Retro Vortex

2003-03-04T21:56:00.000-08:00

This is no longer the age of journalism or criticism. Even criticism has given over to technique. All the energy given over to diletantish enterprise must now be used to help people, period.

2003-02-25T02:14:00.000-08:00

Has it really been 2 weeks?

Discovering the parameters of my bipolarity, I think; getting very interested in Isaac Hayes; especially on 'To Be Continued', his cover of 'you've lost that lovin' feeling'...

Also, Secret Machines 'September 000' CD blew out my shit.

Actually, I listened to a lot of music tonight: Edwin Starr's "Hell Up in Harlem", Roy Ayers' "Coffy" soundtrack. Today was a good day for music, I guess...

2003-02-10T22:08:00.000-08:00

Had an interesting exchange with a media ecologist on the media-ecology listserv today. Professor Fallon in Rockaway NY told me that something I wrote was "Ellulian" in its "resonance". I've meant to read Jacques Ellul. His "Humiliation of the Word" looks interesting. It would make a nice companion to Ong's "Presence of the Word" and "Interfaces of the Word".

2003-02-10T22:05:00.000-08:00

I saw Adaptation again last night. Its movie-writing-itself-within-a-movie thing blows my mind, because it amuses while it stimulates, and it hits me smartly.

2003-02-10T22:03:00.000-08:00

Thinking about David Cross again today: his fashion designer turned personals ad failure turned Nostradomus-lover ("It's the fucking future of kidswear!!!"), and his lizard-pet owner came to mind today ("I'm different").

2003-02-09T17:20:00.000-08:00

And of course as visual storytelling technology developed over the last 100 years, so did the 'method' of performance for this technology. From anchorperson to award-winning actor to rapper, humans have had to optimize the technology by changing the way they looked and behaved and communicated for it. As the technology trickles down to the amateur, so will the need for certain kinds of communicable on-camera behavior...

2003-02-09T17:12:00.000-08:00

And of course, who would the next Phil Spector be? Ask any kid that has fooled around with ProTools for five minutes, I guess...

2003-02-09T17:10:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Peterson writes:

While Big Content is trying to convince us that larger, higher resolution screens and more channels of audio are what is important, tens of thousands of people are bringing the emotional impact of personal storytelling to digital media. Which matters more? You be the judge.

This made me think of Francis Ford Coppola's line in the 'Hearts of Darkness' documentary about the next Mozart turning out to be an 8-year-old fat girl with a video camera. I think now's the time, probably...

2003-02-07T22:42:00.000-08:00

Been watching Season 4 Mr. Show. I've been convinced David Cross is a genius for some time now. He is chameleonic, and satirizes gesture and physical mannerism in a way I don't much see anyone else doing. I hope his isn't a tortured soul that ends up like Phil Spector or MJ or something.

2003-02-07T17:58:00.000-08:00

I'm interested in media theory as it pertains to the web and blogosphere: People like to quote Pierre Teillard de Chardin and use his 'Noosphere' idea when speaking of the web. I prefer Walter Ong, because he relates all communication back to the spoken word in important ways that people often forget. While Mcluhan said, "The medium is the message", Ong, who was Mcluhan's professor, said, "The writer's audience is always a fiction".

What we can't forget is that interaction through writing is not a substitute for the intimacy of polite personal interaction. I also think that Ong's view is informed by a belief in the power of intimacy with the Triune God, gained through the Eucharist. His work, and McLuhan's to some extent are both informed by a well-developed Catholic mode of perception.

So how does a weblog relate to the spoken word?

2003-02-07T17:36:00.000-08:00

Slate's Virginia Heffernan is right on (she's the most astute TV critic I think I've read) with criticism of Martin Bashir, MJ's antagonizing interviewer:

Bashir responds with so much horror that everything Jackson says, even that he likes video games, sounds felonious. By treating his subject as a cretin, Bashir refuses to let Jackson be who he is—a talented and very eccentric musician. This overhyped documentary receives its fairest critique from Jackson himself: "Everything can be strange to someone. This interview is strange to some people out there. So who cares, right?"

2003-02-07T00:43:00.000-08:00

Come back to the Five and Dime, Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson.