It's onto you.
I recently bought a Google phone. I love the iPhone, and I would have bought one, but I’m a sucker for coverage. I would rather not lose every call thrice if I decide to get up and pace. Shortly after getting the phone I purchased an app for a game that intrigued me because it had zombies. Zombies are a fad, I realize, but they are about the only trend keeping up with those bloody idiotic teen-lust vampires these days; Hipsterism ended up sucking even worse than everyone thought it would, being a Democrat has failed, and Michael Jackson’s funeral finally ended even if the Jackson Family folly has not. But zombies, especially funny ones like Lady Gaga, seem to also be something that most really immature and overly-passionate young people wish actually existed.
And since I am also immature and overly-passionate, I downloaded Zombie, Run! to my phone. It’s a game that you play throughout your city, and it can really only be played if you are willing to go outside into that city and run. Or walk swiftly, if you play on the wimpy level.
It works through Google Earth: The GPS in the phone will pinpoint your location in your city, put you on the Google Earth map in the form of a dot, then ask where you are going. You pick your destination by touching the screen some distance away from your location, and when the game starts, the app puts zombies all over the map. You have to get from where you are to your destination while avoiding all the zombies in between. If you wander within a proximity of any zombie, it will discover you, alert other zombies, and chase you down. Buildings don’t help you. Neither do red lights. Nothing does, really, except running. Church cemeteries seem to make things worse, but I am not sure how.
The game didn’t seem like it would be all that much fun at first…I didn’t really want to run, or sweat, nor did I want to do so while staring with zombie-panic at my phone. I had to go through the busiest section of downtown, and I didn’t want to bump into anyone. I also that morning did not dress for the job I have, I dressed for the job I want, which is not zombie related.
But then I started playing; I found myself navigating through a city I knew was there, but had never seen. I negotiated cobbled and one-way streets in ways that may seem obnoxious, but this forced me to experience parts of the city I would usually skip or take for granted. I turned down alleys that were known stops of the ghost tours. I jumped an historic, private, wrought-iron fence. I stepped through a haute restaurant kitchen like Mafiosos do in movies, but I had no time to eat anything. (Zombies.) I cut through an 18th century church cemetery; BIG MISTAKE. But I made it out to write about it.
Without this app I would have made the walk down the usual route and experienced nothing. I would have listened to music, I would kept my head down for the most part, I would have looked up at certain points to favorite, common, historic houses, but would never have truly “entered my city.” I even got caught at a red light and had to turn left, out of my way, because zombies were bearing down upon me to crack open my skull and feast on the goo inside. And this too took me down an unknown, idyllic street hearkening to the Colonies. And I was fascinated.
I am not one to embrace all sorts of technology; My wife and I have made a conscious decision (and real effort) to not have a TV or the internet in our home. But this technology forced me to places that I am glad I went. I enjoyed the journey, I enjoyed my city, I enjoyed the endeavor to not be eaten, and I enjoyed my phone.
Where do you fall on the technology continuum? Do you avoid technology? Do you lust for it? Would you rather see civilization in a Star Trekkie futurism or a colonial, pre-Industrial Revolution simplicity? Or do you, like me, strike the perfect balance between a reasonable connection to a wired populace and a spiritual connection to nature and all peoples through real and deepening relationships? What technologies do you find most useful to daily life?
A list of classic, must-read children’s books is posted on the NPR website, offered by children’s book author Lesley Blume. Not only had I not read any of them, I had only even heard of two. Which made me wonder…what books did I read as a kid? Or, which books did I love enough to consider classics? Aside from Garfield and Peanuts comics, I couldn’t think of many. I don’t remember reading much at all, but thankfully there are a few books so indelible in my reading memory that they would be on my short-list of classics, and perhaps be blamed for sparking my reading life. So I compliled a (very) short list (albeit a lame and rather obvious one) of my own:
What are your classics? What books did you read as a child or young adult that you would not want your child or young adult to avoid or miss? What classics should I read now, and be sure to pass on to my brood?
Maybe you had to be there.
When I was in elementary school and the space shuttle Challenger exploded, I was a little shocked albeit delighted at how soon (pretty much the next week) my hilarious peers began spreading Challenger jokes around that they heard from their awful and delinquent older brothers like nobody actually died in the ordeal. I remember laughing, but I also remember wondering if I was a d-bag for doing it.
This week Roseanne Barr was seen dressed up like Hitler for Heeb Magazine with some burned Jew cookies. There was outcry, backlash and general disgust from a lot of people who are and aren’t Jewish, but it made us wonder, if a magazine about Jewish culture (and counter-culture) and a Jewish comedienne (if you can call her that) were willing to do it, is it so bad? Are you actually offended by this, or is it just that you know you should be? Is Hitler ever going to be funny, or will it always and forever be too soon? Do you even care? What else is not funny and never will be (besides, of course, Roseanne)?
If only we all converted waste like this.
These are toilet paper rolls, molded, folded and squeezed to resemble garden monks and disgruntled trolls. Aside from how fascinating they are, and the creativity of artist Junior Jacquet, they reminded us of another beautification project rifling through the streets of New York City in an attempt to spruce up artless neighborhoods.
Have you seen this cat?
The designers at Cardon Copy have been hijacking rudimentary and entirely uncreative homemade signs on telephone poles in the burroughs, in order to retool and redesign them with flare and class. The signs range from announcing missing cats to advertising cleaning-lady services, rooms for rent to parking prohibitions, singing lessons to yard sales.
What would you beautify? What ordinary, common, even gross landscape eyesore, or household item, would you, if you could, make into art? What uninteresting, banal everyday artifact would you make interesting and extraordinary?
Harry and the feather. Oh, and Hermione.
