setlist here.
this is the only full show i've gotten to in the last couple of weeks, though i've gotten partially through a pair of fantastic phish shows (2000 and 2002, surprisingly) that i'll review as soon as i find the third disc of each and listen to it.
this show is one of the treasured june '94 phish run, arguably one of the finest months of live music ever done by anyone ever in the universe of history for all time. infinitely.
while i didn't like this show as much as i did the 06.18.94 show, it could still be one of the not-best-ever-but-still-best parts of the best-ever month of 6/94. make sense? let's move on.
this setlist was definitely more interesting. it starts off with some pretty standard rockers ("wilson", "chalkdust torture", and an amazing version of "you enjoy myself"). YEM segues into "rift", and then things really start to pick up. as usual, "rift" live is a little spotty, but "down with disease" and "it's ice" are standouts of the first set. "tela" is an interesting addition; a song i hadn't heard in awhile and that put a smile on my face. but, you know, it's not really known for its jam pyrotechnics. "stash" was a solid, if standard-to-great rocking jam to end the set on.
the "2001" > "antelope" opener was a great way to start the second set. "flufflhead" is one of my favorites, and this was a pretty standard version. the rest of the second set and the "suzy" encore is when things really started to take off and never really let up.
the selection of songs is the attraction here. there's a great variety of songs in the setlist, but not really any terribly exploratory or strange jams to enjoy...most of the show is flat-out rock-jamming, so if that's your thing you'll love this show. it goes without saying that this sort-of-criticism should be considered along with the fact that this is a june '94 show, which means that even if most of the show is straight-up rock, every single note is perfect, all the harmonies are spot-on, and every solo is perfect. so, while i found the 6/18 show more interesting, this one is still better than 90 percent of any other live music (and any other phish) that you'll ever hear.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
late saturday night polemic: singlism is stupid and should die in a fire
so, as i've been made increasingly aware by the internet, there's this thing called "singlism". as many of its proponents point out, it's a stupid word. as i am now going to point out in the most polemical fashion possible, it's also a stupid concept.
it is perhaps telling that in the most coherent and professionally-published piece on singlism i could find (through an admittedly quick google search), there is no concrete example, ever, of how people have been, or will in the future be discriminated against by the fact of their being single. there's a lot of mumbo-jumbo about how people who are single are frowned upon in the workplace and in life because being single isn't "normal" or whatever, but beyond that i see no reason in any of the reason i've done thus far for organized, militant action on behalf of singles whose lives are judged so pointless in our relationship-obsessed culture that that culture goes out of its way to enact its bias against singles in real-world ways like paying them less (as women are paid less, on average than men) or giving their children lower-quality education (as is generally the case for minority children when compared to whites).
and there's where my first problem arises. it's a purely rhetorical one, to be sure, but i'm still angry and want to rip the heads off of teddy bears: the idea that somehow singlism is on par in severity or in the necessity for social awareness with racism, sexism, or classism is just absolutely ridiculous and is a testament to how transparent those first three things are to most white, upper-middle class americans (generally the people agitating against singlism). is there a set of culturally-reinforced assumptions made on behalf of single people by not-single people? yes, of course. is the practice of group A making up a set of then-culturally-reinforced assumptions about group B based on perceived difference as a way of group A self-reinforcing their already-assumed superiority a practice that's been going on for at least thousands of years, partially as a method of defining community? yes, of course. people in relationships are going to insist that being in a relationship is the norm, the same way that men who get to have better jobs over women are going to insist that it's just normal because to argue otherwise might be to put their own jobs in jeopardy.
i'm not completely insensitive to the singlist plea. i've got a good amount of experience being single myself. now you're thinking: "wow, the dude who insists on hard evidence from the internet is going to prove his point using personal anecdotes?" yes. shut up.
there was a period not long ago at all where i was single for about three years. going into said period, i was pretty aware that it was likely to be a long single period (i.e. i wasn't really interested in dating, didn't think i would be for awhile, and didn't know of anyone that was beating my door down to get a ride in my motor-carriage). as such, i tried to approach it constructively. unlike, say, the last time i was single for an extended period of time, coming out of a long high school relationship that i, in my AWESOME high school naivety (is that a word?) thought was going to last forever. the result was a decent near-year's worth of sullen depression until (of course, you guessed it) i met someone else and got to scurry back to the haven to dated-dom rather than deal with my issues.
anyway, the time was i was most recently single was rough, in a lot of ways. especially the second year or so, which coincided with the time in which most of my friends moved from pullman and i, too socially awkward to really make any new friends, basically spent an entire year or so in my apartment watching movies and playing madden 2003. eventually, though, i decided that four virtual super bowl rings were enough to secure my online legacy and i ventured back out into the world.
i guess my point is that i learned a lot through those years, both about making friends and about dating relationships. i learned a lot about how i had viewed friendships and relationships before and how detrimental my own selfish need for that kind of contact made it so difficult for me to initiate in the first place. interesting thought: if you don't desperately, creepily, intensely need every interaction you engage in to sustain your mental and spiritual health, those interactions get a lot easier, and more fun, and ultimately more fulfilling.
and i wouldn't have learned all that downward-facing-dog-bullshit had i remained in relationships. i had to hit what my old self regarded as the bottom to realize that that bottom was really just a different type of life. aside from the snarky label (which i'll get to in a minute), you could consider me a converted singlist. by the end of my three-year exile into singleland, i was absolutely happy and content to be alone romantically. which was about the time that i met someone and started a relationship that was functional and made me happier than i thought you were supposed to be in relationships (i don't think this was a coincidence). it's cliche (or, as spellcheck suggests, "cloche") to say that you have set the bird free and see if it comes back on it's own, but that's exactly what happened. the minute i stopped needing my life to be a certain way, the minute it became clear it was fine just the way it was.
so how does this tie back to singlism? IT DOESNT
no, i'm just kidding. it does.
