tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-305577182024-03-21T13:11:49.159-04:00Off The PinkS Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.comBlogger265125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-16589256078237473032008-08-18T18:02:00.005-04:002008-08-18T18:34:47.560-04:00Forever Old Man's Starship Troopers<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqRrNAOYeWnXsNng5TKeDQuQbHXR_JWEKhvvCXLAcewcYpIs6dXVBiG4YxaCcbqzyKXoTW6a8CaWvQ6PkIU2glT7U1SclXTXq5x6_0sZCzTr8BIX7a4lfm2wPZpLXAVTJehmyj/s1600-h/forever-war_02a.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqRrNAOYeWnXsNng5TKeDQuQbHXR_JWEKhvvCXLAcewcYpIs6dXVBiG4YxaCcbqzyKXoTW6a8CaWvQ6PkIU2glT7U1SclXTXq5x6_0sZCzTr8BIX7a4lfm2wPZpLXAVTJehmyj/s320/forever-war_02a.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235984635179111506" border="0" /></a>I just had the opportunity to read <span style="font-style: italic;">Old Man’s War</span> by John Scalzi, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Forever War</span> by Joe Haldeman, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Starship Troopers</span> by Robert Heinlein all in fairly quick succession. I’d recommend the same to any aspiring SF writer, and not just because they’re all good books in their own right. The three books are a triptych that illustrates how broadly a single subject can be approached, and shows how an author’s politics (or more broadly, an author’s beliefs about how the universe works) inform a narrative.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgns4fFsbBTkCNZPK4Z5FrX-OWzFou7_rYyteGzXb0qlJAcb-scoSqMVbq2tMi3T0sqMwxB81i3FbI-koUdM2hZ_-PZrUF3Boe2QOot2yIYZjgCyQNv-IwjbXZjTeuY7jKOlz42/s1600-h/starship+troopers.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgns4fFsbBTkCNZPK4Z5FrX-OWzFou7_rYyteGzXb0qlJAcb-scoSqMVbq2tMi3T0sqMwxB81i3FbI-koUdM2hZ_-PZrUF3Boe2QOot2yIYZjgCyQNv-IwjbXZjTeuY7jKOlz42/s320/starship+troopers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235984481230991762" border="0" /></a>This trio, when viewed from a distance, show a very similar story. A future cadet from planet earth joins a unified human military force as an infantryman. The military is embroiled in an interstellar war against alien forces and uses its starship-based high-tech infantry in a role roughly equivalent to armored cavalry units. The cadet starts in basic training/boot camp and sees fellow cadets screw up (sometimes fatally) but manages to squeak by training, entering the infantry as a private. The new private sees action, more people die in action, and he sees at least one major battle screwed up royally. He rises into the officer ranks and sees his last action (in the book at least) in a battle that ends as a qualified success (at least the important characters survived.)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik5jUUJDDGJy9OIrZ77C4a0TmE5znVQVnXbziutOfiY6n7_7uqzeRikdym07jjpSBJN04ic3pDDfVbeKAlvKV7zBZcBFg9ZinBATy406uPwx3PwG8T_pa2sxoTen2PL5oX5lUL/s1600-h/old+man%27s+war.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik5jUUJDDGJy9OIrZ77C4a0TmE5znVQVnXbziutOfiY6n7_7uqzeRikdym07jjpSBJN04ic3pDDfVbeKAlvKV7zBZcBFg9ZinBATy406uPwx3PwG8T_pa2sxoTen2PL5oX5lUL/s320/old+man%27s+war.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235984901884467986" border="0" /></a>Of course, at ground level where the narrative meets the road, you’d be hard pressed to find three more divergent treatments of the same subject. Some examples that more than likely grow out of each author’s point of view:<br /><br /><ul><li>In ST, the government and the military are both benign and competent, whereas in FW they are neither. In OMW the government and military are competent but morally ambiguous and often out-gunned.</li><li>In ST, military service is a respected duty performed by willing volunteers, in FW it is a burden imposed on draftees, in OMW it is a crapshoot taken by people who really don’t have any idea what they’re volunteering for.</li><li>In ST, basic training is relevant to the soldier’s tasks and justified at length, in FW the training is pretty damn pointless, in OMW the training has a justifiable point, but an actively hostile universe is still handing you your ass.</li></ul>In fact, someone can (and probably has) fill a fourth book with the differing attitudes in this trio of books show towards all sorts of things from the rights and responsibilities of citizenship to sexual politics.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-32682912013092340692008-08-07T17:58:00.002-04:002008-08-07T18:05:49.199-04:00Update: Islamic Students reasonable. Islamic Scholar, not so much.<a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/publishing/apparently_the_terrorists_planned_to_spam_random_houses_servers_91058.asp?c=rss">According to Gallycat</a>, the students riled up by the threat of Random House's publication of the <span style="font-style:italic;">Jewel of Medina</span> were planning little more than a publicity campaign to e-mail the publisher and news outlets and so on. Perfectly innocuous stuff in a pluralistic society. Which makes Random House look like a bunch of wusses, and makes Professor Denise Spellberg's frantic warnings about threats to Random House's staff and property look even more like disingenuous bigotry, to put it kindly.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-18536193104473939072008-08-06T16:55:00.001-04:002008-08-06T16:58:54.843-04:00Islamic Overreaction freaks out Random HouseFrom the “this surprises you why?” department:<br /><br />Random House was going to publish a book titled <span style="font-style: italic;">The Jewel of Medina</span> by Sherry Jones, a historical novel that features one of Mohammad’s wives, and has decided “oops, bad idea.” <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121797979078815073.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries%20">Quoth Random House in the Washington Post Op-Ed</a>, “after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received "from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.” <br /><br />Apparently one of those credible sources was an American academic named Denise Spellberg (sage <a href="http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/the-jewel-of-medina-is-now-on-sale-no-wait-nevermind/">advice from the Smart Bitches</a>, do <span style="font-weight: bold;">not </span>let this woman blurb your book) who got an advance copy and apparently got her knickers in a prudish little twist (you see Muhammad had wives, and <span style="font-weight: bold;">gasp</span>, may have had sex with them) and made a “frantic” call to the editor of a popular Muslim website (this book made her frantic) and asked him to warn Muslims about this nasty, evil, book that “made fun of Muslims and their history.” And apparently, armed only with Spellberg’s description of this “very ugly, stupid piece of work,” not having read it himself, he did exactly what she asked, warning people of the coming literary apocalypse. And, of course, offense spreads like wildfire.<br /><br />But what seems to be the trigger that caused the book to be pulled was Spellberg’s own warning to her own editor at another imprint at Random House. According to Spellberg, if the book was released there was “a very real possibility of major danger for the building and staff and widespread violence.” Apparently she babbled on like an islamaphobic neocon frightened by Obama’s middle name. The Terrorists would kill them all if the book saw the light of day. Her warning was bounced around the email servers at Random House until the book was pulled less than a month later.<br /><br />Spellberg might count Random House’s withdrawl of the book as some sort of victory, but I wonder if she realizes that encouraging them to stomp this book by using threats of violence is <a href="http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/publishing/has_random_house_let_the_terrorists_win_90974.asp?c=rss%20">casting Islam in a much more vile light before a much broader audience</a> than the book’s publication ever would have.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-36430050197125789622008-08-04T21:05:00.002-04:002008-08-04T21:10:40.546-04:00Mad CowNo strange videos recently, so here's one from the <a href="http://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/permalink/home_intruder/#When:16:16:00Z">Weird Universe Weblog</a>. (The URL onscreen is NSFW)<br /><br /><center><br /><object width="425" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qAsDaHK5jLA&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qAsDaHK5jLA&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="349"></embed></object></center>S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-50716620914573181412008-08-01T07:46:00.002-04:002008-08-01T07:53:53.516-04:00Orson Scott Card is scared of gay marriage<a href="http://mormontimes.com/ME_blogs.php?id=1586">His rant is here</a>, and somewhat predictably there are responses in the blogosphere ranging from <a href="http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=1181">laconic bemusement by Scalzi</a> to <a href="http://blogs.feministsf.net/?p=409">rhetorical dismemberment on the Feminist SF Blog</a>. I would like to add my own little can of lighter fluid to this raging bonfire by offering everyone who’s jumping on this OMGWTFTEHGAYS panicmobile a nice little clue:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Marriage defined by the state <> marriage as defined by the church (<span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> church.)</span><br /><br />Repeat this a few times every time you’re frightened by images of <a href="http://justjared.buzznet.com/2008/06/17/george-takei-marriage-license/">George Takai</a> on his honeymoon.<br /><br />Shall I defend my thesis with facts? (Oh please, not those.)<br /><br />I’m married in the Catholic Church. They don’t believe in divorce, you know. If I got a divorce, all nice and legal, the Pope starts going “lalalalala I can’t hear you lalalala” and says I’m still married. Of course, if divorced me tried to continue filing my taxes jointly or keep my ex-wife on my health insurance, I’d have some legal issues. If I died without a will, she wouldn’t inherit. But in the church, I’m still married. I get another wife, the US Government says it’s just fine while the Church says I’m still married to the first one. <br /><br />Another situation, a Muslim man can divorce his wife just by telling her he divorces her. Fine, his church says they’re divorced. But if he’s a US citizen and hasn’t filed the right paperwork, he’s going to be facing bigamy charges if he marries again— even if his wife says, “but he really did divorce me.”<br /><br />There are common law marriages that aren’t properly recognized by any particular church, and pagan marriages that aren’t recognized by the state. There are sects of particular religions that explicitly allow polygamy that the US has never legally recognized. (That’s a particularly thunderous silence in Mr. Card’s article.)<br /><br />Card’s thesis seems to be that if the State’s view of marriage in legal terms does not conform to a person’s view of marriage in religious/spiritual terms, it is a proper basis for succession and/or actual revolt. This might have been a cogent argument in the time of Henry V, nowadays it doesn’t particularly wash.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-58758810521094884622008-07-28T19:20:00.002-04:002008-07-28T20:02:40.660-04:00Empire State AsshateryPoliticians love child porn. It is the ultimate grandstanding issue. It is an issue with effectively no opposing side, after all, if you come out "against" child porn you've implicitly cast any opposition into the role of pedophiles and child molesters. There's no downside.