den Worste?

Weblogs / /

Steven Den Beste made some rather inflammatory remarks the other day about Hockey, to which he’s received a tremendous amount of flak.

And I’m even sorrier that some Americans decided to moon Canada at a hockey game. All I can say is that in the spectrum of fans of various sports, hockey fans rank down about one step above pro wrestling. There are probably thoughtful, educated hockey fans, but there aren’t damned many.

It turns out that the incident he was referring to occurred during a Pistons and Knicks basketball game, not hockey. Steven then goes on to criticize the sport a bit, more specifically the fighting that goes on. As a hockey fan who read this, I was slightly irked, but I recognized it as the comments of someone who simply wasn’t a fan of the sport. Normally, I would think that most people would have a similar reaction. So why all the hate mail? I don’t think it has anything to do with hockey fans being “the worst we have to offer” – I would wager a guess that a good number of complaints he has received have come from intelligent, thoughtful hockey fans (as the above links show).

No, what is at work here is some people’s inferiority complex. Steven Den Beste is a know-it-all, and not in a derogatory sense. He is very intelligent, and usually, when he comments on something, he is quite compelling, if not correct. So when he finally made a mistake, everyone seized the opportunity to prove him wrong. Take this as a compliment captain; you wouldn’t be receiving this much criticism about your hockey comments if you weren’t so right about everything else. Oh, and next time, you might not want to comfort a country by insulting its most beloved sport (sorry, I couldn’t resist; it seems that I have an inferiority complex as well).

update 2:10 p.m. – Good Grief? Just to clarify a bit. Steven did make disparaging remarks about a group of people, and, naturally, that group of people feels slighted. The angle I was going for, though, was that some of these people saw this as a chink in the armor and capitalized on it (“I’ve finally discovered a topic that he is completely wrong in his opinion and apparently knows near to nothing about“). I actually thought this angle was funny, so I made this post.

update 10:30 p.m. – I’ve been Den Bested!

Speaking of hockey, my Flyers aren’t doing so well. They’ve been shut out for three straight games and they haven’t scored in regulation for even longer. They looked like they were playing pretty good last night until they self-destructed in the second period with bad penalties and some defensive breakdowns. The Flyers arr 0-11 when they fall behind three games to one. Things are not looking good…

Clowns are Scary

Culture / /

Blanky the Clown by riverrun : An E2 peice by the ever brilliant riverrun in which he admits more than a passing discomfort for clowns. In fact, they scare the shit out of him. Given his tale of Blanky, the resident clown in his home town, you could hardly blame him. Though I’ll admit a passing discomfort for clowns (and, in fact, the entire carnival setting kinda creeps me out), I’ve had the fortune of never really crossing paths with them. Anyway, riverrun gives a very brief history of clowns, which have been around for quite some time, followed by the somewhat disturbing tale of Blanky.

Making Chop-Socky Important

Movies / /

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Art Film Hidden Inside the Chop-Socky Flick by Mattew Levie : Everyone was willing to heap praise on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon when it came out, but few actually examined the importance of the film. Most people rightly praised the stunning visuals or the expertly choreographed fight sequences, but there was no discussion of what made CTHD an important film. This despite being directed by Ang Lee, a man known for his slowly paced character studies. They’ve been making martial arts films in Hong Kong for quite some time, and as far as that goes, CTHD is pretty much average. But there is something that sets it apart from its mindless action counterparts. Levie contends that CTHD is a commentary on the plight of the modern woman.

Imagine Jade Fox as the strong professional woman who is perceived as too “aggressive” and even “bitchy,” while her equally aggressive male colleagues are spared this criticism; Shu Lien as the woman who works twice as hard as her male colleagues to reach the same stature, sacrificing her personal happiness for professional success; and Jen as a beautiful, capable teenager trying to set her priorities: career or family?

Its an interesting viewpoint, and it fits with the movie. The women in CTHD are desperately trying to succeed in a world that doesn’t overtly oppress them, but is still full of sexual prejudices and challenges. Its watching how the women in CTHD reconcile with this world that gives it an advantage over its competition.

The article is from Bright Lights Film Journal, which has always been a good read for movie fans with more diverse interests. They just released a new issue, with good articles on the distribution of Black Films, The Tarantino Legacy, and the failure of Wag the Dog.

