I have been bizarrely, academically intrigued by memebase lately. Here we have Derrida's bricoleurs constructing new images from pre-existing templates before our very eyes; we have TS Eliot's mandate for art to engage in conversation with all preceding and extant works in a living whole functioning before our eyes in real time; and we have Foucault's deconstruction of the author, exploding the myth of originality, on display for all.
Not that I'd ever classify memebase as art--it barely even qualifies as low-brow. These hackeyed images are the lowest of the low, the most basic of the basic, the most fleeting of the fleeting. But that's just the thing--this cheapest of entertainment is perhaps the most vivid deconstruction of artistic creation we currently have available. I do believe the Dada-ists would be jealous. Memebase is brilliant in its utter vapid stupidity, in a manner that I almost can't look away from.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
Dear Penguin editors of The Faerie Queen
Dear Penguin editors of Edmund Spencer's The Faerie Queen:
The "u" makes a u sound, not a v sound.
The "v" makes a v sound, not a u sound.
I don't know if Renaissance England was some sort of retconned opposite day, where v and u switched places, or if "recovered" was actually pronounced "recouered" (however you would even say that) and "up" pronounced "vp" or whatever--and frankly, I don't care. This isn't Chaucer, where the English pronunciation of the era was so different that original spelling must be preserved to maintain the rhyme scheme. No, in Spencer, you can switch the v and u back to normalized-spelling in every single case, and it will still read exactly the same. Done. Finished. End of story. No more translating my own language in my head.
For crying out loud, this is the era of Shakespeare. The King James Bible. Even if these other texts also used u's for v's and vice-versa, we've long since adjusted these master-works for contemporary typography and modern readers, all without sacrificing their poetry, power, or basic pronunciation. Penguin, contrary to what you may believe, you are not in fact "preserving Spencer's original poetry" by stubbornly clinging to archaic spellings; no, you're being a jack-ass. Stop it.
The "u" makes a u sound, not a v sound.
The "v" makes a v sound, not a u sound.
I don't know if Renaissance England was some sort of retconned opposite day, where v and u switched places, or if "recovered" was actually pronounced "recouered" (however you would even say that) and "up" pronounced "vp" or whatever--and frankly, I don't care. This isn't Chaucer, where the English pronunciation of the era was so different that original spelling must be preserved to maintain the rhyme scheme. No, in Spencer, you can switch the v and u back to normalized-spelling in every single case, and it will still read exactly the same. Done. Finished. End of story. No more translating my own language in my head.
For crying out loud, this is the era of Shakespeare. The King James Bible. Even if these other texts also used u's for v's and vice-versa, we've long since adjusted these master-works for contemporary typography and modern readers, all without sacrificing their poetry, power, or basic pronunciation. Penguin, contrary to what you may believe, you are not in fact "preserving Spencer's original poetry" by stubbornly clinging to archaic spellings; no, you're being a jack-ass. Stop it.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
How Star Trek Should've Ended
I recently re-watched the 2009 Star Trek reboot. Let me first say that the movie is fun--the characters are fun, the actors are clearly having fun, and so consequently the audience has fun. But Star Trek has to be more than just fun--any one raised on The Wrath of Kahn as I knows that Trek, at its best, must also grapple with deep themes, and mess with your mind a bit. 2009's Star Trek does not do this. And as fun as the movie is, the ending is lazy. I could've easily written it better, which irritate me.
For starters, for the film's big climax, the Enterprise comes in shooting, giving Spock cover as he prepares to crash his black-hole-red-matter-mini-ship into Nero's super-ship. It had already been repeatedly established by the film that Nero's ship, time-traveling from a century into the future, is an overmatch for anything and everything the Federation can throw at him. This would be like the Bizmark giving cover to a speed-boat running up against the Nimitz. The Enterprise is totally out-classed here, and their victory violates all of the film's own established rules.
In fact, the only decent blow the Federation had ever delivered against Nero was when the USS Kelvin, manned by Kirk's Dad, is rammed into Nero's ship in a desperate attempt to allow the shuttle-crafts to escape. Now, time-travel has already been introduced as a known factor in this reboot universe--in literary terms, this is called Chekov's gun, named after the Russian playwright Anton Chekov, who famously said, "If a gun is introduced in the first act, it must be fired by the last act." This is just a hard, fast rule of effective story telling. Shoot, Star Trek even has a Chekov in their cast, so there's doubly no excuse for not firing the gun here!
