On February 11, 2009, I caused a car accident on University Drive about several blocks away from the Mesa Court dormitories at UCI--or at least I think I did. This came about a couple months after just acquiring my driver's license, and I was then trying to carve out my preferred route to school. I had been trucking it on the surface streets for quite awhile, but leaving an hour before class started was starting to wear me down, so I finally caved in and decided to take to the highways, which for inexperienced drivers, is much like going on a loop-de-loop roller coaster for the first time.
I live on the border between Santa Ana and Orange right where the 22 runs west to east. I start out by getting on the 22 East; the entrance of which, is conveniently located about two blocks away from my house. After getting on the 22, I immediately take the exit for the 55 south, and drive straight all the way down until I hit the 73. The 73 curves to the east, and I get off on University Drive, which goes down to the Mesa Court where I make a right on Mesa Rd, and then park in the Mesa Parking Structure.
The event itself was not spectacular, and doubtless, it resembles many similar events that have transpired before my time and after, an endless number of them, spread throughout America. Following closely behind the car in front of me down University Dr, moving at a fairly nice clip, I had to slam on the brakes unexpectedly when the car in front slowed down to a stop. I was able to avoid hitting his rear fender, unfortunately, the cars behind me did not have that luxury.
Besides the screeching tires, and the tell-tale phantom sound of collision, I looked in my rear mirror to see the line of cars behind me get smaller. The light had turned green, and as I was moving, the line behind me did not. I noticed that the car doors opened, as the drivers in the unlucky incident must be going out to inspect the level of damage, and as for me, well I high-tailed it out of there.
Now I might've caused the accident or not, but I was no doubt a factor. The car's sudden stop in front of me caused me to do the same and I can't be held responsible for the sluggish reflexes for the driver behind me. As soon as I parked myself, I pulled out my cellphone, and typed it "Caused car accident." to commemorate the event.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
A Seat Apart
There's something poetic about the distance strangers put between each other. Not too far and not too close, but just the right amount. You can see this on the first day of school. Nobody who doesn't know nobody wants to sit next to nobody, so they set themselves down to the appreciable acceptable minimum distance of social separation: one seat apart. As if the extra 2 feet can make all the difference in the world, as if it was enough space to shield you from all the incongruities, the odors, the mere presence of somebody you don't care to know, and sends their existence careening off the edge of your consciousness.
Even when we're not in lecture halls or labs, or any other setting, we like to segregate ourselves apart, and what distance is it? One seat away. Two seats would be just too much, nobody wants to sit by themselves by such a margin--no, it has to be closer. But right next to you? That's uncomfortably close, close enough for me pick up your none-too-flattering body scent, the remnants of the last meal on your breath, the emnations of your body heat, and close enough to make me feel the general queasiness brought about when two people who don't know each other are shoved into close proximity. Classes tend not to be the most sociable of spaces, so it becomes nothing more than an endurance trial, hoping that their presence doesn't gnaw at your nerves long enough to distract you from learning.
Most of us, if the situation permits, would like to separate ourselves into our own clusters, cliques, and circles, from everybody else. The empty seat being the barrier between different groups. In movie theaters, cafes, restaurants, and public places in general, you just don't want to mix up with the "others."
Humans have this oddly detached relationship with each other. Most of us require some form of a relationship with another human being to survive, to function, to keep us from going insane. Yet, we also require a level of privacy, and keep others from getting too close to our core. We all have people at varying distances to our core, and we hope to one day find the one person that we can completely expose our cores to. But to make sure that we don't indiscriminately expose our cores to someone looking to deal massive damage, we need to maintain that peculiar distance of one seat apart.
Not everybody prefers one seat however. Some people, like me, would love to have the whole auditorium to myself and some people wouldn't mind if the other stranger sat in their damn lap. My contention is that if you average out the seat preferences of everybody in the world, the average will equal one seat. So the next time you sit down in class, in a restaurant, in a movie theater, just think about that empty seat next to you and ask yourself, would you mind if somebody sat there?
Even when we're not in lecture halls or labs, or any other setting, we like to segregate ourselves apart, and what distance is it? One seat away. Two seats would be just too much, nobody wants to sit by themselves by such a margin--no, it has to be closer. But right next to you? That's uncomfortably close, close enough for me pick up your none-too-flattering body scent, the remnants of the last meal on your breath, the emnations of your body heat, and close enough to make me feel the general queasiness brought about when two people who don't know each other are shoved into close proximity. Classes tend not to be the most sociable of spaces, so it becomes nothing more than an endurance trial, hoping that their presence doesn't gnaw at your nerves long enough to distract you from learning.
Most of us, if the situation permits, would like to separate ourselves into our own clusters, cliques, and circles, from everybody else. The empty seat being the barrier between different groups. In movie theaters, cafes, restaurants, and public places in general, you just don't want to mix up with the "others."
Humans have this oddly detached relationship with each other. Most of us require some form of a relationship with another human being to survive, to function, to keep us from going insane. Yet, we also require a level of privacy, and keep others from getting too close to our core. We all have people at varying distances to our core, and we hope to one day find the one person that we can completely expose our cores to. But to make sure that we don't indiscriminately expose our cores to someone looking to deal massive damage, we need to maintain that peculiar distance of one seat apart.
Not everybody prefers one seat however. Some people, like me, would love to have the whole auditorium to myself and some people wouldn't mind if the other stranger sat in their damn lap. My contention is that if you average out the seat preferences of everybody in the world, the average will equal one seat. So the next time you sit down in class, in a restaurant, in a movie theater, just think about that empty seat next to you and ask yourself, would you mind if somebody sat there?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The Evolution of Literary Journalism Ethics
By Thanh Le
In the birth of the novel was a desire to illuminate the universal truth inherent in all of humanity. Instead of looking to the fantastical, as was the custom, the novel looked at the mundane, the everyday for revelations of the human condition. The logical evolution in this pursuit for universality would inevitably take narrative from the realm of fantasy, through the everyday novel, to the factuality of real-life.
Reporting has always been cursed with the expectation of dry delivery, newspeak that stresses objectivity and informative fluency over the narrative and thematic possibilities of fact, but the pioneering works of Defoe and Crane challenged that notion. From the primordial soup of narrative was born a new creature, an amalgamation of truth and fantasy that began to blur the lines between factual reporting and literary writing. John Krakauer’s Into the Wild stands as the ultimate culmination of this creature, evolved from the single-celled works of Orwell and London, taking narrative from fiction into real life. Such a transition was not without its pratfalls and conundrums however. The allure of these stories was their purported basis in reality, but just how far can readers go in trusting what the author has made? How can we tell that the author has addressed the concerns of accuracy, veracity, and that every attempt was made to ensure the truth and integrity of the story?
The early works of Crane and Dafoe were experiments in fiction and reporting. They were an attempt to infuse reality with the meaning of the novel. The idea that reality could carry across themes and universal qualities that came about from carefully constructed narratives seemed quite ridiculous, but there was something quite compelling about real life. Although reality had a quality that defied meaning, as if it was simply a world where random circumstance and coincidence collided, nonetheless, these writers saw something in these collisions of chance. They wanted to turn reporting into something “literary.” They wanted to turn reality into something universally significant and relevant.
John Hersey’s Hiroshima was a compelling story, drawing on the real drama of disaster, on the harrowing experience that followed in the devastation but the necessity for factual reporting did much to mute the scenic quality of the book. Scenes had characters speak only in curt and short workman-like phrases, but despite these setbacks, the work used its claim to accuracy to immerse the reader. Capote tried to usher in a new genre of the non-fiction novel by taking everything that made the novel, and replace it with real-life content but fact and novelistic narrative did not comply, forcing Capote to fabricate the final words of Perry, and to fictionalize an ending to provide a coherence that he was unable to find in reality. Novels and reality, despite his best efforts, were unable to reconcile.