"singlism" simultaneously expresses discontent and reinforces the idea that being in a relationship is a status symbol, neither of which actually helps anyone be any happier with their lot in life.
the first of my two complaints is pretty easy to grasp. if you feel the need to express loudly and clearly how perfectly okay you are with being single, to the point of discriminating and/or trash talking people who are in relationships...clearly you're not actually okay with being single. and this goes both ways, lest you think i'm choosing sides: if you really need to brag about how happy you and your SO are to everyone within hearing range, obviously things aren't going that well on some level.
the other complaint is a little more esoteric, but probably more important. i guess the best way to say it is that "singlism", by its very existence as a term and as a way of expressing difference between two perceived-different social groups, simplifies much of the reality of both being single and being in a relationship. it reinforces the idea that the main reason to be in a relationship is because you can be or because you should be - it doesn't matter if you're happy in the relationship, or who the other person is or what they're like or what they're name is...what matters is that you've got a date! on the other side, it casts not-dating as rebellion against the status symbol of dating. if you're not dating, it's not because you've got issues you're refusing to confront, or because maybe, simply, you just don't want to date. no, you're special because you're standing up to the institution! "singlism" just reinforces the idea that dating is the country club, and not-dating is wearing ripped-up jeans and ramones t-shirts...with the added "twist" of saying "hey, the ramones are fucking better than stupid golf anyway!"
if there turns out to be legitimate discrimination in any case (in a professional sense) because of someone's relationship status, then obviously that's bullshit and should be opposed. but i don't see any of that here. what i see is people who want to make a legitimate lifestyle choice a social statement. suddenly, dating or not dating is on the same level with whether you choose to wear a tie to work or a t-shirt, whether you wear dress shoes or converse all-stars. and that's not fair to the actual people you might actually be dating (or not dating), because the reality is that relationships are way more complicated than this stupid binary gives them credit for. it's like reducing politics to two parties just so that everyone has to pick a side. and we can all see how well that's working out...
but i suppose that's a rant for another late saturday night.
DUH-DUUUUUUUUUH!!!
it is perhaps telling that in the most coherent and professionally-published piece on singlism i could find (through an admittedly quick google search), there is no concrete example, ever, of how people have been, or will in the future be discriminated against by the fact of their being single. there's a lot of mumbo-jumbo about how people who are single are frowned upon in the workplace and in life because being single isn't "normal" or whatever, but beyond that i see no reason in any of the reason i've done thus far for organized, militant action on behalf of singles whose lives are judged so pointless in our relationship-obsessed culture that that culture goes out of its way to enact its bias against singles in real-world ways like paying them less (as women are paid less, on average than men) or giving their children lower-quality education (as is generally the case for minority children when compared to whites).
and there's where my first problem arises. it's a purely rhetorical one, to be sure, but i'm still angry and want to rip the heads off of teddy bears: the idea that somehow singlism is on par in severity or in the necessity for social awareness with racism, sexism, or classism is just absolutely ridiculous and is a testament to how transparent those first three things are to most white, upper-middle class americans (generally the people agitating against singlism). is there a set of culturally-reinforced assumptions made on behalf of single people by not-single people? yes, of course. is the practice of group A making up a set of then-culturally-reinforced assumptions about group B based on perceived difference as a way of group A self-reinforcing their already-assumed superiority a practice that's been going on for at least thousands of years, partially as a method of defining community? yes, of course. people in relationships are going to insist that being in a relationship is the norm, the same way that men who get to have better jobs over women are going to insist that it's just normal because to argue otherwise might be to put their own jobs in jeopardy.
i'm not completely insensitive to the singlist plea. i've got a good amount of experience being single myself. now you're thinking: "wow, the dude who insists on hard evidence from the internet is going to prove his point using personal anecdotes?" yes. shut up.
there was a period not long ago at all where i was single for about three years. going into said period, i was pretty aware that it was likely to be a long single period (i.e. i wasn't really interested in dating, didn't think i would be for awhile, and didn't know of anyone that was beating my door down to get a ride in my motor-carriage). as such, i tried to approach it constructively. unlike, say, the last time i was single for an extended period of time, coming out of a long high school relationship that i, in my AWESOME high school naivety (is that a word?) thought was going to last forever. the result was a decent near-year's worth of sullen depression until (of course, you guessed it) i met someone else and got to scurry back to the haven to dated-dom rather than deal with my issues.
anyway, the time was i was most recently single was rough, in a lot of ways. especially the second year or so, which coincided with the time in which most of my friends moved from pullman and i, too socially awkward to really make any new friends, basically spent an entire year or so in my apartment watching movies and playing madden 2003. eventually, though, i decided that four virtual super bowl rings were enough to secure my online legacy and i ventured back out into the world.
i guess my point is that i learned a lot through those years, both about making friends and about dating relationships. i learned a lot about how i had viewed friendships and relationships before and how detrimental my own selfish need for that kind of contact made it so difficult for me to initiate in the first place. interesting thought: if you don't desperately, creepily, intensely need every interaction you engage in to sustain your mental and spiritual health, those interactions get a lot easier, and more fun, and ultimately more fulfilling.
