McCain’s War Against the Media

One should strive to manipulate the media into expressing one’s viewpoint, not bludgeon it into submission. The McCain seems set on the latter path. But the more he and his surrogates attack the media, the less utility he will derive out if it. In a fundamentally hyperreal world, what McCain considers to be a set of defined actors who can be coerced into submission is much more diffuse than he would like to believe. Waging war against it makes as much sense as trying to drain the sea with a bucket.

McCain’s other approach of influence has been the employment of a series of stunts designed to change the logic of the system (e.g Sarah Palin, his campaign suspension, etc). Ironically for the arch-conservative Arizona senator, one could analogize this to culture-jamming. McCain’s stunts have not failed because they lack sincerity or substance–neither of which is necessary to stir up the masses. They have failed because both actions are insufficient in and of themselves as game-changers.  Against the drama of the fall of stock market’s fall and the global war on terrorism,  Sarah Palin’s “redneck woman” routine seems like a bizarre sideshow. Likewise, McCain’s staged heroics (a campaign suspension that wasn’t) didn’t have much of an impact. He is going to have to try much harder if he really wants to off-set Obama’s lead.

Master of Chaos

I saw the new Batman movie over the weekend–went on two long and was too dark for my tastes. However, Heath Ledger’s demented performance as Joker as worth the price of admission. As I drove back from the theater, I started thinking about the interesting parallels between the movie and the subject matter of the asymmetric warfare discussions we’ve been having in the last couple of years.

The Soviet Colonel Kurtz

Via Abu Muquwama, a portrait of a deranged Soviet counterinsurgent in the Afghan war. There seems to be a common archetype, whether in film or real life, of the counterinsurgency operative who is radically (and negatively) changed by his environment. Take, for example, Col. Mathieu in the film Battle of Algiers, or the obvious Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (who in some ways a reflection of Vietnam War figures like Lt. William Calley).

On the Joys of 32-Bit Sprites

With very few exceptions, I find video games to be loud and annoying. However, I’ll always have a soft spot for the 1990s Squaresoft games–the Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger, and Legend of Mana. Admittedly, its easy to confuse nostalgia (which I have plenty of)  with aesthetic value. Even the most committed fan has to admit that a game like Final Fantasy VI–while excellent for its time–is light years removed from games like Metal Gear Solid or Grand Theft Auto. It’s not just the graphics and sound. The gameplay consists of a series of tedious planned events broken up by turn-based battles. While leveling up is always a tedious task in role-playing games, doing so in Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger is even more rote.

So why do I love them? It’s precisely because Squaresoft made so much out of so little. To play any of their mid-1990s games is to see how great ideas can be expressed without powerful graphics engines and massive online multiplayer options.  Though the quality of Final Fantasy storylines are always overrated by gamers, it’s hard not to admire how Squaresoft can get you to care about the fortunes of 32-bit sprites. Sometimes limitations can be a boon for creativity.  The children who play cops and robbers in the backwoods next to their uncle’s house show more imagination, after all, than those who do so glued to a television screen. As primitive as mid-1990s Squaresoft games are, they stand the test of time because of imagination informed by limitation.

Comic Book PSYOP

This is how you win “hearts and minds.” (h/t Mountainrunner)

Folklore Discussion Group

Was poking around online last night and found an interesting Google discussion group on folklore and urban legend. Online discussion groups are optimal incubation points for urban legends and conspiracy theories–see this archive from UFO forums on Usenet from the late 80s and early 90s.

Recent Movies

1. Rambo: I didn’t come into the theater with terribly high expectations. The last Rambo film (III) was awful, and I wasn’t sure how an older Rambo taken out of his Cold War context would be any better. However, the film accomplishes Slyvester Stallone’s goal of achieving some measure of closure for the series. We finally do see Rambo coming home (to Arizona, of all places!) If you can stomach the truckloads of genre cliches and exploding bodies, Rambo is worth at least a DVD rental. 
2. There Will Be Blood:  A flawed masterpiece. Very atmospheric, reminding me at times of Antonioni’s The Passenger and L’Avventura.  I felt that critics overrated Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance–the real pleasure is watching newcomer Paul Dano as boy preacher/huckster Eli Sunday. All in all, a great combination of oil, greed, and religious fanaticism–this time in turn of the century California. 
3. Persepolis: Despite the rather depressing subject matter (the coming of age of a young girl in revolutionary Iran), Persepolis never feels like a downer. It is as boisterous, defiant, and scattered as its Abba-listening protagonist. My only complaint is that the black-and-white animation doesn’t really convey the storyline’s full emotional depth. 

“You Are Alive”

Some months after 9/11, I visited the mangled wreckage of the World Trade Center. My first (and last) visit to the WTC had been approximately a month and half before the attacks. I stared at the rubble and was deeply unnerved when I remembered how I had rode the elevator to the very top and looked down on the city. Even more disturbing was the image I had in my mind of what the collapse must have looked like from inside. Crews were still sifting through the wreckage, but most of the work had already been done. 

A little ways out from the blast site was a small photo shop. Most of the pictures displayed were reproductions of famous news photographs of the attacks, but there were plenty of more obscure photos. I fixated on one picture of a graffiti’d wall–the words “You Are Alive” were spray-painted in black. I bought it on impulse and took it with me back to California. Since then, I’ve thought a great deal about the picture. It is easily the most powerful of all of the 9/11 images, and I’ve never really understood why. The simplicity? The earnestness? The uplifting yet melancholy underlying message? Whatever it makes me feel, I’ve never been able to put it into words.

The Bedlam in Goliath

I’ve been hooked on The Mars Volta since De-Loused in a Comatorium blasted them into the music scene in 2003. De-Loused was the perfect rock album for the 21st century, an ominous, violent, and defiantly postmodern fusion of punk’s manic energy and the majestic weirdness of Pink Floyd. Unfortunately, with each passing album they sound more and more like ADHD kids who just happen to have access to a multi-million dollar recording studio. Thankfully, their latest, The Bedlam in Goliath, is a return to form. I’ve had it on repeat since at least yesterday. Bedlam manages to distill TMV’s influences–dub, post-punk, Latin jazz, and Pac-Man beeps–into something listenable. No more 32-minute King Crimson wankoffs.

Predictably, Pitchfork doesn’t like it.

A Blogospheric MMORPG?

Curtis Gale Weeks has some interesting thoughts on the similarities between massive online multi-player role-playing games like World of Warcraft and blogs. I see them myself, but the differences are massive.