At the end of this long line of works stands Krakauer’s Into the Wild, the ultimate result of a century’s worth of natural selection. Redundant appendages have been cut off, faux organs removed, and extraneous senses consolidated, what remains is a very different beast than Hersey’s Hiroshima or Capote’s In Cold Blood. Krakauer never set out to shoehorn a real-life narrative into the structured coherence and elegance of a novel, instead, he set out to explore and understand a young man who lost his life in a seemingly needless endeavor into nature. This is not a non-fiction novel, but literary journalism. A narrative that relies on true events and the people involved. All the stories mentioned had an echo of the human condition, a universality to be revealed, but the access to this truth was compromised, either by stylistic limitation or by fabrication.
Into the Wild is part of a category of literary journalism that has always been intrinsically suspect: the reconstruction. It is not the first nor will it be the last in a category that presumes to recreate events and present it in a manner that does not merely recall the recorded facts, but fashion them into a narrative—a story. Krakauer draws from previous models of reconstruction, using the works that have come before, standing on their shoulders, to create a work that manages to deal with all the issues and problems with reconstruction. Into the Wild is a story about a young man’s final journey into the Alaskan wilderness and the circumstances that surround his mysterious death.
The issues that plague reconstruction are quite simple; it’s a matter of trust. For events as calamitous as a nuclear explosion or as isolated as a secluded murder, we can only trust the words of those who emerged from the chaos. Readers must trust that the author had done all he can to deduce the truth from the people who experienced the very event the writer wishes to recreate. Into the Wild is a unique case, however, because there are no survivors (quite the contrary) and there are no perpetrators to speak to. The very subject of the story has already passed away.
Chris McCandless may be dead in reality, but he is very much alive in Into the Wild. Krakauer is able to revive him from the imprints he left behind in the real world. The McCandless in the story was formed from the impressions, the chance encounters, and the fleeting relationships he held with people all over the country during the course of his journey. The journey was not a lonely one, but one periodically marked with human contact. This contact is crucial in reconstructing the path that McCandless undertook. Krakauer, from extensive interviewing, should’ve be able to construct a timeline derived from all his meetings, and by cross-referencing their stories on top of each other, a clearer picture of the journey should form.
It is here that Krakauer takes a cue from his predecessors. Hiroshima’s intersecting narrative between its six central characters was a kind of built-in check to ensure accuracy. The legitimacy of a story increases in proportion to the number of people who verify it. The cross-referencing of separate story lines that intersect at key moments was done to great effect by Hersey. This was also done in the recreation of the Clutter’s last day in Capote’s tale of cold-blooded murder. Using the eyewitness testimony of the people who were last with them, he reconstructed their last moments in startling detail. The story of one man alone does not mean that much, but the stories of many can give that one story authenticity and legitimacy. Following the journey of McCandless meant following in his wake of chance encounters, and seeing just how profound his influence and impact was on the people who remember him. The list of people he involved was comprehensive: Gallien, Westerberg, Burres, Carine, and among others.
Fortunately, reporting doesn’t always rely on something as dodgy as memories. Intersecting and corroborating stories are great but aren’t always foolproof. For everything else, there’s physical evidence—records: in the form of journals, photographs, videos, and audio recordings. All of these things provide invaluable fundamental building blocks from which the author can use to lay down a foundation of truth. Into the Wild makes constant reference McCandless’ journal. Statements prefaced with “From his journal we know…” let us know that these do not arise from idle speculation, but from what was written and recorded.
Driven by the works of Jack London and Henry David Thoreau, McCandless’ journey into the wilderness was more than just some wild adventure, but a spiritual quest. Krakauer was given access by the family to take a look at all of McCandless’ possessions. He was able to get his hands on McCandless’ journal, his collection of books, and important items like the guitar. By following McCandless’ trail, he came across the abandoned Datsun, the belt that was made with Ron Franz, the video that Franz made, and read over all the letters McCandless sent to people such as Westerberg and Burres. Hard physical evidence is the currency of accuracy in reporting journalism.
Capote also had a great deal of physical evidence at his disposal. The box of Perry’s relics stashed in some motel is a reporter’s treasure trove. Capote reportedly had a whole room full with piles of court documents, notes, and such records all related to the story. What separates Krakauer from Capote is that he doesn’t hide this room in the background, but constantly asks readers to revisit this room and make sure that there is no wool pulled over our eyes. We have direct access to words McCandless wrote as “Alexander.” It’s the case of transparency versus form. Capote does reference his sources in his writing, but his aspiration for a novelistic style tended to minimize the attribution to its most invisible point. Krakauer does the opposite, putting the spotlight on the reference, and never hesitates to bring readers into his evidence locker. Such transparency is not a weakness, but an acknowledgment of the difficulty of forcing non-fiction into a novelistic format.
Take Capote’s retracing of Dick and Perry’s journey across the country into Mexico and back. Capote traveled the same path to ensure that his recreation of their travels was as accurate as possible, alluding to landmark signs and details to round out the environment but he never says he followed their path, unlike Krakauer, who details in his book his visit to the very place McCandless met his demise. As a character in the story, Krakauer shows readers what he himself observed in the bus. He remarks on the trinkets left behind by McCandless and reads the inscriptions scribbled on the interior walls. Where Capote tries to guide us invisibly with his authorial silence, Krakauer takes us with him in the story itself.
Into the Wild’s transparency and upfront nature gives us the truth in the purest form yet, with no compromise and no obstruction. The author’s note in the beginning and the acknowledgments at the end reveal a laundry list of names that have all contributed to the work. There is no attempt to hide or disguise his sources. It’s a welcome transparency that has come about from a need to combat the complex ethical issues that have plagued the genre.
On a more base level, how can a journalist claim to understand his subject? Staunch critics have leveled heavy criticism on the back of this very tenet, claiming that the reporter can never truly understand a subject and illuminate them in the same way that a character in a novel can be “known.” This issue gets even stickier since McCandless is dead. Krakauer offers to understand, but never claims to absolutism. He first starts out the book with McCandless’ death, with that sordid issue out of the way, Krakauer proceeds to build a character from his real life remnants. Yet, stories from the people who met him and journal entries can only go so far.
To get into McCandless’ head, Krakauer’s employs his most effective weapon: the analogy. Using the examples of people who have lost their lives in the wilderness before, a comparison is drawn between McCandless and the explorers before him. By showing the parallels, we can better understand the sheer negativity that surrounds the young man’s death, and we can understand why native Alaskans despised him and took issue with Krakauer’s mythical rendition of the boy. At the same time, the differences are drawn and we learn that McCandless didn’t die due to some folly such as arrogance against nature, but through the unlucky growth of molds that couldn’t have been anticipated.
His death was not driven by a suicide impulse as some may have suspected. Krakauer attempts to explicate the reasons for such a quest into the wild using his own excursion to Devil’s Thumb to call attention to a shared ideal. A dissatisfaction with society expressed through an embrace of natural landscapes and subsistence living. The author’s intrusion into the story isn’t an intrusion since the author’s word warns us of his entrance, but it serves a piece that parallels McCandless’ journey. The purpose of the selection may seem like a shameless piece of self-promotion, but it is riveting on its own, and more than that, it offers insight into the motivations behind McCandless. The circumstances between Krakauer’s own adventure and McCandless are similar enough that the only difference between the two of them is as Krakauer says, “The fact that I survived my Alaska adventure and McCandless did not survive his was largely a matter of chance.”