and i wouldn't have learned all that downward-facing-dog-bullshit had i remained in relationships. i had to hit what my old self regarded as the bottom to realize that that bottom was really just a different type of life. aside from the snarky label (which i'll get to in a minute), you could consider me a converted singlist. by the end of my three-year exile into singleland, i was absolutely happy and content to be alone romantically. which was about the time that i met someone and started a relationship that was functional and made me happier than i thought you were supposed to be in relationships (i don't think this was a coincidence). it's cliche (or, as spellcheck suggests, "cloche") to say that you have set the bird free and see if it comes back on it's own, but that's exactly what happened. the minute i stopped needing my life to be a certain way, the minute it became clear it was fine just the way it was.
so how does this tie back to singlism? IT DOESNT
"singlism" simultaneously expresses discontent and reinforces the idea that being in a relationship is a status symbol, neither of which actually helps anyone be any happier with their lot in life.
the first of my two complaints is pretty easy to grasp. if you feel the need to express loudly and clearly how perfectly okay you are with being single, to the point of discriminating and/or trash talking people who are in relationships...clearly you're not actually okay with being single. and this goes both ways, lest you think i'm choosing sides: if you really need to brag about how happy you and your SO are to everyone within hearing range, obviously things aren't going that well on some level.
the other complaint is a little more esoteric, but probably more important. i guess the best way to say it is that "singlism", by its very existence as a term and as a way of expressing difference between two perceived-different social groups, simplifies much of the reality of both being single and being in a relationship. it reinforces the idea that the main reason to be in a relationship is because you can be or because you should be - it doesn't matter if you're happy in the relationship, or who the other person is or what they're like or what they're name is...what matters is that you've got a date! on the other side, it casts not-dating as rebellion against the status symbol of dating. if you're not dating, it's not because you've got issues you're refusing to confront, or because maybe, simply, you just don't want to date. no, you're special because you're standing up to the institution! "singlism" just reinforces the idea that dating is the country club, and not-dating is wearing ripped-up jeans and ramones t-shirts...with the added "twist" of saying "hey, the ramones are fucking better than stupid golf anyway!"
if there turns out to be legitimate discrimination in any case (in a professional sense) because of someone's relationship status, then obviously that's bullshit and should be opposed. but i don't see any of that here. what i see is people who want to make a legitimate lifestyle choice a social statement. suddenly, dating or not dating is on the same level with whether you choose to wear a tie to work or a t-shirt, whether you wear dress shoes or converse all-stars. and that's not fair to the actual people you might actually be dating (or not dating), because the reality is that relationships are way more complicated than this stupid binary gives them credit for. it's like reducing politics to two parties just so that everyone has to pick a side. and we can all see how well that's working out...
but i suppose that's a rant for another late saturday night.
DUH-DUUUUUUUUUH!!!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
ever wanted to hear a big beat mashup of phish and the dead?
i've been a little bit obsessed with this set of remix/mash-ups that i found on soundcloud the other day. all of it's pretty much great - the guy has a great ear (?) for this stuff. if you're in a hurry, though, just check out "a gentle hell" (a trippy version of wilco's "hell is chrome" mashed with thievery corporation), "just break" (jurassic 5 and radiohead), and best of all "freezerflowerfluff" (phish's "tweezer" and "fluffhead" mashed with the dead's "china cat sunflower").
Bonnaroo Booty by mopo
Bonnaroo Booty by mopo
hang it on the fridge 2!: my first ecopoem
so, i've reading a metric shit-ton of ecopoetry lately and while it's not really my genre (mixing environmental justice and poiesis has never really seemed like a recipe for anything but disaster, but i digress), i thought i'd write a poem mimicking some of the gestures i see in a lot of these poems. let me know what you think!
------------------------------
i'm eleven miles from pasco
traveling south on US-395
when it hits me
this smell that clouds the air
invisibly suffuses my car
slides through the air vents
and dives down my nose
at first contact it's
already too late
it's everywhere
i don't smell it as much as feel it
it punches my sinuses like a double shot of vodka
with slightly rotting sausage floating in it
at this point, my eyes are watering
the factory smokestacks dotting the banks of the columbia
in the distance
reduced to white smudges against a blue sky
after a few moments, my brain assimilates the assault crookedly
responding with both nausea and hunger
to a smell that makes less sense on the level of instinct
than the sensation of having your own arm hacked off
now, at various points in my life you could have rightly called me
hippie
bleeding-heart
inhumanist
vegan
idealist
granola
etc.
and it would have been accurate
but
i wouldn't be exaggerating if i said i would gladly give up
my car
my computer
my apartment
my guitars
my furniture
my bed
my bicycle
my microwave
my refrigerator
my records
my TV
and my shoes
if it would make it so no one on earth would ever
have to smell
that smell
again.
------------------------------
i'm eleven miles from pasco
traveling south on US-395
when it hits me
this smell that clouds the air
invisibly suffuses my car
slides through the air vents
and dives down my nose
at first contact it's
already too late
it's everywhere
i don't smell it as much as feel it
it punches my sinuses like a double shot of vodka
with slightly rotting sausage floating in it
at this point, my eyes are watering
the factory smokestacks dotting the banks of the columbia
in the distance
reduced to white smudges against a blue sky
after a few moments, my brain assimilates the assault crookedly
responding with both nausea and hunger
to a smell that makes less sense on the level of instinct
than the sensation of having your own arm hacked off
now, at various points in my life you could have rightly called me
hippie
bleeding-heart
inhumanist
vegan
idealist
granola
etc.
and it would have been accurate
but
i wouldn't be exaggerating if i said i would gladly give up
my car
my computer
my apartment
my guitars
my furniture
my bed
my bicycle
my microwave
my refrigerator
my records
my TV
and my shoes
if it would make it so no one on earth would ever
have to smell
that smell
again.
