If you read the blog of comic book writer Warren Ellis (and if you don't you should, as long as you like good writing with a bit of randomly Gothic underground tinge to it), every couple days he posts links to cool things he's found. Sometimes these 'cool things' are stories or works of art by his friends, but mostly they're stories from scientific magazines detailing the latest breakthroughs on the transhuman fringes of science. This makes sense, given that so much of his work, especially the so-awesome-you-should-definitely-read-it-if-you-haven't-yet cyperbunk comic Transmetropolitan.
The point of all this is, I'm shamelessly aping Warren Ellis' idea, and every couple days (or hell, whenever I feel like it) I'll post links to things that have caught my eye. Here's round one.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/10158517.stm (that's the kind of thing Ellis would post a link to)
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-21/the-11-greatest-literary-feuds/ (where this post gets its name)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uhi2_oBdXM (oh the self-referential irony!)
That's all for now. Hope your Memorial Day was good (unlikely considering we're currently in Final Season).
Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
First Up: The "Lost" Finale
As the long anticipated Lost finale came to a close with a final, look- how-it's-all-come-full-circle close up of protagonist Jack Shephard’s eye, I felt all the nerves in my body tingle with a sense of overwhelming awesomeness the likes of which I hadn't felt since I learned Kevin Spacey was Keyser Soze. Like any reasonable fan, I immediately logged on to see whether or not the majority of critical interpretations were in sync with my own. As I tentatively waited for my home page to load (my computer has an uncanny knack for being lethargic precisely when I want it to move with Usain Bolt-like speed), I almost stopped my effort, partly because I hate slow Internet and partly because I found it hard to conceive of a situation where anyone in the world (particularly intelligent, cultured critics) would disagree with my opinion that the lost finale was one of the most epic feats of televised entertainment ever conceived by mankind, the perfect ending to a once-in a generation, world changing piece of science fiction. However, I persevered. Imagine my surprise when it dawned on me that almost everyone disagreed with me.The first thing I logged onto for a quick fan survey was Facebook, where I did not find a single status that appreciated the finale ( though I did find many statuses that used the miles quote from which this post takes its name). Okay, I thought, no big deal, really. It's only Facebook, after all, and as much as I love my 383 (or thereabouts) high school friends, they're not exactly the be- all end all of criticism or pop culture judgment. So I moved on to the Daily Beast, one of my go-to sites (granted, it's more of a stylized gossip site than a legitimate source of news, but I think it's pop culture criticism is pretty good). To my shock, the Daily Beast’s headline about the Lost finale called it ‘infuriating.’
I’m afraid I must disagree. In my opinion, the Lost finale was incredibly awesome. It didn’t answer all the questions, but then again no sane person should’ve honestly expected it to. The questions are always (ALWAYS) more potent, powerful, and thought-provoking than the answers. This is why the show Heroes failed so spectacularly after its outstanding first season: it answered everyone’s questions right away, and so there was really no longer anything to keep viewers hooked. Sure, there were the superpowers, which kept nerds like me invested for awhile, but even we eventually left when we realized that the writers were just throwing the same old plots at us. There weren’t any lingering mysteries, so there wasn’t any sustainable plot fuel.
The weakness of answers in relation to powerful questions is especially relevant on science fiction-oriented shows like Heroes and Lost, because when you try to explain how things work in those worlds, all you end up doing is exposing how ridiculous the mythologies are. Mystery keeps them interesting, but transparency makes them stupid and unrealistic. Unrealistic? Why yes, as a matter of fact. Real life is never fully explained to the people living it. As the fantastic comic book writer Grant Morrison said in defense of his “RIP” storyline in the Batman comic (another masterpiece that derives a lot of its power from lingering mystery and unsolved questions): “life is much more like a David Lynch movie, full of people you never meet again and unexplained phone calls.” Life is full of questions, and so is the best entertainment. I love open questions, because it leaves the piece open to audience interpretation. And this was always the ‘X Factor’ that made Lost so unique: everyone had their own reasons for watching it, based on their own interpretations of show events (interpretations that were constantly revamped and modified as more elements came into play).
My interpretation of the finale, for instance, is an awesome conclusion that ranks up there with the endings of the best epics: The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, the Book of Revelation. When Christian Shephard opens the door to Eloise’s church at the end and lets in the blinding white light, it’s just Aslan telling the Pevensie children that the Narnia they knew is gone, but a new Narnia (or was it New Jerusalem?) has come to replace it, a white utopia. This dramatic ending incorporates not only the epic elements of the show (Chronicles has been referenced before, namely in the ‘Lamppost’ Dharma station), but also the time-space elements. The question at the center of the whole show (and the finale) was ‘how are we here?’ Or ‘why are we here?’ Although it doesn’t answer the meaning of the Numbers or explain precisely how the island moved or what Jacob’s exact powers were, the finale did answer this, the most important question. Its answer? There is no ‘here.’ ‘Here’ is everywhere, and ‘now’ is all the time.