<br /><br />Enter New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. He loves the children. And he's discovered that there's this thing called the internet and, on it is, GASP, child porn. So, like any good crimefighter, he <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9997051-38.html?tag=mncol;title">launches a campaign</a> to "encourage" broadband providers to "volunteer" to take actions "surgically directed" only at child pornography and "not at any protected content." Of course, this works really well, causing <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9964895-38.html">Time-Warner to pull 10,000 Usenet newsgroups</a> to curb the corrupting influence of the 88 groups that the AG's office found to contain evidence of child porn. <br /><br />Even better than using this as political red meat to make him look "tough" when he's "protecting the children," Mr. Cuomo has indulged in a grand New York tradition, the protection racket. Apparently the threat of painting a corporation as facilitating the distribution of child porn is a great way to generate an income stream (from <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9997051-38.html?tag=mncol;title">C-net</a>):<br /><blockquote><br />But over time, it may encourage more attorneys general to play Net censor, especially if they come to view broadband providers as compliant, off-the-books sources of revenue. This seems to be Cuomo's opinion; his <a href="http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2008/june/june10a_08.html">press release</a> said Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint will pay "$1.125 million to <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">fund additional efforts by the attorney general's office</span> and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to remove child pornography from the Internet." [my emphasis]<br /></blockquote><br />So Mr. Cuomo earns a trifecta; pandering to pedophile alarmists, bulldozing the free speech rights of law abiding citizens by nuking an entire internet protocol that was about 0.009% child porn, and lastly using his sleazy posturing to blackmail litigation-shy corporations to fund his own department.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-61600970463008392412008-07-24T22:29:00.005-04:002008-07-24T23:09:59.282-04:00A plea to parents. . .Your kids are grown, you own your own house, and you have at least some desire not to inflict upon your children the kind of hell me, my wife, and my in-laws have been going through. I offer 10 tips to keep your house from becoming the 9th circle of hades.<br /><br /><ol><li>If you patronize the Dollar Store, and find at least four bags of crap still in the wrappers with the price tags on them back home when you're putting purchases away, stop patronizing the Dollar Store.</li><li>If a utility bill is over ten years old, it is safe to dispose of.</li><li>If you've been unable to enter a closet in the past five years, nothing in that closet is particularly important, toss the stuff.</li><li>If you have valuable stuff you've stopped using (china, jewelry, crystal) give it to the kids and grandkids. "Promising" it to them is a cop out, and if you lose it mentally you've insured that your kids will spend more energy fighting each other than taking care of you.</li><li>Vacuuming is not optional, the dust bunnies should not be larger than the cat.</li><li>You should not end two Christmases in a row with more wrapping paper or empty boxes than you started with.</li><li>Televisions that do not work are not worth keeping.</li><li>8-Track is a dead medium.</li><li>If your kids didn't take it, they probably don't want it.</li><li>Rule of thumb, if it's food, and the label has faded enough to be difficult to read, throw it out.<br /></li></ol>S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-39476831417538616632008-07-22T20:53:00.004-04:002008-07-22T21:06:39.749-04:00Places I will be atQuick list of my upcoming convention going. <br /><br />July 25-27 (this weekend) I will be attending <a href="http://www.parsec-sff.org/confluence/">Confluence</a> in Pittsburgh, PA.<br /><br />August 15-17 I will be at <a href="http://www.armadillocon.org/">Armadillocon</a> in Austin, Texas. (Thanks to my fellow ex-Hamster and ex-Clevelander <a href="http://maureenmcq.blogspot.com/">Maureen</a> for suggesting I come down.)<br /><br />September 26-28 I will be at <a href="http://www.contextsf.org/">Context</a> in Columbus, OH.<br /><br />November 14-16 I will be at <a href="http://www.windycon.org/windy35/">Windycon</a> in Chicago, IL.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-51134908284387434082008-07-18T22:20:00.003-04:002008-07-18T22:42:00.825-04:00Good News and Bad NewsThe good news is that I got <span style="font-style:italic;">Valentine's Night</span> polished up, printed out, and sent off to Eleanor today. This is the second spec manuscript I've written in as many years, in addition to finishing off <span style="font-style:italic;">Prophets</span> for DAW. Here's hoping it does as well as <span style="font-style:italic;">Lilly's Song</span>. This means, now that I got the rewrites done on three novels, I get to start on the next book in the <span style="font-style:italic;">Apotheosis Trilogy</span> sometime before the end of the month. This means the counters will finally start moving again.<br /><br />Now, the reason I'm not starting the new book right now leads me to the bad news. . .<br /><br />You see, my mother-in-law has dementia and has moved into assisted living. This is a good thing, as she is, to put it kindly, obstinate and difficult to deal with. As in there was no way we would ever get her to agree to move, we had to check her into the ER after she wandered off and have her shipped directly from the hospital to the assisted living facility the following Monday. She's royally pissed at my wife, when she's coherent, but she now gets three meals a day, social interaction, and the occasional shower.<br /><br />The bad news is her house. I get to spend this weekend cleaning out a house that hasn't been vacuumed, dusted, tidied or otherwise cleaned out in nearly a decade. Parts of it are near collapse. There's mold, bugs, rats and things I don't even want to think about. I'm afraid I'm about to run out of dumpster. I'm exhausted, and I've barely started on what promises to be a very long weekend.<br /><br />The way I get through crap like this? I promise myself that it will make it into a story someday.