It’s a not a novelistic style of characterization but such a style would not work and would be ethically and needlessly complex. Krakauer uses his own experience, and the accounts of explorers before him to delve deep into the young man’s heart. McCandless still has a voice though. He speaks through the passages of the books he highlights, he speaks through the letters he wrote, and he speaks through the memories of the people he met. We can never meet Chris in real life, but through Krakauer’s hard work, we can still get to know him.
What is it to be “literary?” Is it a form or style? The “literary” can’t be defined by the form, but by the content. To be “literary” is an aspiration, a claim to the universal. It was long thought that for reporting to be literary, it must be done so under the guise of the novel. But literary and novelistic doesn’t always come hand in hand. While the allure of fiction comes precisely from the very structure an author can freely impose, the allure of fact comes from its basis in reality. Meaning can’t be freely imposed, it must be constructed according to the ability of the writer. From the early stages of literary journalism, writer’s have been attempting to dress truth in the gaudy clothing of novels to appeal to the people, but with the advent of Into the Wild, the truth needs no such clothes because after all this time, it was already beautiful.
In the birth of the novel was a desire to illuminate the universal truth inherent in all of humanity. Instead of looking to the fantastical, as was the custom, the novel looked at the mundane, the everyday for revelations of the human condition. The logical evolution in this pursuit for universality would inevitably take narrative from the realm of fantasy, through the everyday novel, to the factuality of real-life.
Reporting has always been cursed with the expectation of dry delivery, newspeak that stresses objectivity and informative fluency over the narrative and thematic possibilities of fact, but the pioneering works of Defoe and Crane challenged that notion. From the primordial soup of narrative was born a new creature, an amalgamation of truth and fantasy that began to blur the lines between factual reporting and literary writing. John Krakauer’s Into the Wild stands as the ultimate culmination of this creature, evolved from the single-celled works of Orwell and London, taking narrative from fiction into real life. Such a transition was not without its pratfalls and conundrums however. The allure of these stories was their purported basis in reality, but just how far can readers go in trusting what the author has made? How can we tell that the author has addressed the concerns of accuracy, veracity, and that every attempt was made to ensure the truth and integrity of the story?
The early works of Crane and Dafoe were experiments in fiction and reporting. They were an attempt to infuse reality with the meaning of the novel. The idea that reality could carry across themes and universal qualities that came about from carefully constructed narratives seemed quite ridiculous, but there was something quite compelling about real life. Although reality had a quality that defied meaning, as if it was simply a world where random circumstance and coincidence collided, nonetheless, these writers saw something in these collisions of chance. They wanted to turn reporting into something “literary.” They wanted to turn reality into something universally significant and relevant.
John Hersey’s Hiroshima was a compelling story, drawing on the real drama of disaster, on the harrowing experience that followed in the devastation but the necessity for factual reporting did much to mute the scenic quality of the book. Scenes had characters speak only in curt and short workman-like phrases, but despite these setbacks, the work used its claim to accuracy to immerse the reader. Capote tried to usher in a new genre of the non-fiction novel by taking everything that made the novel, and replace it with real-life content but fact and novelistic narrative did not comply, forcing Capote to fabricate the final words of Perry, and to fictionalize an ending to provide a coherence that he was unable to find in reality. Novels and reality, despite his best efforts, were unable to reconcile.
At the end of this long line of works stands Krakauer’s Into the Wild, the ultimate result of a century’s worth of natural selection. Redundant appendages have been cut off, faux organs removed, and extraneous senses consolidated, what remains is a very different beast than Hersey’s Hiroshima or Capote’s In Cold Blood. Krakauer never set out to shoehorn a real-life narrative into the structured coherence and elegance of a novel, instead, he set out to explore and understand a young man who lost his life in a seemingly needless endeavor into nature. This is not a non-fiction novel, but literary journalism. A narrative that relies on true events and the people involved. All the stories mentioned had an echo of the human condition, a universality to be revealed, but the access to this truth was compromised, either by stylistic limitation or by fabrication.
Into the Wild is part of a category of literary journalism that has always been intrinsically suspect: the reconstruction. It is not the first nor will it be the last in a category that presumes to recreate events and present it in a manner that does not merely recall the recorded facts, but fashion them into a narrative—a story. Krakauer draws from previous models of reconstruction, using the works that have come before, standing on their shoulders, to create a work that manages to deal with all the issues and problems with reconstruction. Into the Wild is a story about a young man’s final journey into the Alaskan wilderness and the circumstances that surround his mysterious death.
The issues that plague reconstruction are quite simple; it’s a matter of trust. For events as calamitous as a nuclear explosion or as isolated as a secluded murder, we can only trust the words of those who emerged from the chaos. Readers must trust that the author had done all he can to deduce the truth from the people who experienced the very event the writer wishes to recreate. Into the Wild is a unique case, however, because there are no survivors (quite the contrary) and there are no perpetrators to speak to. The very subject of the story has already passed away.
Chris McCandless may be dead in reality, but he is very much alive in Into the Wild. Krakauer is able to revive him from the imprints he left behind in the real world. The McCandless in the story was formed from the impressions, the chance encounters, and the fleeting relationships he held with people all over the country during the course of his journey. The journey was not a lonely one, but one periodically marked with human contact. This contact is crucial in reconstructing the path that McCandless undertook. Krakauer, from extensive interviewing, should’ve be able to construct a timeline derived from all his meetings, and by cross-referencing their stories on top of each other, a clearer picture of the journey should form.
It is here that Krakauer takes a cue from his predecessors. Hiroshima’s intersecting narrative between its six central characters was a kind of built-in check to ensure accuracy. The legitimacy of a story increases in proportion to the number of people who verify it. The cross-referencing of separate story lines that intersect at key moments was done to great effect by Hersey. This was also done in the recreation of the Clutter’s last day in Capote’s tale of cold-blooded murder. Using the eyewitness testimony of the people who were last with them, he reconstructed their last moments in startling detail. The story of one man alone does not mean that much, but the stories of many can give that one story authenticity and legitimacy. Following the journey of McCandless meant following in his wake of chance encounters, and seeing just how profound his influence and impact was on the people who remember him. The list of people he involved was comprehensive: Gallien, Westerberg, Burres, Carine, and among others.
Fortunately, reporting doesn’t always rely on something as dodgy as memories. Intersecting and corroborating stories are great but aren’t always foolproof. For everything else, there’s physical evidence—records: in the form of journals, photographs, videos, and audio recordings. All of these things provide invaluable fundamental building blocks from which the author can use to lay down a foundation of truth. Into the Wild makes constant reference McCandless’ journal. Statements prefaced with “From his journal we know…” let us know that these do not arise from idle speculation, but from what was written and recorded.
Driven by the works of Jack London and Henry David Thoreau, McCandless’ journey into the wilderness was more than just some wild adventure, but a spiritual quest. Krakauer was given access by the family to take a look at all of McCandless’ possessions. He was able to get his hands on McCandless’ journal, his collection of books, and important items like the guitar. By following McCandless’ trail, he came across the abandoned Datsun, the belt that was made with Ron Franz, the video that Franz made, and read over all the letters McCandless sent to people such as Westerberg and Burres. Hard physical evidence is the currency of accuracy in reporting journalism.
