Tag Archives: theory

Also, has anyone else realised that Gran Torino is a Western?

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I’ve been doing some reading about genre, right, for two essays that I should be writing at this very moment, that will pop round and soundly kick my ass later in the week.

Firstly, genre is a fairly fluid thing. I mention this only because after reading so much I don’t want to give the nerdly overlords of the interwebs the idea that I think genre is really easily summupable. Early genre theorists would have us believe that there is a like, five or six definite genres, and the lines between them are clear and the point of them is either to help audiences clarify their expectations, help advertisers and such promote shows and films appropriately or to help establish the quality of a certain text, as compared to others of its genre. But the idea of genre is reasonably complicated.

That isn’t exactly what I wanted to talk about, but reading this article about how genre can be obvious from any number of things, setting, characterisation, casting, plot etc gave me an idea. It mentioned the hero in the Western. He (sorry for the gender crap, but that’s how it goes) is traditionally removed from the society he unwillingly exists in, but at some point fights to save this society, then rides off into the sunset* because he is forever at odds with the man, or the establishment. Or prairie living or some such.

And I realised that Clint Eastwood’s character in Gran Torino is EXACTLY THAT HERO. Which, I think, is a nice little remix on the traditional western.

*the article mentioned death as another possible scenario here, the main point being that the hero is removed from the scene.

Things I’m Average at No. 119: Knowing Shit About Shit*

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Things happen all the time

Like, all the time. Some of them are bad, some are fun and some are awful. I, as it turns out, know very little about any of them. I have vague sort of opinions about stuff, about what I think is wrong and what is right. For one thing I think Tony Abbott should maybe stop opening his mouth and for another I think the extent to which we have fucked up our environment is a little hysterical.

When soldiers from Israel board a boat of activists and people wind up dead, that is horrifying. What people do to each other is grotesque, sometimes.

This particular tragedy brought to the fore how little I know about what is actually going on the world. It was seriously like “Israel? Right..They’re not the goodies. No. Are they in, Iraq? Or just near it..”. That is how poor my grasp on important gear is.

My ignorance is actually legendary. Well, no. It’s not, but within my head (and I choose to assume the heads of those I live with) it is sung about in halls where Vikings drink mead and toast the gods. When someone says they are an engineer, I still need a moment to imagine them doing anything but shovelling coal into a train engine in stripey overalls and a tall hat.

Except, as a sort of qualifier to the first statement, I do know shit about, like, actual shit. As in useless bits of bellybutton fluff info that no one cares about. Like I know a little som’ som’ about vagazzling, I know about snail slime, and I know the lyrics to just about every Celine Dion song (thank you mum) that exists.

So in summation, if you asked what the song “A New Day Has Come” is about, I would mention how it’s a break out classic, layering the themes of motherhood and a re-blossoming career side by side and that quite frankly, it gives me goosebumps. If, however, you were to ask me who Foucault is, I would respond with “ooh. Um.. Politics? Philosphy. He wrote… like, something big. Ish”.

Prioritise much?

*This particular item is not actually no 119 in a long list of things I’m average at. 119 is an arbitrary number chosen to give the impression that the things I am average at are so numerous, that were I to chronicle them the list that would result would be lengthy and its contents numbering beyond 119 and increasing exponentially as my self awareness about my deficits grow.

Like the corners of my mind

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And so it is… another semester draws to a close, we throw our pointy black hats in the air and walk off, arms around shoulders, but not before we stand on our desks with cries of “oh captain my captain”… Or alternately we barely notice we’ve finished subjects in the chaos of lastweeklastminuteohmygodhowdoIdothisessayinanhour pandemonium, safe in the knowledge we’ll do it all again next term.

In NetComms I have learnt a lot. And I have been interested more than I thought I would be when I started and some guy was all “oh dude. My mate did net comms last year, and he couldn’t pass. He couldn’t. And it’s boring” and I was all “shit”. I am really enjoying the internet now, which sounds like a statement from an informercial (“The Internet”! Where it’s safe to be a nerd!), but it’s true.  I loved hearing and reading about social theory behind the different facets of the web, I love it that I actually know stuff now– like what web 2.0 is and you know, about youtube celebrities and stuff.