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-13240606190818651172008-07-17T12:00:00.002-04:002008-07-17T12:07:10.886-04:00Assimilated into the social network. . .Nothing particularly profound, but I just created a <a href="http://www.facebook.com">Facebook</a> profile. Just as with the blogging, I'm a little late to the scene, I guess after you hit 40 it just takes a lot more frigging effort to be hip.<br /><br />If you want to find me, just look for Steven Swiniarski. (As my friend <a href="http://maureenmcq.blogspot.com/">Maureen</a> pointed out, there aren't many people named that.)S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-59527189386685238842008-07-11T07:56:00.002-04:002008-07-11T08:08:05.351-04:00Scalzi points out an asshatBecause I haven't had an asshat for a while, and because this is rich in all senses of the word, I want to share a <a href="http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=997">tidbit I found on Whatever</a>.<br /><br />Meet Lynn Forester de Rothschild, <span style="font-style: italic;">Lady </span>Lynn Forester de Rothschild. Yeah, <span style="font-style: italic;">those </span>Rothschilds. The ones that are, well, kinda well off? Not that she's any small taters herself, she was worth a hundred million before she married in to the <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> big bucks. This is not a woman who pumps her own gas into the SUV when going to soccer practice. You will not find her shopping at Wal-Mart— hell, not even <span style="font-style: italic;">Target</span>. This woman would have to think for a moment if, while standing in her grand foyer filled with art costing more than most people's houses, you asked her where the kitchen was. . .<br /><br />This woman, a die-hard Hillary supporter, doesn't think she'll support Obama because. . .<br />*drumroll*<br />"Frankly I don’t like him. I feel like he is an elitist."<br /><br />*headdesk*S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-79184699772607717352008-07-09T12:41:00.002-04:002008-07-09T12:46:31.798-04:00Dry clean onlyMore randomness. . .<br /><br />My spur of the moment comment <a href="http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/whats-he-looking-at/">on this thread</a> over at the <a href="http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/">Smart Bitches blog</a> may not have won the contest, but it <a href="http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/caption-that-cover-the-hell-raiser-the-winners/">did get a mention that probably counts as a runner up</a>. Yeah, pointless. . . but it is fun.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-4997574369764230322008-07-07T20:45:00.003-04:002008-07-07T21:00:30.520-04:00Random thought for the day. . .I drive a 12-year old Buick Century, a car that leads to certain expectations— most of which involve liver spots and driving 15 mph down the freeway with the left blinker on. Since I'm a chubby bearded guy with a ponytail, my car's sort of incongruous. (Though cheap as dirt to maintain.)<br /><br />This is how incongruous. If a cop pulled me over on the way home today and made me pop the trunk, they would have discovered the following items (in no particular order.)<br /><br /><ul><li>a 50 pound bag of senior horse feed.</li><li>5 40pound bags of pelleted wood shavings.</li><li>a couple of books on SQL 2000 implementation.</li><li>three or four back issues of Fantasy & Science Fiction.</li><li>a two ton floor jack.</li><li>a box of polyhedral dice in a repurposed case from a Vic-20 game cartridge.</li><li>a rulebook for the Serenity role-playing game</li></ul>S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-31504643735828503772008-07-06T18:41:00.004-04:002008-07-06T19:33:35.222-04:00Hancock. . . the movie that's its own sequel.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi70OYGT7dxMRtzP6NAEDv6D6aszkpCb124t3GM33WtqLrEHOiUb5uh0B2QVMnJcagtU8D_0bTu0wVC1eElfNvFoLInoh5k8K5oyPLMuDsj-yB-AtrvggYUaY8f-dE5yiOAP7an/s1600-h/hancock.bmp"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi70OYGT7dxMRtzP6NAEDv6D6aszkpCb124t3GM33WtqLrEHOiUb5uh0B2QVMnJcagtU8D_0bTu0wVC1eElfNvFoLInoh5k8K5oyPLMuDsj-yB-AtrvggYUaY8f-dE5yiOAP7an/s320/hancock.bmp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220036201794694466" border="0" /></a>Just saw <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448157/">Hancock</a>, the latest in the current explosion of superhero movies, and I am left with the overwhelming sense of a missed opportunity. This is not to say that it's a bad movie, there are parts that are quite good. Unfortunately, right after the big reveal midway in, the film loses its way, and we go from something that could have surpassed <span style="font-style: italic;">Iron Man</span> in awesomeness, and end with something that's just ok.<br /><br />The problem is, I think, a failure of nerve on the part of the screenwriters. The first half of the film is great on just about every level. We have a story that is centered on the <span style="font-style: italic;">concept</span> of a superhero, we have a deeply flawed character that has the physical omnipotence of Superman, and has a problem that cannot be solved by his Godlike powers. It is a perfect set-up for a good drama, and the titular character's attempt to redeem himself, both in his own eyes, and in the eyes of the public, is a powerful engine driving the movie forward. The tension in every scene is held, not by any external threat, but by the potential that Hancock could snap and do something to destroy any chance of him succeeding in becoming a worthwhile hero.<br /><br />And, for some reason, the screenwriters didn't think this was enough to carry a whole film. So we have two films. The first is the character drama I describe above. The second feels like a sequel to that much better film. Where the first move goes places that most superhero movies don't get near, and actually avoids most, if not all of the clichés, the second film is pretty much the textbook boilerplate of the cheezy superhero movie. Have your hero deal with a problem originating (so to speak) with a character related to their origin, make sure they have an explicit weakness, make sure the villains show up to exploit that weakness, and somehow have the hero overcome despite being terribly weakened in power. . .