Capote also had a great deal of physical evidence at his disposal. The box of Perry’s relics stashed in some motel is a reporter’s treasure trove. Capote reportedly had a whole room full with piles of court documents, notes, and such records all related to the story. What separates Krakauer from Capote is that he doesn’t hide this room in the background, but constantly asks readers to revisit this room and make sure that there is no wool pulled over our eyes. We have direct access to words McCandless wrote as “Alexander.” It’s the case of transparency versus form. Capote does reference his sources in his writing, but his aspiration for a novelistic style tended to minimize the attribution to its most invisible point. Krakauer does the opposite, putting the spotlight on the reference, and never hesitates to bring readers into his evidence locker. Such transparency is not a weakness, but an acknowledgment of the difficulty of forcing non-fiction into a novelistic format.
Take Capote’s retracing of Dick and Perry’s journey across the country into Mexico and back. Capote traveled the same path to ensure that his recreation of their travels was as accurate as possible, alluding to landmark signs and details to round out the environment but he never says he followed their path, unlike Krakauer, who details in his book his visit to the very place McCandless met his demise. As a character in the story, Krakauer shows readers what he himself observed in the bus. He remarks on the trinkets left behind by McCandless and reads the inscriptions scribbled on the interior walls. Where Capote tries to guide us invisibly with his authorial silence, Krakauer takes us with him in the story itself.
Into the Wild’s transparency and upfront nature gives us the truth in the purest form yet, with no compromise and no obstruction. The author’s note in the beginning and the acknowledgments at the end reveal a laundry list of names that have all contributed to the work. There is no attempt to hide or disguise his sources. It’s a welcome transparency that has come about from a need to combat the complex ethical issues that have plagued the genre.
On a more base level, how can a journalist claim to understand his subject? Staunch critics have leveled heavy criticism on the back of this very tenet, claiming that the reporter can never truly understand a subject and illuminate them in the same way that a character in a novel can be “known.” This issue gets even stickier since McCandless is dead. Krakauer offers to understand, but never claims to absolutism. He first starts out the book with McCandless’ death, with that sordid issue out of the way, Krakauer proceeds to build a character from his real life remnants. Yet, stories from the people who met him and journal entries can only go so far.
To get into McCandless’ head, Krakauer’s employs his most effective weapon: the analogy. Using the examples of people who have lost their lives in the wilderness before, a comparison is drawn between McCandless and the explorers before him. By showing the parallels, we can better understand the sheer negativity that surrounds the young man’s death, and we can understand why native Alaskans despised him and took issue with Krakauer’s mythical rendition of the boy. At the same time, the differences are drawn and we learn that McCandless didn’t die due to some folly such as arrogance against nature, but through the unlucky growth of molds that couldn’t have been anticipated.
His death was not driven by a suicide impulse as some may have suspected. Krakauer attempts to explicate the reasons for such a quest into the wild using his own excursion to Devil’s Thumb to call attention to a shared ideal. A dissatisfaction with society expressed through an embrace of natural landscapes and subsistence living. The author’s intrusion into the story isn’t an intrusion since the author’s word warns us of his entrance, but it serves a piece that parallels McCandless’ journey. The purpose of the selection may seem like a shameless piece of self-promotion, but it is riveting on its own, and more than that, it offers insight into the motivations behind McCandless. The circumstances between Krakauer’s own adventure and McCandless are similar enough that the only difference between the two of them is as Krakauer says, “The fact that I survived my Alaska adventure and McCandless did not survive his was largely a matter of chance.”
It’s a not a novelistic style of characterization but such a style would not work and would be ethically and needlessly complex. Krakauer uses his own experience, and the accounts of explorers before him to delve deep into the young man’s heart. McCandless still has a voice though. He speaks through the passages of the books he highlights, he speaks through the letters he wrote, and he speaks through the memories of the people he met. We can never meet Chris in real life, but through Krakauer’s hard work, we can still get to know him.
What is it to be “literary?” Is it a form or style? The “literary” can’t be defined by the form, but by the content. To be “literary” is an aspiration, a claim to the universal. It was long thought that for reporting to be literary, it must be done so under the guise of the novel. But literary and novelistic doesn’t always come hand in hand. While the allure of fiction comes precisely from the very structure an author can freely impose, the allure of fact comes from its basis in reality. Meaning can’t be freely imposed, it must be constructed according to the ability of the writer. From the early stages of literary journalism, writer’s have been attempting to dress truth in the gaudy clothing of novels to appeal to the people, but with the advent of Into the Wild, the truth needs no such clothes because after all this time, it was already beautiful.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Dead Trail
This has been something that's been bothering me for awhile, and by awhile, I mean since middle school. That was about the time when this thing called "AIM" became fairly popular, and although it still retains some measure of relevance, it has taken a backseat to things like FaceBook chat and text messaging via cellphones (although there is some overlap).
My first brush with the wonders of the internet allowed me to communicate with my friends from school without using a phone, which was kind of a revolutionary idea at the time. I think it was mainly to coordinate games of StarCraft, but I've never really been a hardcore AIM user. Sure I've dabbled in some of the intricacies and shenanigans that instant messaging affords and learned some do's and don'ts.
You don't ask a girl out over AIM, for one, although I must preface this "fact" with a bit of a disclaimer since I wasn't really asking her out since it was more a hypothetical situation that I posited that she totally took out of context (okay, maybe I was champing at the bit), but that doesn't give her the right to reveal my instant failure all over school the next day...bitch. Of course I been messaged by complete strangers, marketers, spammers, and been pounded with suspicious links. I've also been able to turn the tables, and donned alternative screen names (I've had as many as 6 linked together) and play mind games with my friends by pretending to be secret admirers.
But that's all played out. I hardly IM nowadays since I've found better ways to waste time online. I've always been interested in the way text conversation can completely change our personality in some ways. I consider my online persona to be vastly superior to my real life personality if only because I can actually take the time to think out well-written witty responses. My dry delivery in real life just doesn't compare to the textual panache I can muster up and some jokes just play out better in text than in real life, as funny as that may sound. Besides, you'd be hard-pressed to see if I can demonstrate this kind of sweeping eloquence in reality. Sadly, my existence is probably best left to words online since I'm not particularly memorable in real-life.
Digression aside, the issue that has always plagued me since I've jumped into the instant messaging bandwagon is a phenomenon I call the "dead trail." It's a bit like following a trail of breadcrumbs only to find it disappearing out in the middle of nowhere. I, of course, refer to the non-responsiveness of some people who just leave you hanging, isolated, and all by yourself in the vast electronic wasteland of the IM world.
You would think people would have the courtesy to let you go with an obligatory "brb" or "g2g," or even some basic level of acknowledgment that lets you know, "I'm outta here!" If it were a phone conversation they wouldn't think twice to let you know when they're busy, instead of just letting the line go dead like a dick. I'm guilty of of it myself, but that's only because I'm usually not there to respond. When I am there, I let them know when I'm busy, like a good citizen, and inform them of my current status to avoid this messy issue of non-responsive dickery. But for all those people who have initiated conversation, or responded back to my prompts, who in general let me know that there was a body behind the screen name, and yet still ditched me in the end, well fuck you.
My first brush with the wonders of the internet allowed me to communicate with my friends from school without using a phone, which was kind of a revolutionary idea at the time. I think it was mainly to coordinate games of StarCraft, but I've never really been a hardcore AIM user. Sure I've dabbled in some of the intricacies and shenanigans that instant messaging affords and learned some do's and don'ts.
