Geek Culture

People seem to crave identity: in lieu of creating their own they often adopt a pre-defined set of mannerisms, beliefs, clothes, attitudes and habits.

I present an excerpt from my upcoming work: A Field Guide to the Tribes of the Left Hemisphere:

You're shitting me, right?

[images from here, here, here, here, and here]

We're all doomed...

Well so much for that. I had personally been willing to consider that the programme was more than pseudo-scientific bull-hockey because I'm a sucker for the underdog and relish dissenting opinions.

Woody Guthrie's Birthday

Observation

To win an argument, it is not enough to have the correct answer to a question, one must also be the one who successfully frames the question.

That's right: you are right to worry

For example: in the UK at the moment concerning the issue of immigration the question is "how do we reduce it?"

But with an aging population and an increasing need of skilled labour it is obvious that the question we should be asking is "how do we enhance the benefits of immigration?" Or better yet "how do we increase immigration?"

Damn straight

Those who are against immigration for short-sighted and selfish reasons have successfully framed the question, so that they will always win. If people think that immigration is a bad thing then anyone who proposes measures to reduce it will be seen to be solving the problem.

However the question "how do we reduce immigration?" begs the question "do we want to reduce immigration?" This is a question that is never discussed.

[images from Daily Hate and alex-s on flickr]

Review: The Taming of the Shrew

Playing at the RSC, The Taming of the Shrew. It was pretty good. The opening "play within a play" conceit included a pole-dancing segment and drunken hooligans, highlighting the inherent misogyny and sexism of modern life.

It's difficult to nail The Shrew. On the one hand it's clearly dated and was probably completely sincere, without any trace of irony. However it is useful in that it demonstrates how far women have come and causes us to reflect on where they are to go.

The performances were all brilliant. Stephen Boxer went from playing Sly to Petruchio brilliantly. Michelle Gomez played a brilliantly eccentric Kate.

All good stuff.

Not much of a review: but it's Shakespeare! And it was well performed etc.

Review: Hancock

Here Be Spoilers:

An interesting film. What started off as a light hearted comedy segued into an Epic superhero story without any kind of explanation. The direction reminded me a little of Arrested Development, lots of fly-on-the-wall shots and shaky camera work.

There was material here for two or three movies:

1. A comedy about an alcoholic superhero that meets a PR man, attempts to steal the PR man's hot wife, and comes up against some kind of whacky supervillain. Meanwhile the penultimate scene has the PR man having to choose between helping the superhero who attempted to take his wife and helping the villain who gives the PR man everything he ever dreamed of.
2. An Epic, centuries-spanning quasi-classical tale of Gods and hubris, with no irony or reflection. Probably a fairly crap film.
   
3. The same film as the previous one but with irony. With a dash of humour and a self-awareness of absurdity.

A decent but schizophrenic movie, I felt. It lacked a really bad supervillain as foil to Hancock - Charlize Theron doesn't count as she was kinda on the same side.

The ending was weak. It started well, and if I had only seen the trailer I would have been quite happy with the movie.

[image from mlive.com]

And Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen...

What a load of nonsense.

This is the best summary of what might have happened that I can find.