RIDESHARE: Wilco 04.28.2000
like all the other millenia-era wilco shows i've listened to lately, this one was a grower. at first i spent awhile nearly driving off the road while screwing with my CD player's EQ (the recording, though a SBD, is not necessarily the best, and the vocals are really low in the mix with the odd combination of drums and keys being preeminent). on top of all that, "candyfloss", which is the first song and one of my early-era wilco favorites, starts about 2/3rds of the way through the song. what is it with wilco recordings lately and cutting off the first half of the opening song?
i was considering taking the disc out and playing something else until "i must be high" came on. it was a really interesting version: energetic and folksy, but with that unmistakable post-summerteeth electronic touch. this was a theme throughout the show. some of the best moments of this show are the times when you get to hear a.m. or being there songs sounding more like yankee hotel outtakes than their original versions. another main set highlight was "hotel arizona", hands down my favorite song on being there, recreated into a wholly different animal and yet still just familiar enough to be fascinating.
this band sounds so different than the raucous noise-jam band of even a few years previous. while they're clearly still willing to experiment on stage, they do so with a little bit more patience, and ultimately their sound is better for it. take, for example, "how to fight loneliness", which gets a few little instrumental jams throughout the song. while it might have been "experimental" for the wilco of '97 to scale this quiet, introspective song into a flurry of feedback screams as it neared its end, this wilco peppers the song with quiet but complex instrumental interplay that's just as impressive but that suits the tone of the song. when every single song doesn't end with everyone screaming and guitars catching on fire, it makes the songs in the set more distinguishable and thus makes the show in general a more nuanced experience.
anyway, one of the "loud" highlights, as usual, was "someone else's song", played as a metal dirge. the main set closed with "misunderstood", and most of the double (triple?) encore was mermaid avenue songs. so if you're not a fan of those albums, the second half of this show might be a wash for you. i really dug it, especially, as usual, the "hoodoo voodoo" closer.
if there's one gripe i have about this show it's that, for all the summerteeth material in the setlist, none of the songs were played like summerteeth songs. maybe this was a choice on the band's part, or maybe they simply just didn't have the equipment, but when you hear a song like "can't stand it" (or "candyfloss", or "i'm always in love", etc.) without all the little flourishes that are present on the album version, the song tends to sound less artistically different and more just flat.
i was considering taking the disc out and playing something else until "i must be high" came on. it was a really interesting version: energetic and folksy, but with that unmistakable post-summerteeth electronic touch. this was a theme throughout the show. some of the best moments of this show are the times when you get to hear a.m. or being there songs sounding more like yankee hotel outtakes than their original versions. another main set highlight was "hotel arizona", hands down my favorite song on being there, recreated into a wholly different animal and yet still just familiar enough to be fascinating.
this band sounds so different than the raucous noise-jam band of even a few years previous. while they're clearly still willing to experiment on stage, they do so with a little bit more patience, and ultimately their sound is better for it. take, for example, "how to fight loneliness", which gets a few little instrumental jams throughout the song. while it might have been "experimental" for the wilco of '97 to scale this quiet, introspective song into a flurry of feedback screams as it neared its end, this wilco peppers the song with quiet but complex instrumental interplay that's just as impressive but that suits the tone of the song. when every single song doesn't end with everyone screaming and guitars catching on fire, it makes the songs in the set more distinguishable and thus makes the show in general a more nuanced experience.
anyway, one of the "loud" highlights, as usual, was "someone else's song", played as a metal dirge. the main set closed with "misunderstood", and most of the double (triple?) encore was mermaid avenue songs. so if you're not a fan of those albums, the second half of this show might be a wash for you. i really dug it, especially, as usual, the "hoodoo voodoo" closer.
if there's one gripe i have about this show it's that, for all the summerteeth material in the setlist, none of the songs were played like summerteeth songs. maybe this was a choice on the band's part, or maybe they simply just didn't have the equipment, but when you hear a song like "can't stand it" (or "candyfloss", or "i'm always in love", etc.) without all the little flourishes that are present on the album version, the song tends to sound less artistically different and more just flat.
RIDESHARE: Phish 06.25.1995
one more review to dredge up from memory from last week, and then i'll be caught up to what i listened to yesterday. then i can go back to blogging about other things that actually matter.
RIDESHARE is my 2010 version of my old Madden 2003 franchise posts...
this '95 show (setlist here) was a pretty fascinating meld of the technically precise, no-holds-barred '94 sound and the more experimental spacy '96 sound. like, in all the best ways. first of all, the show starts with pretty standard but solid "ya mar" and "AC/DC Bag" (when does "AC/DC" ever really sound any different, anyway?), then immediately jumps into very early versions of "taste" and "theme from the bottom", both of which are instructive and exploratory.
to address my own setlist bias for a moment, i'm basically just in love with the first half of this set. while i could generally take or leave "AC/DC bag", "ya mar", "taste", "theme", "if i could", "divided sky", and "i didn't know" in one set, even if they were terrible versions, would make a killer set in my opinion. and these are far from terrible versions. one of my favorite phish guilty pleasures are the noodle-guitar-and-piano jams at the end of songs like "if i could" and "squirming coil", and this "if i could" brings that jamming in spades.
this show has another great "scent of a mule" with some page pyrotechnics, though "maze" is, well, it's just "maze". i've never really understood the appeal of that song. the "mike's" > "why don't we do it in the road?" > "hold your head up" > "weekapaug" string is probably the highlight of the show. again, i'm biased because i love the "mike's" > "weekapaug" duo as much as i love anything phish, but this version of "mike's" is particularly gnarly ("gnarly" in this case meaning "super dark guitar-led jamming").
overall, this show wasn't on the same level as some of the shows i've previously reviewed as far as setlists go, or as far as playing (there was a lot of technically great jamming, but a few of the songs went on for upwards of 10 minutes without actually really developing any themes or differentiation). however, there were some standout moments (middle of each set) that would be worth another listen.