Tales of Woe

Politics / /

The Complete Newgate Calendar : An 18th/19th century English compendium of true-crime stories. The New Gate of the City of London was built during the reign of Henry I, and was used as a prison from at least 1188. It was destroyed and rebuilt several times, but always acted as a prison. It was finally destroyed in 1902, part of the site becoming occupied by the Central Criminal Court. The Newgate Calendar was originally published in five volumes in 1760 and narrated notorious crimes from 1700 till then. There were many later editions. Some of the stories are fascinating. Read about timeless con games, greedy counterfeiters, ghost stories, reprieved executions (this one is particularly interesting; the criminal actually hung

nearly fifteen minutes before being cut down) and much, much more.

Bleat 101 for newbies

Weblogs / /

James Lileks is an interesting fellow and, if nothing else, an excellent writer. If you’re one of those net-savvy people who are constantly crawling the web looking for something fun or interesting to read, chances are you’ve seen something from his site. In case you’re not too familiar with him, he recently wrote a piece on his regularly updated pseudo-journal, The Bleat, in which he gives a good overview of his site and what he likes to write about. One of the regular features of his site is called a Screed, which is where he’ll take an article he disagrees with and systematically tears it to shreds. For example, his most recent Screed takes on an article written by Nick Kristof of the Times. Kristof is of the opinion that instead of invading Iraq, the US should sue Saddam. This sequence nearly made me pee myself (italics are from the times article, followed by Lileks’ comments):

It also turns out that a British organization, Indict, is already pursuing an indictment against Saddam for war crimes.

And the Belgian organization Frown is already drafting plans to mount an international campaign of scowling, which will force his regime to divert precious resources to rubber chickens, joy-buzzers and Singing Telegram Gorillas to improve their standing abroad. Meanwhile, the French organization Surrender is drafting plans to cede Marseilles to whomever wants it, just in case.

Need I mention the plans of an American organization, Depose? They�re known informally as the Armed Services.

Funny schtuff. Also funny is Notes from the Olive Garden, in which he rips into a Guadian article. Its priceless. I would like to think that even people who don’t agree with his political views would find his work entertaining, as he really is quite talented. Read him.

Evil Rodent Empire?

Arts & Letters / /

The Story of George by James Grimmelmann : An interesting Median Strip piece concerning the design and construction of the famous Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Its a great read. Disney is notorius for pissing off its employees (or, rather, ex-employees) once their job is done. There is a legion of graphic artists whose grievances against Disney are great; this is perhaps why you see so many wierd hidden offences in their animated movies (such as this new one, pointed out by xmark). There is also rumoured to be a painting in the Magic Kingdom bearing a cartoon Hitler amidst a large ensemble of Disney characters. In relation to the post below, grenville pointed out that Mirimax (owned by Disney) is buying up riights to Hong Kong films, changing the stories, dubbing, editing, bastardising and then suing anyone who releases the original art. There is an online petition, but I doubt it would do any good…

Old Man, Your Kung-Fu is Useless!

Movies / /

Nova Express is a Hugo Award nominated zine covering the entire spectrum of speculative fiction. Issue 14 is the highlight, containing, among other things, an interesting discussion of Hong Kong cinema, including the superbly titled Old Man, Your Kung-Fu is Useless! (don’t forget to read part 2), and a few top ten lists. Author Walter Jon Williams does a resonable job categorizing and giving examples of the various genres within the Chinese action film (though he excludes the more recent Honk Kong Gangster genre typified by John Woo and Ringo Lam). If for no other reason, its good for finding some good examples of Chinese action movies. I’ll be checking out some of the Wu Xia Pian films… if I can find them…

Also, in the same issue, is an interesting article entitled Why Lovecraft Still Matters: The Magical Power of Transformative Fiction. The author, Don Webb, examines some of the things that make Lovecraft so pervasive, and gives a brief overview of his works. Lovecraft’s Mythos was an ingenius creation, as he was somehow able to slowly evoke a subtle emotional reaction on readers’ minds. The Mythos itself was almost self reinforcing; most of Lovecraft’s stories were published in the pulp magazine Wierd Tales, and Lovecraft was able to secure a secondary source of income by revising manuscripts for other Weird Tales authors, which enabled him to add references to his own imaginative universe in other authors’ works. Further, he encouraged his friends to drop references to them in their own work. For example, one of his best known creations, the Necronomicon (the magical book of the dead), is often thought to be real because sometimes Lovecraft would reference other well known books of the occult alongside his fictional Necronomicon. Other authors also referenced it in a similar manner, thus lending to the illusion. Fascinating stuff.