You don't ask a girl out over AIM, for one, although I must preface this "fact" with a bit of a disclaimer since I wasn't really asking her out since it was more a hypothetical situation that I posited that she totally took out of context (okay, maybe I was champing at the bit), but that doesn't give her the right to reveal my instant failure all over school the next day...bitch. Of course I been messaged by complete strangers, marketers, spammers, and been pounded with suspicious links. I've also been able to turn the tables, and donned alternative screen names (I've had as many as 6 linked together) and play mind games with my friends by pretending to be secret admirers.
But that's all played out. I hardly IM nowadays since I've found better ways to waste time online. I've always been interested in the way text conversation can completely change our personality in some ways. I consider my online persona to be vastly superior to my real life personality if only because I can actually take the time to think out well-written witty responses. My dry delivery in real life just doesn't compare to the textual panache I can muster up and some jokes just play out better in text than in real life, as funny as that may sound. Besides, you'd be hard-pressed to see if I can demonstrate this kind of sweeping eloquence in reality. Sadly, my existence is probably best left to words online since I'm not particularly memorable in real-life.
Digression aside, the issue that has always plagued me since I've jumped into the instant messaging bandwagon is a phenomenon I call the "dead trail." It's a bit like following a trail of breadcrumbs only to find it disappearing out in the middle of nowhere. I, of course, refer to the non-responsiveness of some people who just leave you hanging, isolated, and all by yourself in the vast electronic wasteland of the IM world.
You would think people would have the courtesy to let you go with an obligatory "brb" or "g2g," or even some basic level of acknowledgment that lets you know, "I'm outta here!" If it were a phone conversation they wouldn't think twice to let you know when they're busy, instead of just letting the line go dead like a dick. I'm guilty of of it myself, but that's only because I'm usually not there to respond. When I am there, I let them know when I'm busy, like a good citizen, and inform them of my current status to avoid this messy issue of non-responsive dickery. But for all those people who have initiated conversation, or responded back to my prompts, who in general let me know that there was a body behind the screen name, and yet still ditched me in the end, well fuck you.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The Greatest Story Never Written
I’m a hopeless romantic. I don't mean that in the strict original sense that echoes the works of such poets as Williams Wordsworth or John Keats; neither is it the case that I spend my rainy Saturday afternoons watching vapid rom-coms or melodramatic period pieces. I am romantic in the sense that I am an idealist. I believe that stories have the power to transform lives, and to elevate our hopeless species to a higher level. Yeah, you can throw stones at my school of humanities all you want but it doesn't change the fact that us snobs live in a heightened realm of enlightenment. All kidding aside, I'm only in this school because I love media in all its forms and more than that, I love fiction. My dream is to make stories so great, I'd be raking in the dough like J.K. Rowling—she no doubt be rolling in the moneyz.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s just me—and if it isn’t—then if everybody else just doesn’t say. Surely I’m not the only one who’s writing a story in his head, chock full of characters, settings, and situations that we hope to realize in one way or another, either just for the fun of it or—more practically, just because we hope to gain some measure of success for it. Perhaps this is really borne out of my lack of active socialization, since I don’t have to worry about “reality” or the people in it; I would rather concoct these little stories then worry about having fun. Not to misrepresent myself as some recluse living underneath a rock or anything, but there is a reason why people love to read books and watch movies after all—I just want to be a part of that.
But such dreams are the domain of the flighty underachievers who spend their lives daydreaming of a day that never comes if you don’t actually put it down. But I wonder how many people actually consider writing stories of their own, whether it be reflections of their own life, hopes for the future, or just plain fiction. The hardest part of writing any story is, of course, trying to transpose the awesome idea in your head to a piece of paper. When it comes out less than you expected, you can only throw your head back and wail because you're obviously not talented enough to spill out your creativity in a competent and organized manner.
But I only speak for myself. Is the realm of ideals unique only for me? Surely there are those of you out there, with ideas bouncing around in your head, who would like to shed yourself of the creative burden—only you can't, because you're not capable. Am I really the only guy that walks around the world actively writing stories in my brain? I can't be the only one. But even if that’s not the case, the difficulty of realizing ideas, not entirely restricted to the realm of fiction, should be an obstacle familiar to everybody. The endless struggle to realize the picture in our head onto the canvas of reality is what life is all about after all. One has to wonder what the world has missed out on, from all the untold stories of this world, true or made up, that never got a chance to be read, seen, or heard simply because we are unable to pull it from the recesses of our mental landscape. I once thought about a machine that, if hooked up to a person, would display exactly what they would be thinking, allowing that person to make his own movies without having to lift a single finger. Sadly, such machines don’t exist, and we have to make it up the hard way, with actual down and out hard work, and in my case, writing.
If I go to my grave without writing a single work, I could probably find peace with the fact that I may very well be among the millions of authors—past, present, and future—of the greatest story—never told. And you know what? That’s just fine with me.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s just me—and if it isn’t—then if everybody else just doesn’t say. Surely I’m not the only one who’s writing a story in his head, chock full of characters, settings, and situations that we hope to realize in one way or another, either just for the fun of it or—more practically, just because we hope to gain some measure of success for it. Perhaps this is really borne out of my lack of active socialization, since I don’t have to worry about “reality” or the people in it; I would rather concoct these little stories then worry about having fun. Not to misrepresent myself as some recluse living underneath a rock or anything, but there is a reason why people love to read books and watch movies after all—I just want to be a part of that.
But such dreams are the domain of the flighty underachievers who spend their lives daydreaming of a day that never comes if you don’t actually put it down. But I wonder how many people actually consider writing stories of their own, whether it be reflections of their own life, hopes for the future, or just plain fiction. The hardest part of writing any story is, of course, trying to transpose the awesome idea in your head to a piece of paper. When it comes out less than you expected, you can only throw your head back and wail because you're obviously not talented enough to spill out your creativity in a competent and organized manner.
But I only speak for myself. Is the realm of ideals unique only for me? Surely there are those of you out there, with ideas bouncing around in your head, who would like to shed yourself of the creative burden—only you can't, because you're not capable. Am I really the only guy that walks around the world actively writing stories in my brain? I can't be the only one. But even if that’s not the case, the difficulty of realizing ideas, not entirely restricted to the realm of fiction, should be an obstacle familiar to everybody. The endless struggle to realize the picture in our head onto the canvas of reality is what life is all about after all. One has to wonder what the world has missed out on, from all the untold stories of this world, true or made up, that never got a chance to be read, seen, or heard simply because we are unable to pull it from the recesses of our mental landscape. I once thought about a machine that, if hooked up to a person, would display exactly what they would be thinking, allowing that person to make his own movies without having to lift a single finger. Sadly, such machines don’t exist, and we have to make it up the hard way, with actual down and out hard work, and in my case, writing.
If I go to my grave without writing a single work, I could probably find peace with the fact that I may very well be among the millions of authors—past, present, and future—of the greatest story—never told. And you know what? That’s just fine with me.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Out Here In the (Battle) Field
Players once again return to the battlefield with the latest iteration of the Battlefield series: Bad Company 2. Sequel to the original Bad Company, the game follows the misadventures of B-Company, a squad of four simple, snarky, and sarcastic soldiers. From the gruff Murtaugh-esque Sarge, the over-excitable Sweetwater, the backwater Haggard, and the resigned Marlowe, they’re a band of misfits that lend the game some actual personality, a light tone that separates it from the ultra-serious feel of other military shooters.