Although the filmmakers pretty much feathered Harry Potter’s hair for the Half-Blood Prince, the movie is smashing records anyway. And for good reason. It is the best of the franchise. This could be for several reasons, not least among them that the kids are growing up and are no longer bumbling, sniveling balls of pre-pubescent uncertainty.
Despite the success of the films, not to mention the historic, Biblical success of the Harry Potter books, there are some holdouts who refuse to have anything to do with either of them. On 23 October 2007, acclaimed pop-culture critic and social essayist Chuck Klosterman published a piece in Esquire on why he should, even though he will never, read the Harry Potter series.
His argument is basically that, after 325 million books sold worldwide (actually, the total is now well over 400 million), and with millions more children being exposed to Harry Potter’s adventure and worldview through only the movie series, Klosterman is setting himself up for future failure . So many people are so influenced by Potter (he even enticed multiple generations of American! kids to read mutiple! books) that Klosterman knows he cannot fathom the consequences. He will be ignorant compared to anyone with whom he works or manages. He will be left in the dust, and rendered an out-of-touch, irrelevant dinosaur.
By making this decision in the present, I will be less able to manage the future. My thoughts about entertainment aesthetics will be outdated, and I will not grasp the fundamental lingua franca of the 2025 hipster. I will not only be old, but old for my age. I will be the pterodactyl, and I will be slain. It is only a matter of time.
Will Chuck Klosterman be left behind?
What is the cultural significance of Harry Potter? Is Klosterman right? Is Harry Potter too important not to read?
Harry Potter seems to finally have some competition; after a decade atop the New York Times bestseller list, Potter is out and all things Twilight, and other sissy, metrosexual vampires, are in. Although the vamps have a long, long way to go to dethrone the wizards, they have the momentum (albeit because the Potter books are completed and the story is known). But would Twilight have been so popular if Potter wasn’t? What kind of influence do you think Potter had or has on childhood (or even adult) literacy? Did you, or will you, read Twilight, and how does it compare to the world of Hogwarts?
(Post Script: For those of you who have the read the Potter books and long for more, Rowling wrote an 800-word prequel to the series featuring Sirius Black and James Potter. She sold it to a publisher for charity, and it eventually made its way online. Enjoy.)
Too bad she won't just quit speaking altogether.
Vanity Fair got their grammarious little hands on a transcript of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s resignation speech. Needless to say, they had to touch it up a bit.
Not only was her delivery embarrassing, with the oft-lampooned sports-metaphor-gone-stupid, but her writing is sophmoric, and her history is wrong. Not to mention all the quitting. At least Alaskans can take some encouragement in the fact that she is obviously saving the state money on speechwriters and ombudsmen.
We want to know if you take her seriously. Do you think Palin is a serious contender for any national political office? Does she stand a chance at anything in 2012? Or is she a mere sideshow that will become the Right’s Ralph Nader (with sincere apologies to Mr. Nader…)?
Spongebob Squarepants turned 10 years old this week, and yet, even at such a tender age, is reportedly worth $8 billion.
This is Nickelodeon's cash cow?
One can imagine the pitch meeting. Stephen and a buddy sit down in front of the execs to run through the current Nickelodeon inventory…They’ve got the awkward girl cartoon, they’ve got the educational animals cartoon, they have spinoff shows from video games and that annoying chick from School of Rock, and of course they have the Superhero cartoons. The typical, banal superhero cartoon. Superhero cartoons are like barbed wire tatoos in Myrtle Beach. Too easy. We need the opposite of a superhero! An antihero! What’s the least superhero thing you can think of, that is still helpful and actually can inspire other people to act heroically? Right! A Sponge! A sponge who always finds the silver lining…(the pineapple and fry cook bit and the Krusty Krab will all develop later).
This earned $8 billion in merchandising and ad revenue. So pitch The Pub. You have got to have some stupid, innane, off-the-wall idea for a silly flash cartoon that, if done well, and produced as much for parents as it is for kids, will earn you bank. What cartoon can The Pub help you produce?
Two documentaries are set to be released soon, both exposing in their own ways atrocities that, if true, will (hopefully) prompt the right people to action. (The outcry and charity that resulted from the film Invisible Children is a glimpse at what can be accomplished.)
In The Cove, a group of filmmakers seek to unmask a hidden Japanese killing pool, where hundreds of dolphins are herded and harvested for what looks like, in the trailer, school lunches:
In Bananas*, the Dole Food Company is accused of using a deadly chemical on Central American banana plantations that rendered farmers and workers infertile, and even dead:
At one point in The Cove, the creator of the early hit TV show Flipper remarks that you are either an activist or an inactivist. So what are your issues? What cause or fight has moved you to activism? Or (probably more accurately) what causes move you to wish you were an activist? What injustice moves you to hate your inactivism? (Another interesting question might be, “Are you more moved by the plight of the dolphins, or the health of people?”)
In keeping with the theme of old news, we thought we would take the time to list another reason that many people are glad that Al Gore did not win the Presidency of the United States; he probably would not have founded Current. Current is a platform for quasi-indie journalism, but unlike other blogs and vlogs and independent talking heads who scurry around the clock to bring you new news about 28 seconds after it really happens, this website is good. And it’s funny. One of The Pub’s favorite Current features is Viral Video Film School, an hilarious look at current trends in viral videos around the web, featured as a segment in InfoMania, a half-hour news program aired on Thursday nights.
InfoMania lampoons the news, the internet, celebrity buzz, the media, advertising, and anything else you’ve caught but didn’t really catch. InfoMania comedian Sara Haskins does spot called Target Women, which some have called a Daily Show for the fairer sex, and we can’t forget to mention its How The !*#@ Is This A Magazine snippet, which is exactly what it sounds like.
So where do you get your news? What sites, blogs, rss feeds do you get to on a daily basis?