Spotting the Losers

Politics / /

Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States by Ralph Peters : A fascinating and somewhat prophetic essay that, in pointing out how other countries fail, actually highlights the successes of US culture. Success is eccentric, but failure is predictible. Peters has selected some excellent “signs” of non-competitive behaviour; I find that there is little to add. It very clearly defines some of the differences between us and our enemies in the “war”. There are lots of keen observations to go along with his signs, like this one:

Information is more essential to economic progress than an assured flow of oil. In fact, unearned, “found” wealth is socially and economically cancerous, impeding the development of healthy, enduring socioeconomic structures and values. If you want to guarantee an underdeveloped country’s continued inability to perform competitively, grant it rich natural resources. The sink-or-swim poverty of northwestern Europe and Japan may have been their greatest natural advantage during their developmental phases. As the Shah learned and Saudi Arabia is proving, you can buy only the products, not the productiveness, of another civilization.

Interesting stuff, and so true. Saudi Arabia’s future, in particular, is very uncertain because of their reliance on the oil industry (and their reluctance to create any other national industry). I believe that even they recognize this problem, and are trying to fix it, but I think it may be too late. I found the article at USS Clueless a while back, and Steven Den Beste rightly recognizes that there are those in America, on both the far right and the far left, that seek to (re)impose several of the signs of failure on our nation. Indeed, some of them haven’t been abolished here very long, and a return to these destructive ways would be disasterous…

My Shifting Paradigm

Weblogs / /

Well, I’ve done it again. Not two weeks ago I apologized for not updating frequently enough and promised to keep on top of it. Of course, here I am again, apologizing for a lack of posting. My recent lack of progress has prompted me to take a look at what I’m doing here, why I’m doing it, and how I’m going to continue (or if I should continue). With this weblog, I’ve mostly concerned myself with things like film, literature, and technology. It might be time for a change. I had a good time finding and posting things I thought were under-represented in the mainstream (as well as commenting on the things in the mainstream), but I find that my interests have shifted a bit lately. This is not to say that I no longer enjoy those things which have previously occupied this space, just that there might be some new areas of interest popping up, namely, politics. In case you didn’t notice, there was a distinct drop off in the quantity of posts after the 9/11 attacks, and this is mostly due to the fact that I now find myself spending hours reading up on things like Israel and Iraq and military history. In any event, those things didn’t really fit into the scope of this weblog, so the posting here went down. Of course, there are other reasons, too (*caugh, caugh* Everything2).

So far I’ve tried to keep my weblog “timeless”, so to speak; rarely did I comment on “timely” news, and when I did, it was usually accompanied by what I thought was its relation to the bigger picture. So I don’t indend on becoming another warblog; there are plenty of those already. I don’t want to focus on the latest bullet being thrown at terrorists, and if I do, it will probably be used as a segue for something more general or, rather, more relevant (ie, focusing on the bigger picture). I argue about timely events on the message boards at 4degreez; I don’t intend to do the same thing here. Time will tell if this will be a worthwhile addition to the weblog, and I certainly don’t intend to neglect my film/literature/technology interests in the mean time. Good day, and hopefully you’ll be reading something relevant here tomorrow.

Dynamic Duo

Culture / /

The Physical Genius and The Art of Failure by Malcolm Gladwell: An interesting duo of pseudo-related articles. The first posits the existence of a “physical genius”, someone who posesses an “affinity for translating thought into action”. The ironic thing about a physical genius, however, is that they really can’t be described by cut-and-dry measurements of athleticism (in other words, there is no measuring stick like IQ for a physical genius). There is, in fact, much more to it than merely performing act itself; its knowing what to do. In the other article, The Art of Failure, Gladwell posits that there are two different types of failing: regression and panicking. Regression is when you become so self conscious that you are thinking explicitely about what to do next instead of relying on your instincts and reactions (which you work hard to put into place; years of tennis lessons will give you an innate tennis sense, so to speak – but if you explicitely start think about each step, you will fail). Panicking is a sort of tunnel-vision, in which you are so concerned about one problem, you forget that you already know the usually simple solution.

Of course, Gladwell makes the points ever more elegantly than I just did. In fact, I’ve found almost all of Gladwell’s work fascinating, well researched, and well thought out. I found these two articles interesting because it seems that the physical genius doesn’t really regress back to their explicit mode of operation. Why? I think it might be because they never learned these things explicitly, at least, not the same way in which your average person does. They just know what to do, and they do it. I guess that’s why they are called “geniuses”.