RIDESHARE is my 2010 version of my old Madden 2003 franchise posts...
this '95 show (setlist here) was a pretty fascinating meld of the technically precise, no-holds-barred '94 sound and the more experimental spacy '96 sound. like, in all the best ways. first of all, the show starts with pretty standard but solid "ya mar" and "AC/DC Bag" (when does "AC/DC" ever really sound any different, anyway?), then immediately jumps into very early versions of "taste" and "theme from the bottom", both of which are instructive and exploratory.
to address my own setlist bias for a moment, i'm basically just in love with the first half of this set. while i could generally take or leave "AC/DC bag", "ya mar", "taste", "theme", "if i could", "divided sky", and "i didn't know" in one set, even if they were terrible versions, would make a killer set in my opinion. and these are far from terrible versions. one of my favorite phish guilty pleasures are the noodle-guitar-and-piano jams at the end of songs like "if i could" and "squirming coil", and this "if i could" brings that jamming in spades.
this show has another great "scent of a mule" with some page pyrotechnics, though "maze" is, well, it's just "maze". i've never really understood the appeal of that song. the "mike's" > "why don't we do it in the road?" > "hold your head up" > "weekapaug" string is probably the highlight of the show. again, i'm biased because i love the "mike's" > "weekapaug" duo as much as i love anything phish, but this version of "mike's" is particularly gnarly ("gnarly" in this case meaning "super dark guitar-led jamming").
overall, this show wasn't on the same level as some of the shows i've previously reviewed as far as setlists go, or as far as playing (there was a lot of technically great jamming, but a few of the songs went on for upwards of 10 minutes without actually really developing any themes or differentiation). however, there were some standout moments (middle of each set) that would be worth another listen.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
stun the puppy, burn the whale!
one of my favorite moments (if not THE favorite moment) of the phish shows i've seen so far...just found some youtube videos of it for the first time.
the last song they played at blossom this past summer was a great version of "squirming coil", which ended, as you can see below, with page alone on stage playing a piano solo. then, he finished, the spotlight went off, and the lights came up for the night. great encore.
two versions of the video, neither of which are amazing quality, but they both do the job :)
the last song they played at blossom this past summer was a great version of "squirming coil", which ended, as you can see below, with page alone on stage playing a piano solo. then, he finished, the spotlight went off, and the lights came up for the night. great encore.
two versions of the video, neither of which are amazing quality, but they both do the job :)
Monday, October 4, 2010
hang it on the fridge!: my translation of genesis from 2006
i did this translation as part of my language project back in 2006. it's translated (if i remember correctly) from king alfred's old english. i don't know if anyone will find this interesting, and i'll be the first to admit that it's not the best translation, but it's certainly closer to the sense of the "original" text than anything we've got today, for what that's worth. my notes in parenthesis:
Also, the serpent was (geappre) than all the other beasts that God had made across the earth; and the serpent said to the woman: ‘Did God forbid you (plural), that you (plural) cannot eat of any tree in Paradise?’ The woman answered: ‘The fruit of the trees which are in Paradise we eat: and of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God bade us not to eat, not to touch that tree, lest we die.’ Then replied the serpent to the woman: ‘You will not die at all, though you eat of that tree. But God surely knows that your eyes will be opened on the day which you eat of that tree; and you will be then like angels, know both good and evil.’ Then the woman saw that the tree was good to eat from, and it seemed to her beautiful to the eyes and pleasant to sight; and she took of the tree’s fruit and ate, and she gave it to her husband: he ate it. And both their eyes were opened: they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves and they made breeches (clothes?).
In response God came and they heard his voice, there he walked in the garden during midday, and Adam and his wife did hide from God’s sight in the midst of the trees of the garden. God called to Adam, and said: ‘Adam, where are you?’ He said: ‘I heard your voice, sire, in the garden, and I was afraid, for I am naked, and I hid.’ God said: ‘How do you say that you were naked, if you have not ate of the tree that I had bade you not to eat of?’ Adam said: ‘That woman that you gave to be with me took of the tree and I ate.’ God said to the woman: ‘Why did you do that?’ She said: ‘The serpent deceived me and I ate.’
God said to the serpent: ‘For this that you did, you are cursed among all cattle and wild beasts. You will go on your breast and eat the earth all the days of your life. I set enmity between you and the woman and your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will (strike?) at his heel.’