<br /><br />The problem with <span style="font-style: italic;">Hancock</span> is none of the second half is foreshadowed in the first. Much of the important plot points (like his origin) are blown over way too quickly giving a serious WTF vibe to the transition. In addition, because the way the second half is compressed, there are major plot holes. (How'd the villains just happen to show up when he was vulnerable? If this certain someone knew the consequences of being in the vicinity of Hancock, why would this person remain in LA after Hancock started appearing on the news? What did Hancock do between Miami and LA?)<br /><br />All those elements, and all those problems, would never have come up if they'd just stuck with the first movie. In that movie you don't really need an origin, and ignoring it would be better than the half-assed explanation we get in the second half of the movie. You don't need a designated villain or the arbitrary weakness in the first film because Hancock is his own worst enemy, and the story is about him winning over himself.<br /><br />Anyway, if you go see it, see it for the first half. And if you need a bathroom break, wait until they toss the refrigerator. If you go after that, you won't be missing much.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-52292939138370336882008-07-05T00:06:00.005-04:002008-07-06T18:19:11.924-04:00Channeling the spirit of Rick Griffin to sell you Coke Zero<a href="http://www.myraltis.co.uk/rickgriffin/index.htm">Rick Griffin</a> was a psychedelic artist who did a lot of posters as well as underground comics, back in the day. Stuff like this:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekxWFnivW6xlezRkeQSXUaQ8W-GHu1z4lMIyyiVpe5jPA3PMjwcXLhZSvvKVwj60tuwvMkw0O25QEBolu1nc8zRseoAey2yJyVLNFQX3kpyLD2l1f9K2joHgZ6luGMLL26Po_/s1600-h/C_ZAP.3.B.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekxWFnivW6xlezRkeQSXUaQ8W-GHu1z4lMIyyiVpe5jPA3PMjwcXLhZSvvKVwj60tuwvMkw0O25QEBolu1nc8zRseoAey2yJyVLNFQX3kpyLD2l1f9K2joHgZ6luGMLL26Po_/s320/C_ZAP.3.B.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5219378767183164210" border="0" /></a><br />Note the little guys in the lower right? They're kind of a motif of his. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggAhOfzjXtNeQ86xb9TJhdzVdpWSUGUCXEMpCaYJ9VXxVydwtQYfCUp_h2Ox4NJnO4NA6Sv5BrsvBUUeKSilplvmX2qUSE-Ycldju4C-IOlfA91BEwby9f9WurvUhU27cAV4_9/s1600-h/eye.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggAhOfzjXtNeQ86xb9TJhdzVdpWSUGUCXEMpCaYJ9VXxVydwtQYfCUp_h2Ox4NJnO4NA6Sv5BrsvBUUeKSilplvmX2qUSE-Ycldju4C-IOlfA91BEwby9f9WurvUhU27cAV4_9/s400/eye.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5219379197868899298" /></a><br />Apparently, someone at Coke started smoking the same stuff.<br /><center><br /><object width="425" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BZwNED3WGvM&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BZwNED3WGvM&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="349"></embed></object></center>S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-6310202997576801882008-07-03T21:22:00.005-04:002008-07-03T21:33:39.194-04:00Gratuitous puppy pictures<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT7S1-wDh56WCn5SOtZk8CqvAlrThkXcuzvCdSC8sVxVrNYEnagAxu2KZ8ZMJGWUf3o4Yt03EtNIhGe2Gn2_tSZpXQH_jfh08pJKcc20jiYScYNs727ulf4ztWbhh73xJ_wGND/s1600-h/freezebaby+in+a+blankie.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT7S1-wDh56WCn5SOtZk8CqvAlrThkXcuzvCdSC8sVxVrNYEnagAxu2KZ8ZMJGWUf3o4Yt03EtNIhGe2Gn2_tSZpXQH_jfh08pJKcc20jiYScYNs727ulf4ztWbhh73xJ_wGND/s320/freezebaby+in+a+blankie.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218965830581146450" border="0" /></a><br />Say hello to the latest addition to the menagerie. She is a ten week old boxer puppy named Lilli. Truffles the Lab is still deciding if getting her was a good idea.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl9Mkjs22zNAMegadOuNl2IrMlgli9WRPg3E49jcq_QB7YQdaUrrf5wT5zm9PMiiEeKat83Ii0rMcnr8C14oOzny4Qt_kBbM1SFg8HJm6NVWoYO5NCd_Z6KcSF67Y-D5STua6I/s1600-h/lilli+%26+truffle.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl9Mkjs22zNAMegadOuNl2IrMlgli9WRPg3E49jcq_QB7YQdaUrrf5wT5zm9PMiiEeKat83Ii0rMcnr8C14oOzny4Qt_kBbM1SFg8HJm6NVWoYO5NCd_Z6KcSF67Y-D5STua6I/s320/lilli+%26+truffle.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218963638715654546" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCTz5OyHrW4H0eTgowyQgV-CYcRa6pLLChUuVpUBJg-L0tHgbg8-VHOFwn8G2Kn972sbg46RpvzV0meBO3geKy8VvJBNndBjvz7m8TgS0tRboPS4BOtsQajnxXK11zHr_yTx2P/s1600-h/lilli.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCTz5OyHrW4H0eTgowyQgV-CYcRa6pLLChUuVpUBJg-L0tHgbg8-VHOFwn8G2Kn972sbg46RpvzV0meBO3geKy8VvJBNndBjvz7m8TgS0tRboPS4BOtsQajnxXK11zHr_yTx2P/s320/lilli.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218963426696509586" border="0" /></a>S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-9128822101727571752008-06-28T10:56:00.004-04:002008-06-28T11:10:22.140-04:00Death of a Business ModelHistorically, almost every significant economic crash has been due to one factor of the human psyche, the inability to conceive of change. Not adapt to change; we’re pretty damn good at figuring things out <span style="font-weight: bold;">after</span> the fact. Beforehand? Not so much. Entire industries collapse because of the assumption that the fourth quarter will be exactly like the first, only more so. This is true even when those assumptions are based on patent absurdities.<br /><br />One incredibly obvious absurdity that infects everyone from a two person tech startup to the federal government; prosperity requires indefinite growth. It’s ingrained in our psyche. But think about it. Economics is not divorced from the physical world, and in the end economics is still the organized distribution of resources. Things will always run out. Labor, energy, capital, customers, people’s attention spans, bandwidth, tax base— everything is finite. Therefore, at some point, growth must stop. The problem, of course, is because of the assumption prosperity requires growth, we’ve done everything to insure that when it does stop it becomes a massive disaster because all the systems we’ve constructed to assume growth don’t really work when growth stops. (Case in point, the design of the Social Security system, which requires a constant permanent growth in the working population in order to work.)