This answer was foreshadowed in the show’s previous references to Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, the science fiction masterpiece that features a race of aliens who are capable of seeing any moment in time. To them, nothing is past, and nothing is future; everything is now, everything is eternal. And this is the message of the Sideways universe in Lost: don’t worry about it when someone dies or something is lost, because they’re alive somewhere.
That’s my analysis, anyway. The rest I leave up to your interpretation, just as it should be.
I’m afraid I must disagree. In my opinion, the Lost finale was incredibly awesome. It didn’t answer all the questions, but then again no sane person should’ve honestly expected it to. The questions are always (ALWAYS) more potent, powerful, and thought-provoking than the answers. This is why the show Heroes failed so spectacularly after its outstanding first season: it answered everyone’s questions right away, and so there was really no longer anything to keep viewers hooked. Sure, there were the superpowers, which kept nerds like me invested for awhile, but even we eventually left when we realized that the writers were just throwing the same old plots at us. There weren’t any lingering mysteries, so there wasn’t any sustainable plot fuel.
The weakness of answers in relation to powerful questions is especially relevant on science fiction-oriented shows like Heroes and Lost, because when you try to explain how things work in those worlds, all you end up doing is exposing how ridiculous the mythologies are. Mystery keeps them interesting, but transparency makes them stupid and unrealistic. Unrealistic? Why yes, as a matter of fact. Real life is never fully explained to the people living it. As the fantastic comic book writer Grant Morrison said in defense of his “RIP” storyline in the Batman comic (another masterpiece that derives a lot of its power from lingering mystery and unsolved questions): “life is much more like a David Lynch movie, full of people you never meet again and unexplained phone calls.” Life is full of questions, and so is the best entertainment. I love open questions, because it leaves the piece open to audience interpretation. And this was always the ‘X Factor’ that made Lost so unique: everyone had their own reasons for watching it, based on their own interpretations of show events (interpretations that were constantly revamped and modified as more elements came into play).
My interpretation of the finale, for instance, is an awesome conclusion that ranks up there with the endings of the best epics: The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, the Book of Revelation. When Christian Shephard opens the door to Eloise’s church at the end and lets in the blinding white light, it’s just Aslan telling the Pevensie children that the Narnia they knew is gone, but a new Narnia (or was it New Jerusalem?) has come to replace it, a white utopia. This dramatic ending incorporates not only the epic elements of the show (Chronicles has been referenced before, namely in the ‘Lamppost’ Dharma station), but also the time-space elements. The question at the center of the whole show (and the finale) was ‘how are we here?’ Or ‘why are we here?’ Although it doesn’t answer the meaning of the Numbers or explain precisely how the island moved or what Jacob’s exact powers were, the finale did answer this, the most important question. Its answer? There is no ‘here.’ ‘Here’ is everywhere, and ‘now’ is all the time.
This answer was foreshadowed in the show’s previous references to Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, the science fiction masterpiece that features a race of aliens who are capable of seeing any moment in time. To them, nothing is past, and nothing is future; everything is now, everything is eternal. And this is the message of the Sideways universe in Lost: don’t worry about it when someone dies or something is lost, because they’re alive somewhere.
That’s my analysis, anyway. The rest I leave up to your interpretation, just as it should be.
I Swear I'm Serious This Time
I know, I know. My attemtps to revive this blog in the past have been about as successful as BP's 'Top Kill' solution. But I'm going to try it again. I think I can do it this time. I'm ready and willing to write, I've got some interest in it (Nick Burt, this is all on you), and I have some subjects I want to make my view known on. I don't want to waste my time with promises, because it's highly probable that I won't keep them (I've said that I'm going to revive this blog like three times already, 'revival's that lasted about two posts before I shrunk away into negligence).
It's going to be different this time, I think. I've started the renovation, removed most of the old links and generally stupid sidebars (God, how long was I gonna have 'My Favorite Super Smash Brawl characters' on the side of this page?). I haven't added anything new yet, but hopefully I'll get around to it soon. In additon, all my old blog friends are gone, sucked away into the high school machine. It's just me this time. Hopefully I'll enjoy this isolation as much as Jason Derulo.
Obviously one of the blog's previous drawbacks was my lack of a constant schedule. This time, I'm going to try for an update every other day (daily updates are a pretty unrealistic concept, unless some sort of news breaks that demands my immediate response). It's going to be different, and it's going to be awesome. Unless I forget.
It's going to be different this time, I think. I've started the renovation, removed most of the old links and generally stupid sidebars (God, how long was I gonna have 'My Favorite Super Smash Brawl characters' on the side of this page?). I haven't added anything new yet, but hopefully I'll get around to it soon. In additon, all my old blog friends are gone, sucked away into the high school machine. It's just me this time. Hopefully I'll enjoy this isolation as much as Jason Derulo.
Obviously one of the blog's previous drawbacks was my lack of a constant schedule. This time, I'm going to try for an update every other day (daily updates are a pretty unrealistic concept, unless some sort of news breaks that demands my immediate response). It's going to be different, and it's going to be awesome. Unless I forget.
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