What I mean is, after Kirk rescues Capt. Pike off Nero's ship and steal future-Spock's mini-ship with the red-matter, Spock needs to rendezvous with the Enterprise to plan their next move. Scotty, still examining the transporter-formula given him by future-Spock (which had earlier allowed them to beam onto the Enterprise), has found that future-Spock has also brilliantly encoded therein the formula for time-warp (which future Spock is familiar with, as shown by Star Trek IV). Scotty shows this time-warp formula to "present"-Spock, who confirms Scottie's deductions.
Kirk, however, is unclear as to why this information is helpful, since traveling into the past, they will be even more outmatched than they are already. In fact, to even get close enough to throw red-matter into Nero's ship, they'd have to deliver a strong-blow to Nero's ship that they are not even close to being able to achieve. Spock, however, points that Kirk is mistaken--Nero's ship has been damaged before, by the Kelvin, 25 years earlier.
Kirk then understands that Spock proposes they travel back in time to when Nero's ship first was damaged by the Kelvin, and attack it then, when Nero's most vulnerable. This is the firing of Chekov's gun. Kirk then says facetiously, "But time-travel, really, Spock? Isn't that cheating?"
Spock replies: "I believe you would be the expert on that." This would bring Kirk's earlier dialogue with future-Spock full circle, as well as complete present-Kirk-and-Spocks' relationship which had begun antagonistically with Kirk's cheating on the Spock-programmed Koberashi-Maru earlier in the film. These allusions and circle-completions are likewise common and satisfying story-telling conventions.
So, since Vulcan is already in the neighborhood, the Enterprise uses the black-hole that was once Vulcan as their gravitational point by which they fling themselves back into the past. There is a count-down from Sulu, the whole ship starts to rattle, the drama ratchets up as they approach the dark abyss of the black hole itself, then there is a blinding flash, and...
Once again, Kirk's Dad is crashing the Kelvin into Nero's ship, as at the beginning of the film. The shuttle-crafts jump to warp and escape. Nero asks for a damage report, and while they discuss how long it will take them to effect repairs without 24th century repair-shops available, future-Spock's mini-ship appears. Nero fires on it. Then the Enterprise likewise appears to grant cover from Nero's damaged weapons. Then, you continue on with the original ending, as Nero's ship is sucked into another ginormous black hole, the Enterprise fires upon and destroys it as it collapses away, and they themselves must also make a daring escape as they are threatened to be sucked in themselves.
Now, what happens next is that they report to the nearest Starbase for more instructions. A confidential hearing is held. All of the Enterprise's tapes are authenticated, and the crew is commended for retroactively saving Vulcan and all the future Federation. However, they also discuss the temporal-paradox problems they now face--namely, the Enterprise flying back in time has created yet another new time-line, one that none can guarantee will turn out to be anything like the one they just saved. Also, someone will finally acknowledge just how jacked-up Kirk took control of the Enterprise, cause serious, those are some serious chain of command issues.
Then there is the fact that according to these same authenticated tapes, Kirk was even on academic suspension at the time of his taking command. But they can't just punish the people who just saved the Federation, so how on earth do they get around that? Kirk coughs and suggests, "Well, you could, you know, in the future, instead of putting me on suspension, maybe give me a commendation instead?"
"And just what on earth for?" asks one gruff Star Fleet officer.
"Original thinking?" suggests Spock. Thus allusion is made to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn.
The Hearing officials agree to this (having no other feasible recourse), so they make plans to have the future Enterprise follow this same path back in time to destroy Nero's ship (and thus hopefully keep the timeline secure), have them meet at this hearing again, and have the current crew return to the future. In order to save on confusion, the Enterprise, upon returning to their "present," will be ordered into deep-space, perhaps on a 5-year mission of exploration, until they can get all these time-line knots cleared up. (And thus allusion would be made to the original series!)
But, before they can depart, they are once again reminded that yet another new timeline has been created, and that the "present" they are returning to is not the same one they left. That is, the future is now both metaphorically and literally opened up to any possibility. This would be thematically satisfying, especially for a reboot movie.
Back on the Enterprise, Kirk asks Spock if he is excited to see his Mom once more. Spock expresses that he is satisfied, and expresses his condolences that Kirk will not likewise finally get to know the father he never knew. Kirk shrugs and says, "I like to think...there are always...possibilities..." which would likewise call out Star Trek II.