To the woman said God also: ‘I multiply your misery in your childbearing; in pain you will bring forth children and you will be under your husband’s authority and he will control you.’ To Adam he said: ‘Because you listened to your wife’s voice and you ate of the tree that I bade you not to eat, your work on the earth will be cursed; in sorrow will you eat of the earth all the days of your life. Thorns and brambles will spring forth, and you will eat the earth’s plants. In the sweat of your face you earn your bread, then you will return to earth, from there you were taken, for you are dust and to dust will return.’
why don't more video games address critical thinking?
so, after reading this article over breakfast this morning (oats with smuckers' jelly mixed in, as i forgot to buy enough actual fruit to get me through the week), i got to thinking about a few of bogost's points. and, since i'm taking a break from exam-ing this afternoon, i thought i'd blog about them. you know, like a real, old-fashioned blog post.
i really like the way that bogost breaks down and effectively dissolves the idea of a free speech debate around the content of the new medal of honor's use of the taliban as a multiplayer (team? side? what's the right word here?). that the debate boils down to whether or not it is tasteful to include the term "taliban" in the game does in fact illustrate how little of a political point the term's inclusion - or the taliban's inclusion - was meant to make in the first place. what's (maybe) worse, the fact that taking the term out of the game - replacing it with the catch-all term "opposing force" seems to have largely sated the game's critics shows how little the popular view of video games still expect from those games. in a time when so many are ready to fiercely defend video games' status as "art", doesn't it seem strange that the things that still get us talking critically about games most readily are things that are projected onto those games from outside cultural contexts?
as bogost mentions, the inclusion of the taliban in medal of honor could have been a point within the game and therefore also outside the game for discussion regarding the nature of war and the ambiguity of conflict. instead, what you get is the same old "you can play as the bad guy!" bullshit "special" game mechanic, made controversial by a label slapped on it meant to refer to real-world events outside the game, and thus stir association with the controversy attached to those events. the bottom line is that even our most controversial, thought-inspiring games generally refuse to start discussions of their own, and are content to ride on the backs of controversies already being enacted on the culture at large.
example: GTA, the game series best-known for pissing people off in the real world (the fact that it introduced the genre of the sandbox shooter is never nearly as important, somehow). GTA isn't controversial because the game itself forces you, through its gameplay and/or story, to confront interesting moral conundrums or engage in critical thinking. it's controversial because you can shoot hookers and shoot down police helicopters in a fighter jet. so what? i mean, i don't want to derail my point into a different conversation about whether GTA's level of violence is acceptable, but, seriously: so what? how is the conversation about whether or not playing GTA will turn our kids into murderous maniacs a more important conversation to be having than a more basic conversation about why, 30 years after the NES, we're still playing games that only challenge the gamer to mindlessly gun down everything that stands in their way en route to a completely heroic objective in a universe of perfectly black-and-white morality?
games have the ability to generate such a conversation, but they so rarely do. players stomp everything in their way for hours upon hours en route to rescuing the princess, but nobody ever stops to think that, hey, when luke blew up the death star, he was technically killing thousands of potentially innocent people.
does this mean that i think every game in the universe needs to address the metaphysical implications of mortality, or that the next time you boot up your franchise in madden you should have to face maddeningly (no pun intended) complex decisions regarding the emotional repercussions of your fake players' professional sports careers on their marriages? of course not. part of what makes games fun is the magic circle, the idea that there's a border beyond which the game doesn't go. sometimes i shoot a scientist in half-life or blow him up with a pack of explosives simply because i can. precisely because it's something that would be completely outrageous in real life but within the game there are no consequences. games like medal of honor build their appeal on the basis of the idea that you can be one man and single handedly save america from the taliban, or the nazis, or the combine, or whatever. of course that's ridiculous, but that's often why we play.
however, is it too much to ask to want games that are still games, but are smarter? here, as much as i HATE intimating that video games and movies are in pretty much any way related, i think bogost has a good point comparing the criticality of games to that of film. sure, a lot of people go to the movies for explosions, or date movies, films that could hardly be considered "critical thinkers". at the same time, though, you have a movie like avatar becoming the biggest movie of all time. now, say what you will about the mythic, derivative story (aren't all our big stories derived from myths?), at the core of avatar is a film that forces the viewer to consider a lot of post-Columbian assumptions of Western superiority...it's a popcorn flick,but it's also a postcolonial text, albeit one that's fairly obvious and ham-handed. and when people saw it, even people who weren't stuffy lit majors or cultural critics, people fucking talked about it. for months. it started a discussion that likes of which i haven't seen touched off by a movie since The Matrix. which, incidentally, was another movie that worked both on the level of popcorn flick and metaphysical garbage masher. whether or not you thought either of those movies were good, nobody can argue that they don't force the viewer to confront a critical subtext amidst the explosions. people make movies that are all about challenging assumptions, too: brokeback mountain, food, inc., restrepo, and people go see that shit.
yet, then there's video games, sitting forlornly on the fence, complaining that nobody will buy them if people are forced to actually think. the primary difference between movies and games is obvious - interactivity. the interaction the player has with the game has to be enjoyable, or else the player won't come back. but can't you have interaction without casting the player as a Good or Evil in the game world? wouldn't players be more likely to want to play a game if the character they embodied was able to interact more realistically with a more morally ambiguous world? there's a difference between wanting to play in the magic circle because games are fun and wanting to escape into a stupider microcosm of the real world where nothing you ever do is questioned.
i have little to know experience with MMORPGs, but i almost wonder if those types of games simulate a critical reality more than traditional games, because at least within the world of an MMORPG, your actions effect others and you have to acknowledge some level of society.
geesh...i was going to talk about some examples of games, but i see i've gotten way carried away. i guess i'll see if anyone responds to this and then maybe i'll write a part two...
i really like the way that bogost breaks down and effectively dissolves the idea of a free speech debate around the content of the new medal of honor's use of the taliban as a multiplayer (team? side? what's the right word here?). that the debate boils down to whether or not it is tasteful to include the term "taliban" in the game does in fact illustrate how little of a political point the term's inclusion - or the taliban's inclusion - was meant to make in the first place. what's (maybe) worse, the fact that taking the term out of the game - replacing it with the catch-all term "opposing force" seems to have largely sated the game's critics shows how little the popular view of video games still expect from those games. in a time when so many are ready to fiercely defend video games' status as "art", doesn't it seem strange that the things that still get us talking critically about games most readily are things that are projected onto those games from outside cultural contexts?