The single-player campaign carries you on a 6-7 hour ride spread across the world, from Operation Aurora on the islands of Japan, the snow plains of Alaska, to the entirety of South America, exploring the rained out jungles of Bolivia and the mountainous red hills of Chile. The game flaunts some impressive set pieces with lush jungles rich in vegetation, sand-blasted deserts with smoke billowing in the air, and wind-whipped frozen tundra. Despite the dazzling scenery, the missions are mostly linear, filing you down predetermined paths where invisible triggers initiate enemy encounters. The enemy AI is not too sophisticated, and despite the presence of three other squad mates, you will often find yourself a bullet magnet for the AI. Because enemies don't spawn until you cross a line that tells them to, a lot of potential is lost. The vaunted "Destruction 2.0" system lets player level buildings tactically, create new paths and expose enemies from cover, but the archaic monster-closet design of the fights limit the playability and sandbox potential of such encounters.
Nonetheless, the game flashes some moments of brilliance, from thunder sniping, to shelter hopping during a blinding blizzard, the game throws some cool ideas that are often underutilized to its entirety. There are on-rails sequences and vehicle sections infused with the kind of breath-taking high-octane action that Michael Bay would approve of. Choppers fly over head, missiles zing past by, explosions kick dust and dirt into your face, trucks and ATV's chase after you with tenacity, all while you fire back on the back of truck, or in the backseat of a Black Hawk with a mounted mini-gun in your hands.
But the single-player is a mere appetizer for the main course: the multiplayer. The bread and butter of the Battlefield series has always been dynamic virtual battlefields filled with epic unscripted moments. The game offers several modes: Rush, an objective-based mode where Attackers destroy crates that Defenders must protect; Conquest, where teams must vie for control of flag points, and Squad Rush, where four squads of four fight each other for supremacy. To complement these modes, the designers have implemented a class system where each class provides a distinct role for the team. Assault class players, along with their high-caliber assault rifles, can dispense ammo crates to resupply other players. Engineers are tasked with keeping friendly vehicles in working condition and enemy vehicles as smoking wreckage via rocket launchers or AT mines. Medics get to wield non-stop fire light machine guns, throw medic packs for healing, and use shock paddles to revive fallen teammates, or zap enemies into death. Recon can snipe from afar, throw motion sensors to reveal enemy positions, or bring on heavy artillery rain into objective areas.
The right balance of all the classes can mean a difference between a win and a loss. There is no "I" in "Battlefield," and teamwork is the word of the day. All the classes serve a function that helps the overall team but the game also introduces a spotting mechanic where you can visually mark an enemy soldier for everybody on your team to see. This allows players to communicate enemy positions even without voice communication, and stresses team work and coordination. In order to win, it's not all about padding your kill/death ratio, but about helping out the team by supplying them with ammo, reviving fallen soldiers, repairing vehicles, and spotting enemies.
For every problem, there is a solution. The developers have struck a delicate balance, ensuring that no class is too strong. The emphasis on vehicle-based combat in addition to infantry battles adds diversity to the fire fights and increases the sense of scale. While buzzing Black Hawks and rolling tanks may seem super-powered at first, artillery strikes, C4's, and rocket launchers can make short work of them. Faraway snipers are susceptible to back stabs, assault class players have no hope against the perpetual fire of a medic class, the engineer's rapid-fire SMG's ensures swift justice against any medic up close, while engineers have no tools against long range recons.
To get the most out of the game, it’s best to play with people you know. Voice communication is limited to squads of four. While this may be a limitation, this allows squads to act independent of each other. To bolster squad-based play, squad bonuses add extra points, which level up ranks faster. Each member in a squad is a potential spawn point for dead members. Sometimes, one squad is all it takes to completely turn the tide of the battle.
The ranking system allows players to unlock specializations and weapons for each class. The game offers a lot of leeway and room for experimentation when it comes to customizing weapon layouts. The specs include a bevy of red dots, 4x scopes, light-weight attachments, extra ammo packs, higher damage magnum rounds, body armor, or more accurate bullets. The downside, as with any unlock system, is that it gives higher-ranked players more toys to play with, which can be devastating to lower-ranked newcomers. Luckily, most of the weapon unlocks merely offer alternative stats, and aren't always universally superior in every way.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2's multiplayer is a thing of beauty. The list of epic moments is never short, and will only get longer the more you play. It is one of those rare multiplayer experiences that manage to make you feel like you're in the middle of a war. You'd be running around as bullets whiz past by, artillery shells explode all around you, buildings collapse in great heaps of debris and smoke, soldiers are dying left and right, and then getting revived back up again, grenades stream across the sky, and you can’t help but think to yourself, "This is awesome."
Nonetheless, the game flashes some moments of brilliance, from thunder sniping, to shelter hopping during a blinding blizzard, the game throws some cool ideas that are often underutilized to its entirety. There are on-rails sequences and vehicle sections infused with the kind of breath-taking high-octane action that Michael Bay would approve of. Choppers fly over head, missiles zing past by, explosions kick dust and dirt into your face, trucks and ATV's chase after you with tenacity, all while you fire back on the back of truck, or in the backseat of a Black Hawk with a mounted mini-gun in your hands.
But the single-player is a mere appetizer for the main course: the multiplayer. The bread and butter of the Battlefield series has always been dynamic virtual battlefields filled with epic unscripted moments. The game offers several modes: Rush, an objective-based mode where Attackers destroy crates that Defenders must protect; Conquest, where teams must vie for control of flag points, and Squad Rush, where four squads of four fight each other for supremacy. To complement these modes, the designers have implemented a class system where each class provides a distinct role for the team. Assault class players, along with their high-caliber assault rifles, can dispense ammo crates to resupply other players. Engineers are tasked with keeping friendly vehicles in working condition and enemy vehicles as smoking wreckage via rocket launchers or AT mines. Medics get to wield non-stop fire light machine guns, throw medic packs for healing, and use shock paddles to revive fallen teammates, or zap enemies into death. Recon can snipe from afar, throw motion sensors to reveal enemy positions, or bring on heavy artillery rain into objective areas.
The right balance of all the classes can mean a difference between a win and a loss. There is no "I" in "Battlefield," and teamwork is the word of the day. All the classes serve a function that helps the overall team but the game also introduces a spotting mechanic where you can visually mark an enemy soldier for everybody on your team to see. This allows players to communicate enemy positions even without voice communication, and stresses team work and coordination. In order to win, it's not all about padding your kill/death ratio, but about helping out the team by supplying them with ammo, reviving fallen soldiers, repairing vehicles, and spotting enemies.
For every problem, there is a solution. The developers have struck a delicate balance, ensuring that no class is too strong. The emphasis on vehicle-based combat in addition to infantry battles adds diversity to the fire fights and increases the sense of scale. While buzzing Black Hawks and rolling tanks may seem super-powered at first, artillery strikes, C4's, and rocket launchers can make short work of them. Faraway snipers are susceptible to back stabs, assault class players have no hope against the perpetual fire of a medic class, the engineer's rapid-fire SMG's ensures swift justice against any medic up close, while engineers have no tools against long range recons.
To get the most out of the game, it’s best to play with people you know. Voice communication is limited to squads of four. While this may be a limitation, this allows squads to act independent of each other. To bolster squad-based play, squad bonuses add extra points, which level up ranks faster. Each member in a squad is a potential spawn point for dead members. Sometimes, one squad is all it takes to completely turn the tide of the battle.