<br /><br />Now, Microsoft’s existence is based on a similar absurdity, the permanent upgrade path. The idea that software is in a continual state of improvement, and that it is a valid assumption that the end user will continue to buy the new version of an application every few years or so. Both are at odds with reality. Every technology has an endpoint, there comes a time when a system is so mature that it does what it does well enough that any future meddling actually makes things worse. I write for a living, and deal with several flavors of MS Word every day. I can say that, for my purposes, there is absolutely no functional difference in any version of Word released since 2000. It’s a damn word processor. You’re not making it any better. The OS is facing the same problem. <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9978419-16.html">Intel has said there’s no compelling reason for them to upgrade their 80,000 PCs to Vista.</a> The only reason the public’s buying the OS is because it comes on new machines— <a href="http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9972673-1.html?tag=bl">a substantial number of which are being <span style="font-weight: bold;">downgraded</span> to XP</a>. The fact that XP is “good enough” is going to become a big problem for Microsoft. They’ll continue to push new OS’s onto new PCs, but fewer people are going to bother “upgrading,” meaning that developers are going to serve a Windows market that’s more and more fractured, and therefore they will not be as likely to utilize new “features” in the OS, (if half the computers there are running XP, you’re losing half the market when you develop something that only works for Vista or Windows 7). With less software requiring the new OS, it becomes even less attractive to upgrade. And as more and more of the stuff people do with computers moves to the internet, the OS on the machine becomes irrelevant. If your browser does all of what you need, why do you need Vista?<br /><br />In fact, Intel’s decision should give itself pause, because it’s based on a similar model. What happens to the tech industry when people don’t buy a new PC every three years? What happens when the five-year old PC works just fine?S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-53872785603714429622008-06-26T19:24:00.003-04:002008-06-26T19:32:16.454-04:00This Saturday @ the Mayfield Public LibraryFor those interested and in the area, I will be appearing with fellow Hamster <a href="http://www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis/">Geoff Landis</a> this Saturday, June 28th at the Mayfield Public Library (<a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=6080+Wilson+Mills+Rd,+Mayfield,+OH&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=title">6080 Wilson Mills Rd, Mayfield, OH</a>) from 2:30 to 4:30. Limited space, but it's free and you can find registration info <a href="http://www.cuyahogalibrary.org/EventDetail.aspx?EventInstanceID=23208">here</a>. For those of you looking on my <a href="http://www.sandrewswann.com/">shiny new Wordpress blog</a>, this is what that calendar in the upper right is all about, go ahead, click on the red date, I dare you.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-38413287663494375622008-06-26T13:14:00.002-04:002008-06-26T13:15:41.860-04:00Dealing with the Origin StoryI just finished an advance copy of a neat book, (I’ll blog about it later— it’s due Feb 09 from Tor, so I have time.) and it got me thinking of a common narrative problem in speculative fiction. It is perhaps most obvious in superhero movies (I alluded to it in my Iron Man review) but it’s true for a broad class of speculative fiction, and for lack of a better term I’ll call it the “Origin Story Problem.” The problem is simple, the story itself concerns some ordinary person— at least “ordinary” in the fact that the character’s original status quo doesn’t include any paranormal/speculative elements— who through some means or other comes to grips with some kind of extraordinary knowledge/powers/abilities. This is a staple of superhero movies and comics, but it’s also recognizable across the broad swath of SF/Fantasy— normal guy becomes werewolf/vampire, stumbles on alternate universe, invents a zero-point power source, goes back in time, develops telekinesis.<br /><br />The “Origin Story Problem” comes from the fact that it is very easy to obsess too much about the discovery phase of the neat idea, whatever it is. It becomes tempting to spend half a book exploring all the ramifications about the black box, before realizing “hey, there needs to be a conflict here.” Then, suddenly out of nowhere, we get a whole series of new characters and plot developments to threaten our hero. The pattern is a staple of bad TV pilots.<br /><br />To address the “Origin Story Problem,” and make the story seem a cohesive whole, the main conflict of the story needs to become an integral part of all the story. i.e. The vampire hunters that are threatening to stake our newly-undead heroine need to be present before page 300. Or, more broadly, the story problems resolved in the climax need to be at least implicit in the beginning of the story.<br /><br />There are several ways to do this convincingly:<br /><br /><ol><li>Start the main conflict before the “gosh-neato” stuff shows up. In Iron Man, Tony Stark develops the suit as an attempt to solve the problems that begin the movie.</li><li>The main conflict is inherent in the “origin” itself. See Stephen Kings’ Firestarter for a primer on every shadowy government experiment gone awry. See the Bourne Identity for a more low-key variation on the theme.</li><li>The “gosh-neato” bits directly, and quickly, cause the source of the conflict. See most one-way time-travel stories from Lest Darkness Fall to 1632.