Scotty then calls the bridge, and informs the two that upon even further examination of future-Spock's formula, they do not require a black-hole for time-warp, but most any star will have the mass necessary to return to their "present." Sulu asks Captain Kirk which star he would like to use for the time warp. He leans forward in his chair and says, "Second star to the right...and straight on till morning...that a'way! Let's see what's out there." Thus the endings to both the first and last film of the original film franchise would be alluded to in one swift moment, which, again, I cannot stress how poetic and thematically relevant such a moment would be for a reboot movie.
Then, then, you can again have future-Spock give his Star Trek II-calling-out "Space, the final frontier..." monologue, as, like I said, the Enterprise launches both literally and metaphorically into the future, both that of their own and of the entire franchise. That level of sentimentality would've at least felt earned!
There are other problems I have with the film (the ridiculously-implausible serendipity of Kirk running into the exact ice-cave of future-Spock; again, the incredibly jacked-up way Kirk takes command of the Enterprise from Spock; and Spock having a relationship with Uhura for no other apparent reason than just to have a tacked on romance); but if the film had followed through with firing the oh-so painfully obvious Chekov's gun of time-travel that had been set up throughout, then, with the help of the charisma of the characters and actors, I would have been as willing to overlook the flaws of this film as I am with the other 6 original-cast films.
That is, I would have been much more willing to welcome this film into the Star Trek pantheon of classic films.
For starters, for the film's big climax, the Enterprise comes in shooting, giving Spock cover as he prepares to crash his black-hole-red-matter-mini-ship into Nero's super-ship. It had already been repeatedly established by the film that Nero's ship, time-traveling from a century into the future, is an overmatch for anything and everything the Federation can throw at him. This would be like the Bizmark giving cover to a speed-boat running up against the Nimitz. The Enterprise is totally out-classed here, and their victory violates all of the film's own established rules.
In fact, the only decent blow the Federation had ever delivered against Nero was when the USS Kelvin, manned by Kirk's Dad, is rammed into Nero's ship in a desperate attempt to allow the shuttle-crafts to escape. Now, time-travel has already been introduced as a known factor in this reboot universe--in literary terms, this is called Chekov's gun, named after the Russian playwright Anton Chekov, who famously said, "If a gun is introduced in the first act, it must be fired by the last act." This is just a hard, fast rule of effective story telling. Shoot, Star Trek even has a Chekov in their cast, so there's doubly no excuse for not firing the gun here!
What I mean is, after Kirk rescues Capt. Pike off Nero's ship and steal future-Spock's mini-ship with the red-matter, Spock needs to rendezvous with the Enterprise to plan their next move. Scotty, still examining the transporter-formula given him by future-Spock (which had earlier allowed them to beam onto the Enterprise), has found that future-Spock has also brilliantly encoded therein the formula for time-warp (which future Spock is familiar with, as shown by Star Trek IV). Scotty shows this time-warp formula to "present"-Spock, who confirms Scottie's deductions.
Kirk, however, is unclear as to why this information is helpful, since traveling into the past, they will be even more outmatched than they are already. In fact, to even get close enough to throw red-matter into Nero's ship, they'd have to deliver a strong-blow to Nero's ship that they are not even close to being able to achieve. Spock, however, points that Kirk is mistaken--Nero's ship has been damaged before, by the Kelvin, 25 years earlier.
Kirk then understands that Spock proposes they travel back in time to when Nero's ship first was damaged by the Kelvin, and attack it then, when Nero's most vulnerable. This is the firing of Chekov's gun. Kirk then says facetiously, "But time-travel, really, Spock? Isn't that cheating?"
Spock replies: "I believe you would be the expert on that." This would bring Kirk's earlier dialogue with future-Spock full circle, as well as complete present-Kirk-and-Spocks' relationship which had begun antagonistically with Kirk's cheating on the Spock-programmed Koberashi-Maru earlier in the film. These allusions and circle-completions are likewise common and satisfying story-telling conventions.
So, since Vulcan is already in the neighborhood, the Enterprise uses the black-hole that was once Vulcan as their gravitational point by which they fling themselves back into the past. There is a count-down from Sulu, the whole ship starts to rattle, the drama ratchets up as they approach the dark abyss of the black hole itself, then there is a blinding flash, and...