The ranking system allows players to unlock specializations and weapons for each class. The game offers a lot of leeway and room for experimentation when it comes to customizing weapon layouts. The specs include a bevy of red dots, 4x scopes, light-weight attachments, extra ammo packs, higher damage magnum rounds, body armor, or more accurate bullets. The downside, as with any unlock system, is that it gives higher-ranked players more toys to play with, which can be devastating to lower-ranked newcomers. Luckily, most of the weapon unlocks merely offer alternative stats, and aren't always universally superior in every way.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2's multiplayer is a thing of beauty. The list of epic moments is never short, and will only get longer the more you play. It is one of those rare multiplayer experiences that manage to make you feel like you're in the middle of a war. You'd be running around as bullets whiz past by, artillery shells explode all around you, buildings collapse in great heaps of debris and smoke, soldiers are dying left and right, and then getting revived back up again, grenades stream across the sky, and you can’t help but think to yourself, "This is awesome."
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Finding Fantasy
With the imminent release of Final Fantasy XIII, I'd like to take this moment and reflect on the series. "Final Fantasy" is one of those names that people instantly associate with video games, sharing company with name brands like "Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Super Mario Bros" as poster boy game franchises. It certainly has a storied reputation among gamers, and the exorbitant sequel number only underscores the derivative nature of the gaming industry--despite the fact that none of the mainline Final Fantasy's are direct sequels to each other (spin-offs, side-stories, and remakes aside). There's no doubt that it has be an exceptional series, both critically and commercially. The wait for the latest installment has been excruciatingly and inexcusably long, but at long last, it will finally come.
There are things to expect when you hear the words, "Final" and "Fantasy" put together. Yellow oversized birds called Chocobos, a guy named Cid, and breath-taking cut scenes laden with CGi wizardry and big budgets. Honestly, that's all I really expect. Final Fantasy was never one of those game series that I thought of as the penultimate expression of the JRPG genre. They're fine games in their own right, but I never saw them as "Game of the Year" material. They're not mediocre by any stretch--they're mostly stellar, just not masterpieces of the highest order. I regard the series with a fine level of respect, akin to the respect reserved for accomplished commercial writers like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling. Not many can argue that their literary merit rivals Twain or Tolstoy, but we can all agree that they have authored some very successful and entertaining stories. While Final Fantasy never really achieves transcendent sublimity, it always guarantees a hell of a good ride.
There have been some murmurs of discontent regarding the latest sequel because of it linearity. Classic overworlds and townships have been completely replaced by a straightforward narrative that proceeds down story-driven segments and dungeons. Some gamers view this as an evolutionary step backwards for the JRPG genre, and its particularly worrying since this move comes from Square-Enix, the good 'ol reliable JRPG standby capable of delivering triple-A experiences time in and time out (although that sentiment has mostly eroded into nostalgic-driven cynicism). It's as if all FFXIII will have is cutscenes and combat, without any of the exploration elements that was always present in the series.
People say linear like its a bad thing. Compared to the shockingly nonlinear creations of the WRPG genre, games like "Fallout 3" and "Oblivion," I'd gladly say: fuck open-world RPGs. Those games are examples of some of the most mind-numbing mundane experiences I've ever had the displeasure of, well, experiencing. There's such a thing as too much freedom, as the very prospect of "go anywhere, do anything" paralyzes my gaming soul. Especially in today's world, with college life limiting the amount of time I can use for gaming, I'd rather be filed down a finely crafted ride rather than wander aimlessly like a chicken without a head, trying to derive my own fun in an empty wasteland devoid of the intricate modeling and design sensibility that linear game design can afford. One thing that linear games provide extremely well is a sense of progression, a sense that you have accomplished goals and continue to move on to higher and higher levels of skill. Open world games have a tendency to generalize gameplay mechanics all over the map, becoming a Jack of all trades, and Master of none.
When FFXIII comes out this Tuesday, I will not be so concerned with the evolution of next-gen JRPGs. I'm not even looking for a story that will blow my socks off. Even for a genre so driven by narrative, I'm not expecting big things from the story, although I'm sure it will be very entertaining. A soap operatic-novella-esque melodramatic tale with swords, magic, explosions, gunfire, and fantasy--for a Final Fantasy, that's all I need.
There are things to expect when you hear the words, "Final" and "Fantasy" put together. Yellow oversized birds called Chocobos, a guy named Cid, and breath-taking cut scenes laden with CGi wizardry and big budgets. Honestly, that's all I really expect. Final Fantasy was never one of those game series that I thought of as the penultimate expression of the JRPG genre. They're fine games in their own right, but I never saw them as "Game of the Year" material. They're not mediocre by any stretch--they're mostly stellar, just not masterpieces of the highest order. I regard the series with a fine level of respect, akin to the respect reserved for accomplished commercial writers like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling. Not many can argue that their literary merit rivals Twain or Tolstoy, but we can all agree that they have authored some very successful and entertaining stories. While Final Fantasy never really achieves transcendent sublimity, it always guarantees a hell of a good ride.
There have been some murmurs of discontent regarding the latest sequel because of it linearity. Classic overworlds and townships have been completely replaced by a straightforward narrative that proceeds down story-driven segments and dungeons. Some gamers view this as an evolutionary step backwards for the JRPG genre, and its particularly worrying since this move comes from Square-Enix, the good 'ol reliable JRPG standby capable of delivering triple-A experiences time in and time out (although that sentiment has mostly eroded into nostalgic-driven cynicism). It's as if all FFXIII will have is cutscenes and combat, without any of the exploration elements that was always present in the series.
People say linear like its a bad thing. Compared to the shockingly nonlinear creations of the WRPG genre, games like "Fallout 3" and "Oblivion," I'd gladly say: fuck open-world RPGs. Those games are examples of some of the most mind-numbing mundane experiences I've ever had the displeasure of, well, experiencing. There's such a thing as too much freedom, as the very prospect of "go anywhere, do anything" paralyzes my gaming soul. Especially in today's world, with college life limiting the amount of time I can use for gaming, I'd rather be filed down a finely crafted ride rather than wander aimlessly like a chicken without a head, trying to derive my own fun in an empty wasteland devoid of the intricate modeling and design sensibility that linear game design can afford. One thing that linear games provide extremely well is a sense of progression, a sense that you have accomplished goals and continue to move on to higher and higher levels of skill. Open world games have a tendency to generalize gameplay mechanics all over the map, becoming a Jack of all trades, and Master of none.
When FFXIII comes out this Tuesday, I will not be so concerned with the evolution of next-gen JRPGs. I'm not even looking for a story that will blow my socks off. Even for a genre so driven by narrative, I'm not expecting big things from the story, although I'm sure it will be very entertaining. A soap operatic-novella-esque melodramatic tale with swords, magic, explosions, gunfire, and fantasy--for a Final Fantasy, that's all I need.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Man Oh Man
I was just walking around campus the other day (other day as defined as an undefined point in time) when I noticed the word "Vagina" plastered all over the walls. The posters were pervasive, like the recurring nightmare touches of H.P. Lovecraft's works, the translucent slime of mysterious origin or the strange artifacts of alien civilization scattered over the ruins of UCI. Never mind the "Monologue" in smaller print beside it, Vagina was spelled out with such force and conviction, it was infused with the kind of Rosie O'Donnell approved sensibility of "I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR." What it lacked in subtlety, it made up for in audacity. As a member of the male species, such strong words posed a threat to my position, and I quickly set about thinking of ways to combat such an exertion of feminine will.
But then I realized the joke of a "Penis Monologue" had probably already been made a thousand times over--I would not be adding anything new to the discussion. Not to mention, it would be redundant, an exercise tantamount to explaining why fire is hot, or why water is wet. Men need no advocacy, our station as the better sex has already been proven throughout history. Centuries of superior economic, intellectual, and artistic dominance had ensured that any attempt on my part would be overkill, so I relented on my plans of the complete and total evisceration of the Vagina...Monologues.