</li><li>The “gosh-neato” bit is actually the real status quo, dropping the protagonist into some larger over-arching conflict; learning about the cool stuff is really part of surviving in a different world. The first volume of Zelazny’s Amber series is a good example. See also Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade.</li></ol><br />What you don’t want to happen is have a story that spends half its time with the protagonist learning and experimenting with some new toy. Readers will say, “that’s cool” for a chapter or two. Then they’ll start wondering when something is actually going to happen.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-82167504068289639092008-06-19T21:54:00.002-04:002008-06-19T21:59:58.608-04:00Done, really, I mean it this timeI turned in the editorial revisions for <span style="font-style: italic;">Prophets</span> today, which means that I am officially done with it. It got a bit longer which is why all the counters moved around. Next task, is a second round of editorial edits on <span style="font-style: italic;">Lilly's Song</span>, which are relatively minor and should only take a couple of days. Then I need to do a revision of <span style="font-style: italic;">Valentine's Night</span> before I give it to Eleanor to shop around.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Then</span> I'll be writing new stuff. . .S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-10338178552251660102008-06-17T12:45:00.006-04:002008-06-17T13:38:32.559-04:00Associated Press and MediaDefender, taking IP way way way too far.This was a week where I discovered two little tidbits that really set my blood boiling over the state of IP law in this country. In both cases we have companies using the excuse of copyright to act like Uncle Vinnie the Mob Enforcer, but without the pinky ring or sense of style.<br /><br />First up, the Associated Press, in what seems to be a belated panic about news distribution over the internet, has decided to <a href="http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15888.html">get all RIAA over the web</a> (and, of course, the recording industry can tell you all how well that's going) and try to sue anyone who dares quote from their stories without paying <strike>license fees</strike> protection money. Apparently the threshold for AP calling out the lawyers is 79 words. Fair use anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?<br /><br />Is this the new way to monetize the news business? Print stories and then obsessively Google phrases hoping for a Cassie Edwards with deep pockets? So what if I embed a Google news feed into my blog, am I liable for the AP stories that come up in it? Have these asswits thought any of this through? Do they know how stupid they look? Have they ever seen a web browser? I'm waiting for some blogger to sue the AP for quoting 75 words of their content without permission. Wonder how far that will go?<br /><br />Second group of thuggish IP imperialists going over the line, <strong>really</strong> went over the line. As in criminal. As in, if they did this to a fortune 500 company they might be up on terrorist charges. Quick synopsis somewhat de-geeked: You have BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file-sharing system that, like all file sharing methods, can be used for good or ill. It is best to distribute large files such as Linux distributions, or HD movies. Enter <a href="http://www.mediadefender.com/">MediaDefender</a>, a company that uses an arsenal of techniques suited to Russian virus authors and Viagra spam merchants, whose mission statement is to prevent piracy of their clients' media. One favored technique is to flood the internet with bogus copies of pirate files. The way they do this is posing links to said fakes on torrent indexing sites. Now enter <a href="http://revision3.com/">Revision3</a>, a small internet TV station that produces video for users to download— <span style="font-style: italic;">via BitTorrent.</span> (dun-dun-dunnn.)<br /><br />Now, of course, Revision3 would offer a indexing site for their torrents, right? Sure. Now, these indexing sites can be open or closed, and for a time because of technical issues, Revision3's index was open. That meant anyone could post the location of a torrent there. It <span style="font-style: italic;">should </span>have been closed down so the index only responded to requests for Revision3's own shows. The response of MediaDefender was not to call up the Revision3 IT staff and say, "Hey, you got an open torrent index here, you sure you want that?" No, their reaction was exactly the same as a pirate's reaction, "Hey, this index is open. I can post my own (bogus) torrents, Yea!"<br /><br />Now, so far it's morally questionable, but not criminal. However, when Revision3 discovers the configuration error on their server (with no help from MediaDefender, which, as you remember, is supposed to stop this sort of thing themselves) their response is to close the index.<br /><br />One would think that MediaDefender would be happy that the conduit for pirated content was shut down. Apparently they weren't happy. <a href="http://revision3.com/blog/2008/05/29/inside-the-attack-that-crippled-revision3/">In fact, their servers were pissed</a>. After being shut out of Revision3's torrent index, they promptly launched a denial of service attack on Revision3 that took the site down for Memorial Day weekend.<br /><br />Let that sink in.<br /><br />They launched a cyber-attack on a legitimate business because the legitimate business <span style="font-style: italic;">stopped</span> linking to pirated torrents. This requires a Doctorate in Stupidity.<br /><br />I think the AP should hire MediaDefender to protect their copyrighted content. The combined weight of arrogance, cluelessness and stupidity might just shatter the whole structure of IP law as we know it— which I am beginning to think is not a bad thing.