same day I paid my bill (well before the due date, BTW.) I've been cut off for nonpayment before, but this is the first time I ever got cut off for payment. So until this jive is fixed my updates will be a bit lacking. Anyway, saw a bodaceous cabaret performance this weekend; hope to post more about that soon. And last night as I was preparing for a shower I noticed that I can see my torso bone structure better than I have since college. The no-chocolate diet is finally paying off! It's wierd how weeks go by with no hint of a change and then suddenly there's a noticable difference. Still a good ways to go though.