As the apprehension presented by the word Vagina disappeared, my mind wandered on to the question of why, why it was that men were superior. I suppose it needed no elucidation, a self-explanatory principle that should be accepted as is. Sure you can go into the molecular structure and behavior of atoms and electrons responsible for the heat of fire, or the wet of water, but it doesn't change that, for all practical intents and purposes, you don't stick your hand into a fucking fire unless you want to get burned. Likewise, don't question man's superiority unless you wanna get pimp-smacked.
In either case, I'm going to detail my understanding of the gender dynamic through the device of metaphor, in particular, the metaphor of fishing. Like Plato's allegory of the cave, I hope that you, the reader, will find this enlightening.
Now suppose that you're traveling to your dream destination, a foreign country that you've always wanted to visit, but your plane is inexplicably (or simply for the purpose of this metaphor) stricken and crash lands on a remote island out in the middle of nowhere. You are the only one alive (it was a private jet, and the pilot died on impact) and being a devout watcher of Man vs. Wild, you quickly take stock of your surroundings and potential resources. The island is home to no animals, save for birds, but the local flora and fauna look promising as reserves of edible fruits and vegetables. Luckily, you located a fresh water spring and a cliff outcropping that can serve as suitable shelter. So, for the first few days, you "discover" fire, learn not to use that particular brand of itchy leaf as toilet paper again, and try and remember which color berries to eat, unless you like experiencing bouts of terrible diarrhea.
After a while, you get sick and tired of subsisting on leaves and berries and try to gun for something a bit...meatier. Scanning the coast, you discover that rich coral reefs surround the island and that fish are plentiful. Now is the point in which the man proves his mettle or the woman her worth. Male or female, the only difference here is in the methodology. It's easy enough to get results, but it's how you get it, that defines the gender.
Now if you're a man's man, manly enough to chew on metal and slap a bull on the ass, then you would hunt fish with the elegant simplicity that is known as the spear. A straightforward, if blunt in operation, yet sharp in actuality, deadly instrument designed to pierce and penetrate the scales of any fish. It is a weapon fit only in the hands of a true man, necessitating the right level of accuracy, aggression, strength, and grace. The wide range of maneuvers possible with the spear, from the thrusts and jabs to the gentle pokes and prods gives it a flexibility that is reserved for only the most sure-fire of fishers.
But if you were a woman, then you would probably elect to use a net. Doubtless, creating a net would require more patience, intelligence, and creativity than is necessary for a spear, and it would be more efficient in terms of overall yield, but the lack of immediacy, the lack of active involvement makes it feel a little...cheap. All you have to do is cast a net and just wait for the fish to idly come on in. No real effort is required; it's a peculiarly passive method of fishing. Even then, a net is still just a net--it's filled with gaps and holes. Fish slip in and out with reckless abandon; it's no surprise if everything you catch inevitably escapes.
But a spear never lets a fish go, it's one shot, instant-kill, and that's why the ability to skewer multiple fish is lauded and admired, because it takes serious skills, concentration, and finesse. To catch many fish with a net is to be expected; to make a fish kabob with a spear is grounds for mad respeck.
I need no longer elaborate on my metaphor as I'm sure it has dawned on you precisely why men are superior. In view of that, something like the Vagina Monologues isn't just provocative, but necessary. After centuries of skewed gender preferences, it's no small wonder that women are finally voicing protests against a society that seems to favor the spear. So I'll let them have their laugh, let them have their traumas, their triumphs, I'll let them have all the time and attention in the world because in the end, their cries will only reaffirm the inconsolable truth that the spear will always be, from the past, present, and into the future, mightier than the net.
But then I realized the joke of a "Penis Monologue" had probably already been made a thousand times over--I would not be adding anything new to the discussion. Not to mention, it would be redundant, an exercise tantamount to explaining why fire is hot, or why water is wet. Men need no advocacy, our station as the better sex has already been proven throughout history. Centuries of superior economic, intellectual, and artistic dominance had ensured that any attempt on my part would be overkill, so I relented on my plans of the complete and total evisceration of the Vagina...Monologues.
As the apprehension presented by the word Vagina disappeared, my mind wandered on to the question of why, why it was that men were superior. I suppose it needed no elucidation, a self-explanatory principle that should be accepted as is. Sure you can go into the molecular structure and behavior of atoms and electrons responsible for the heat of fire, or the wet of water, but it doesn't change that, for all practical intents and purposes, you don't stick your hand into a fucking fire unless you want to get burned. Likewise, don't question man's superiority unless you wanna get pimp-smacked.
In either case, I'm going to detail my understanding of the gender dynamic through the device of metaphor, in particular, the metaphor of fishing. Like Plato's allegory of the cave, I hope that you, the reader, will find this enlightening.
Now suppose that you're traveling to your dream destination, a foreign country that you've always wanted to visit, but your plane is inexplicably (or simply for the purpose of this metaphor) stricken and crash lands on a remote island out in the middle of nowhere. You are the only one alive (it was a private jet, and the pilot died on impact) and being a devout watcher of Man vs. Wild, you quickly take stock of your surroundings and potential resources. The island is home to no animals, save for birds, but the local flora and fauna look promising as reserves of edible fruits and vegetables. Luckily, you located a fresh water spring and a cliff outcropping that can serve as suitable shelter. So, for the first few days, you "discover" fire, learn not to use that particular brand of itchy leaf as toilet paper again, and try and remember which color berries to eat, unless you like experiencing bouts of terrible diarrhea.
After a while, you get sick and tired of subsisting on leaves and berries and try to gun for something a bit...meatier. Scanning the coast, you discover that rich coral reefs surround the island and that fish are plentiful. Now is the point in which the man proves his mettle or the woman her worth. Male or female, the only difference here is in the methodology. It's easy enough to get results, but it's how you get it, that defines the gender.
Now if you're a man's man, manly enough to chew on metal and slap a bull on the ass, then you would hunt fish with the elegant simplicity that is known as the spear. A straightforward, if blunt in operation, yet sharp in actuality, deadly instrument designed to pierce and penetrate the scales of any fish. It is a weapon fit only in the hands of a true man, necessitating the right level of accuracy, aggression, strength, and grace. The wide range of maneuvers possible with the spear, from the thrusts and jabs to the gentle pokes and prods gives it a flexibility that is reserved for only the most sure-fire of fishers.
But if you were a woman, then you would probably elect to use a net. Doubtless, creating a net would require more patience, intelligence, and creativity than is necessary for a spear, and it would be more efficient in terms of overall yield, but the lack of immediacy, the lack of active involvement makes it feel a little...cheap. All you have to do is cast a net and just wait for the fish to idly come on in. No real effort is required; it's a peculiarly passive method of fishing. Even then, a net is still just a net--it's filled with gaps and holes. Fish slip in and out with reckless abandon; it's no surprise if everything you catch inevitably escapes.
But a spear never lets a fish go, it's one shot, instant-kill, and that's why the ability to skewer multiple fish is lauded and admired, because it takes serious skills, concentration, and finesse. To catch many fish with a net is to be expected; to make a fish kabob with a spear is grounds for mad respeck.
I need no longer elaborate on my metaphor as I'm sure it has dawned on you precisely why men are superior. In view of that, something like the Vagina Monologues isn't just provocative, but necessary. After centuries of skewed gender preferences, it's no small wonder that women are finally voicing protests against a society that seems to favor the spear. So I'll let them have their laugh, let them have their traumas, their triumphs, I'll let them have all the time and attention in the world because in the end, their cries will only reaffirm the inconsolable truth that the spear will always be, from the past, present, and into the future, mightier than the net.
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