Writing blog entries has been fun and I certainly intend to keep them up, possibly a little sillier, a few more music related posts, a few more imagined conversations with fictional characters. I have learnt through the experience that it’s tricky being a blogger. Sure, you just write whatever crap comes to mind, but you pour your heart and soul onto a page that most likely friends will say they’ll read and then never follow up on. You say you don’t want to be the next internet thing, but there’s always a part of you that wants someone in blog land (a king or a duke) to notice your lowly scribblings, recognise your superior wit and excellent cultural referencing and give you a blog in the palace. Or you don’t, but it is hard. And I found that writing entries about actual topics made it difficult to be light and airy. I wanted to be funny, but then I got all interested in what I was writing. Which maybe shows how average at sticking to a theme, or being consistent I am. Sigh.

Another thing I’m real average at is writing essays, which explains why I failed one earlier. But, what excites me about the webs is that as Geert says, anyone can blog; it requires no tech knowledge or special skills. I can write as me and not be afraid because I’m not like everyone else. All my part in the internet requires of me, is my self. Goodo.

As stated, I want to continue my burgeoning affair with the world wide web (we’re taking it slow, but.. it’s getting pretty serious), and I want to learn how to share and be shared with and to explore more the idea of a public commons and or sphere. I want to think more about piracy and its cultural relevance and if it’s ok. I want to learn about why the internet –effectively people– does what it does.

And I want to upload pictures of cats.

So many cats..

I’m excited.

Ima let you finish, but…

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I mentioned in my last entry that I like people all coming together and sharing. That goes for anything really, a talk, a meal, books, thoughts, tazos. I honestly believe people are made to be in community. And I was an early  (in my life, not in the life of the net) naysayer about technology that it was claimed brought people together, when really it encouraged people to hide behind their screens and not leave their houses and fly kites and play etc. BUT, after learning a lot these last few months about the interweb and its associated glory,

I’m in!

I love it. I love its potential, it’s theory, it’s kingdoms of tiny nerdlings, all googling pictures of Captain Janeway and creating the next piece of software three people will use. Imagine, friends, the wonder of the internet, billions of people given the ability to communicate at the touch of a button, to connect, to find each other, to share and become a real, worldwide public sphere.

And to upload thousands of pictures of cats…

Yeah. I see the infastructure and the possibilities, but I don’t know how much I see people connecting. It is hard to quantify how much of blogging is done to “connect” and how much is because people are bored/“totally awesome”/angry etc. But I guess the very act of channelling this desire to blurt into such a public forum is in some way an act of reaching out. I for one don’t really expect anyone to read my blog –although my brother has apparently linked to my last entry (terrifying, dizzying new heights of fame) on his– and I don’t expect if people read it that they will wish to enter into a spirited discussion about my thoughts with me. I don’t expect this because I don’t see my opinions or shenanigans to be of any import to anyone and furthermore when I hit up other blogs I don’t comment. Cad.

Allegedly there are rules, and appropriate ways of communicating with other bloggers

I have witnessed the connections, when I think about it. I’ve stumbled on blogs that have moved from one site to another for instance, and brought their readers with them, all typing little messages of “good to see you here” and sending muffin baskets. So I guess it does happen. But how? My bro assures me that linking is totally dead now and a majority of people don’t comment, so how do we respond to the shit people are throwing around? Geert Lovink says it’s better to post a comment on your own page if you wish to disagree with anothers blog, as you’re unlikely to get a response. So basically we’re all just talking and engaging with each other, on our own blogs, in our own worlds. This surely poses a problem.

Geert Lovink also wrote about blogging as a nihilist impulse

I suppose that blogging is a form of nihilism. In chronicling our thoughts and insights, some of them fictional, some of them fantastic, some dark and troubling, we reject an idea of an established truth, particularly one that is dolled out by someone above us. So if we are writing our own truth and responsible for our own values and reason behind the desire to blog, one can reasonably deduce that to define a singular reason behind the billions of people shaping the blogosphere would be unrealistic to the point of ridiculous. So perhaps not everyone blogs to be heard, or to connect.

Take my bro linking to my blog for example. While I love that he did that, as it means that perhaps my efforts will not go wholly unnoticed in cyber-land, it scares me because if one of his more tech-savvy friends read it, I might be mortified. The danger of said nerd writing something like “Creative Commons is a much more multi faceted idea than you can possibly ever grasp with your puny earth brain. You’re a naff blogger” and me shutting Gerard (my laptop) forever and crying instead, is too great.

I think, no matter what our driving force to publish ourselves, at the end of the day we’re not burning our thoughts after we write them. It’s a very, very public forum, despite most blogs getting lost in the fog of so much info. And I think, despite the fear, I would love comments on my posts and will start to do similar, as my desire to connect to whatever “truth” people have and the authors of it, is too great to ignore.