as bogost mentions, the inclusion of the taliban in medal of honor could have been a point within the game and therefore also outside the game for discussion regarding the nature of war and the ambiguity of conflict. instead, what you get is the same old "you can play as the bad guy!" bullshit "special" game mechanic, made controversial by a label slapped on it meant to refer to real-world events outside the game, and thus stir association with the controversy attached to those events. the bottom line is that even our most controversial, thought-inspiring games generally refuse to start discussions of their own, and are content to ride on the backs of controversies already being enacted on the culture at large.
example: GTA, the game series best-known for pissing people off in the real world (the fact that it introduced the genre of the sandbox shooter is never nearly as important, somehow). GTA isn't controversial because the game itself forces you, through its gameplay and/or story, to confront interesting moral conundrums or engage in critical thinking. it's controversial because you can shoot hookers and shoot down police helicopters in a fighter jet. so what? i mean, i don't want to derail my point into a different conversation about whether GTA's level of violence is acceptable, but, seriously: so what? how is the conversation about whether or not playing GTA will turn our kids into murderous maniacs a more important conversation to be having than a more basic conversation about why, 30 years after the NES, we're still playing games that only challenge the gamer to mindlessly gun down everything that stands in their way en route to a completely heroic objective in a universe of perfectly black-and-white morality?
games have the ability to generate such a conversation, but they so rarely do. players stomp everything in their way for hours upon hours en route to rescuing the princess, but nobody ever stops to think that, hey, when luke blew up the death star, he was technically killing thousands of potentially innocent people.
does this mean that i think every game in the universe needs to address the metaphysical implications of mortality, or that the next time you boot up your franchise in madden you should have to face maddeningly (no pun intended) complex decisions regarding the emotional repercussions of your fake players' professional sports careers on their marriages? of course not. part of what makes games fun is the magic circle, the idea that there's a border beyond which the game doesn't go. sometimes i shoot a scientist in half-life or blow him up with a pack of explosives simply because i can. precisely because it's something that would be completely outrageous in real life but within the game there are no consequences. games like medal of honor build their appeal on the basis of the idea that you can be one man and single handedly save america from the taliban, or the nazis, or the combine, or whatever. of course that's ridiculous, but that's often why we play.
however, is it too much to ask to want games that are still games, but are smarter? here, as much as i HATE intimating that video games and movies are in pretty much any way related, i think bogost has a good point comparing the criticality of games to that of film. sure, a lot of people go to the movies for explosions, or date movies, films that could hardly be considered "critical thinkers". at the same time, though, you have a movie like avatar becoming the biggest movie of all time. now, say what you will about the mythic, derivative story (aren't all our big stories derived from myths?), at the core of avatar is a film that forces the viewer to consider a lot of post-Columbian assumptions of Western superiority...it's a popcorn flick,but it's also a postcolonial text, albeit one that's fairly obvious and ham-handed. and when people saw it, even people who weren't stuffy lit majors or cultural critics, people fucking talked about it. for months. it started a discussion that likes of which i haven't seen touched off by a movie since The Matrix. which, incidentally, was another movie that worked both on the level of popcorn flick and metaphysical garbage masher. whether or not you thought either of those movies were good, nobody can argue that they don't force the viewer to confront a critical subtext amidst the explosions. people make movies that are all about challenging assumptions, too: brokeback mountain, food, inc., restrepo, and people go see that shit.
yet, then there's video games, sitting forlornly on the fence, complaining that nobody will buy them if people are forced to actually think. the primary difference between movies and games is obvious - interactivity. the interaction the player has with the game has to be enjoyable, or else the player won't come back. but can't you have interaction without casting the player as a Good or Evil in the game world? wouldn't players be more likely to want to play a game if the character they embodied was able to interact more realistically with a more morally ambiguous world? there's a difference between wanting to play in the magic circle because games are fun and wanting to escape into a stupider microcosm of the real world where nothing you ever do is questioned.
i have little to know experience with MMORPGs, but i almost wonder if those types of games simulate a critical reality more than traditional games, because at least within the world of an MMORPG, your actions effect others and you have to acknowledge some level of society.
geesh...i was going to talk about some examples of games, but i see i've gotten way carried away. i guess i'll see if anyone responds to this and then maybe i'll write a part two...
DO NOT HOLD OVER PEOPLE
i just got a huge kick out of the warning on this coffeemaker, as i instinctively took "do not hold over people" in an emotional sense rather than a physical sense. as in: "if you ever find yourself in a messy breakup argument with your ex-significant other, you CANNOT say 'how can you say i don't love you?! i bought you that coffeemaker!'".
'twas funny to me at least.