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-90830752429309336092008-06-11T21:10:00.004-04:002008-06-15T17:57:53.603-04:00Metallica = Asshat<span style="color: #0000ff;"><strong>UPDATE</strong>: At least <a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080612-metallica-to-bloggers-dont-review-our-music.html">according to the band</a>, their managers are the clueless asshats. I think they need better management.<br /></span><br /><br />I haven't nominated an asshat for awhile, then I came across <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-9965792-17.html">this little tidbit</a>. And no, this doesn't involve some sort of draconian fan-stomping over who should pay for what. In fact, it has nothing to do with pathologic reactionary grasping onto old business models past the point of obsolescence. That's old news. No, this time we are talking stupidity that can only be described as epic fail.<br /><br />Shall I posit the following scenario: you're a moderately newsworthy band producing a new album. You invite a number of internet music bloggers to a private party to listen to some rough tracks off the album. No non-disclosure agreements involved. . . What do you think would happen?<br /><br />Apparently it never occurred to the band in question that said bloggers might actually, you know, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">blog</span> about it. I mean, who could have seen that coming? They were <a href="http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/007094.html">shocked</a>, <a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080610-metallica-to-bloggers-dont-review-our-music.html">shocked</a> I say! Their management responded in a restrained and level-headed manner, blanketing said bloggers with takedown notices and threats of legal action.<br /><br />Dear Metallica: PR, You're doin it wrong.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-90261629941300781652008-06-10T18:48:00.003-04:002008-06-10T18:56:32.680-04:00Future Americas is out.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5ZQKZfUT70WxD80ooPNMhc_3zSBR6hipgF_kZpe77xWJDNwriU7oqoWwnnqQKmZVeUsc5s7i_a3E1DPncRIC4EfTro9mIgKscW4g2NePPxQ2Hp3YzQdUmJuvEdl6XB-LI1Pv0/s1600-h/future+americas.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5ZQKZfUT70WxD80ooPNMhc_3zSBR6hipgF_kZpe77xWJDNwriU7oqoWwnnqQKmZVeUsc5s7i_a3E1DPncRIC4EfTro9mIgKscW4g2NePPxQ2Hp3YzQdUmJuvEdl6XB-LI1Pv0/s320/future+americas.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5210388627168904066" border="0" /></a>I just got my contributor copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Future-Americas-Daw-Science-Fiction/dp/0756405084/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213137901&sr=8-1"><span style="font-style: italic;">Future Americas</span></a>, the latest anthology by John Helfers and Martin H. Greenberg. My story within, "Family Photos," which I <a href="http://sandrewswann.blogspot.com/2007/07/happy-happy-joy-joy.html">mentioned before</a>, is probably one of the darkest things I've ever written in any genre. Dark enough that I still half believe that I scared away most of my writer's workshop when I ran it through the Hamsters.S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-58357033756545858242008-06-09T20:23:00.002-04:002008-06-09T20:42:06.386-04:00ShattasticOccasionally you discover that the time is just right for something. Things just bubble up in the common consciousness, suddenly bombarding you with some concept or image that pervades the ether and suddenly you've discovered that collective humanity has crossed some cultural Rubicon and it becomes literally impossible to imagine what life was like before. For your consideration, the following two videos, #1 from my brother-in-law, #2 from <a href="http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/006739.html">SF Signal</a>.<br /><br /><center><object width="425" height="349"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/eISBTBwWKeE&hl=en&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/eISBTBwWKeE&hl=en&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="349"></embed></object></center><br /><br /><center><object width="425" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KXWEM4gZhg4&hl=en&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KXWEM4gZhg4&hl=en&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="349"></embed></object></center>S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30557718.post-23190927562209806842008-06-05T07:47:00.004-04:002008-06-10T19:02:41.330-04:00Sex and the City: Why the hate?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvIQQUqQ19fAKrLV3cWRJ4p_Hkd-k9YC1vNbub6MogcyBl7yAnsA0YecX7P5ABjGeJmoxlhh-Te8xhxY0-Eb0WWBaC9LC1gK5AOana1bKV0QuxcH-Z08Tp8yAV2c7Mev43YasG/s1600-h/sexncity.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvIQQUqQ19fAKrLV3cWRJ4p_Hkd-k9YC1vNbub6MogcyBl7yAnsA0YecX7P5ABjGeJmoxlhh-Te8xhxY0-Eb0WWBaC9LC1gK5AOana1bKV0QuxcH-Z08Tp8yAV2c7Mev43YasG/s320/sexncity.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5210391814526863154" border="0" /></a>Disclaimer #1: I liked the Movie.<br />Disclaimer #2: I am not gay.<br /><br />Now, I'm not going to claim that Sex and the City is some high water mark of American filmmaking. It is unabashedly what it is, a piece of escapist fantasy— the relationship equivalent of an action movie with sex replacing the cars blowing up and shopping montages instead of chase scenes. It hit exactly the mark it was aiming for, and I can't imagine that anyone who really enjoyed the series wouldn't enjoy the movie. I can certainly think of other TV shows that transitioned less gracefully to the big screen.<br /><br />But I am seeing a lot of hate for the film, and a good portion of it seems to be because it isn't more than what it is:<br /><br />From <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080529.wsex30/BNStory/Entertainment/home">Rick Groen</a>:<br /><blockquote><br />This is a pricey handbag of a movie, uncontaminated by anything so crass as substance, filled only with the perfumed air of a culture at rest – concept blissfully free of content.</blockquote><br /><br />And you were expecting what, exactly?S Andrew Swannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811359130467758677noreply@blogger.com2