RIDESHARE - Phish 06.06.1996
so after my near-transcendent experience with the '94 shows, i decided to bounce around a bit, and first went back to '96 (i also listened to an '02 show last week, but misplaced the last disc, so i'm sort of waiting to find it before i write anything). this '96 soundboard is a "page show"...you know, one of those shows when, time and time again all of trey's guitar pyrotechnics are completely overshadowed by page just ripping off one absurd keys solo after another. i like these kinds of shows, but if you're one of those fans who only enjoys hours of guitar noodling and nothing else, you probably won't like this one.
sEtlIsT
usually, a show opening with "split open and melt" is not a good omen for me. i don't know what it is about that song, but i've never really enjoyed it. the hook repeats too many times, and the jam at the end is usually too structured to really break into anything interesting. that said, this was a decent version (i.e. better than bad, at least) and the segue into "poor heart" was pretty unexpected and hilarious. this was page madness moment #1. "runaway jim" and "funky bitch" were par for the course, which is to say, awesome. then there was "theme from the bottom", which was page madness moment #2, followed indirectly by "scent of a mule" in which entire warehouses of keyboards and pianos must have been melted to fine ash. the first set closed with a pretty by-the-books "highway to hell", which prompted a horn jam by yours truly.
part of the draw of this show for me comes from the fact that billy breathes has some of my favorite phish songs on it, and here you get to hear a number of those songs in early form, before years of touring sort of formalized the jams that build around them. "theme" was one of those, and the second set brought extremely raw versions of "waste" and "character zero". they weren't the best versions i've ever heard, but it was interesting to hear them so differently. the second set had few standout-type moments otherwise, but was overall a great set of tunes. the show closed with page rocking one more time on "ya mar", and then a cover of hendrix's "fire" that had trey sounding more like '92 or '93 phish than '96.
sEtlIsT
usually, a show opening with "split open and melt" is not a good omen for me. i don't know what it is about that song, but i've never really enjoyed it. the hook repeats too many times, and the jam at the end is usually too structured to really break into anything interesting. that said, this was a decent version (i.e. better than bad, at least) and the segue into "poor heart" was pretty unexpected and hilarious. this was page madness moment #1. "runaway jim" and "funky bitch" were par for the course, which is to say, awesome. then there was "theme from the bottom", which was page madness moment #2, followed indirectly by "scent of a mule" in which entire warehouses of keyboards and pianos must have been melted to fine ash. the first set closed with a pretty by-the-books "highway to hell", which prompted a horn jam by yours truly.
part of the draw of this show for me comes from the fact that billy breathes has some of my favorite phish songs on it, and here you get to hear a number of those songs in early form, before years of touring sort of formalized the jams that build around them. "theme" was one of those, and the second set brought extremely raw versions of "waste" and "character zero". they weren't the best versions i've ever heard, but it was interesting to hear them so differently. the second set had few standout-type moments otherwise, but was overall a great set of tunes. the show closed with page rocking one more time on "ya mar", and then a cover of hendrix's "fire" that had trey sounding more like '92 or '93 phish than '96.
RIDESHARE - Jeff Tweedy 02.25.2006
well, hello there. it's been about thirty-five years since the last rideshare...exam-writing has intervened, and lindsey has been going to tri-cities with me often lately, which means that 35-minute "tweezer" jams don't go over as well as when it's just me in an empty car.
these reviews are actually from about a week and a half ago, and so much has happened since then, i don't really remember the content of the shows that well, or even what a "CD" is, really. nonetheless, i'm going to take my best shot at reviewing mr. tweedy's show at mandel hall in chicago, for which the setlist can be found here.
i'm getting to be really fond of starting out these cold, cloudy, morning drives with a mellow wilco or tweedy show, then following it up with a blistering early phish set on my drive back out of the canyon of heat-induced despair otherwise known as tri-cities (despair only because the temperature is like 20 degrees higher there than in pullman due to elevation droppage). anyway, this tweedy show really hit the spot.
it was a great soundboard, and the songs were a great mix of the ones that you can hear in similar incarnation on the sunken treasure dvd (which you should buy if you're a wilco fan at all) and a lot of songs from a ghost is born. hearing really clean, precise solo acoustic versions of tunes like "muzzle of bees", "spiders" and "theologians" was a treat. there were even some surprises among the expected, more "folky" choices in the set: "one by one", "(was i) in your dreams", "bob dylan's 49th beard".
though the third set followed the usual procedure for this particular tour: usually nels and/or glenn joining tweedy onstage for a few songs, the songs for this particular show were a bit of a surprise. getting to hear rearranged versions of "in a future age" and "dash 7" was maybe the highlight of the whole show.
overall, a great combination of a unique setlist, solid sound, and of course a solid performance makes this, for my money, almost as good as the aforementioned sunken treasure audio companion for a collection of solo tweedy tunes.
these reviews are actually from about a week and a half ago, and so much has happened since then, i don't really remember the content of the shows that well, or even what a "CD" is, really. nonetheless, i'm going to take my best shot at reviewing mr. tweedy's show at mandel hall in chicago, for which the setlist can be found here.
i'm getting to be really fond of starting out these cold, cloudy, morning drives with a mellow wilco or tweedy show, then following it up with a blistering early phish set on my drive back out of the canyon of heat-induced despair otherwise known as tri-cities (despair only because the temperature is like 20 degrees higher there than in pullman due to elevation droppage). anyway, this tweedy show really hit the spot.
it was a great soundboard, and the songs were a great mix of the ones that you can hear in similar incarnation on the sunken treasure dvd (which you should buy if you're a wilco fan at all) and a lot of songs from a ghost is born. hearing really clean, precise solo acoustic versions of tunes like "muzzle of bees", "spiders" and "theologians" was a treat. there were even some surprises among the expected, more "folky" choices in the set: "one by one", "(was i) in your dreams", "bob dylan's 49th beard".
though the third set followed the usual procedure for this particular tour: usually nels and/or glenn joining tweedy onstage for a few songs, the songs for this particular show were a bit of a surprise. getting to hear rearranged versions of "in a future age" and "dash 7" was maybe the highlight of the whole show.
overall, a great combination of a unique setlist, solid sound, and of course a solid performance makes this, for my money, almost as good as the aforementioned sunken treasure audio companion for a collection of solo tweedy tunes.
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