Once again, Kirk's Dad is crashing the Kelvin into Nero's ship, as at the beginning of the film. The shuttle-crafts jump to warp and escape. Nero asks for a damage report, and while they discuss how long it will take them to effect repairs without 24th century repair-shops available, future-Spock's mini-ship appears. Nero fires on it. Then the Enterprise likewise appears to grant cover from Nero's damaged weapons. Then, you continue on with the original ending, as Nero's ship is sucked into another ginormous black hole, the Enterprise fires upon and destroys it as it collapses away, and they themselves must also make a daring escape as they are threatened to be sucked in themselves.
Now, what happens next is that they report to the nearest Starbase for more instructions. A confidential hearing is held. All of the Enterprise's tapes are authenticated, and the crew is commended for retroactively saving Vulcan and all the future Federation. However, they also discuss the temporal-paradox problems they now face--namely, the Enterprise flying back in time has created yet another new time-line, one that none can guarantee will turn out to be anything like the one they just saved. Also, someone will finally acknowledge just how jacked-up Kirk took control of the Enterprise, cause serious, those are some serious chain of command issues.
Then there is the fact that according to these same authenticated tapes, Kirk was even on academic suspension at the time of his taking command. But they can't just punish the people who just saved the Federation, so how on earth do they get around that? Kirk coughs and suggests, "Well, you could, you know, in the future, instead of putting me on suspension, maybe give me a commendation instead?"
"And just what on earth for?" asks one gruff Star Fleet officer.
"Original thinking?" suggests Spock. Thus allusion is made to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn.
The Hearing officials agree to this (having no other feasible recourse), so they make plans to have the future Enterprise follow this same path back in time to destroy Nero's ship (and thus hopefully keep the timeline secure), have them meet at this hearing again, and have the current crew return to the future. In order to save on confusion, the Enterprise, upon returning to their "present," will be ordered into deep-space, perhaps on a 5-year mission of exploration, until they can get all these time-line knots cleared up. (And thus allusion would be made to the original series!)
But, before they can depart, they are once again reminded that yet another new timeline has been created, and that the "present" they are returning to is not the same one they left. That is, the future is now both metaphorically and literally opened up to any possibility. This would be thematically satisfying, especially for a reboot movie.
Back on the Enterprise, Kirk asks Spock if he is excited to see his Mom once more. Spock expresses that he is satisfied, and expresses his condolences that Kirk will not likewise finally get to know the father he never knew. Kirk shrugs and says, "I like to think...there are always...possibilities..." which would likewise call out Star Trek II.
Scotty then calls the bridge, and informs the two that upon even further examination of future-Spock's formula, they do not require a black-hole for time-warp, but most any star will have the mass necessary to return to their "present." Sulu asks Captain Kirk which star he would like to use for the time warp. He leans forward in his chair and says, "Second star to the right...and straight on till morning...that a'way! Let's see what's out there." Thus the endings to both the first and last film of the original film franchise would be alluded to in one swift moment, which, again, I cannot stress how poetic and thematically relevant such a moment would be for a reboot movie.
Then, then, you can again have future-Spock give his Star Trek II-calling-out "Space, the final frontier..." monologue, as, like I said, the Enterprise launches both literally and metaphorically into the future, both that of their own and of the entire franchise. That level of sentimentality would've at least felt earned!
There are other problems I have with the film (the ridiculously-implausible serendipity of Kirk running into the exact ice-cave of future-Spock; again, the incredibly jacked-up way Kirk takes command of the Enterprise from Spock; and Spock having a relationship with Uhura for no other apparent reason than just to have a tacked on romance); but if the film had followed through with firing the oh-so painfully obvious Chekov's gun of time-travel that had been set up throughout, then, with the help of the charisma of the characters and actors, I would have been as willing to overlook the flaws of this film as I am with the other 6 original-cast films.
That is, I would have been much more willing to welcome this film into the Star Trek pantheon of classic films.
Monday, March 5, 2012
The Bell Jar
Continuing my adventures in reading books my students ask about that I've had to embarrassingly confess I haven't read, I finished Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar today. A surprising number of my female students have gushed to me their love of her poetry (poetry! These modern students have actually willingly enjoyed someone else's poetry!), and wonder what Plath's one novel is like.
In short, it's depressing. Virginia Woolf, in A Room of One's Own, describes a hypothetical sister of Shakespeare (provisionally named Judith), who is driven to madness and suicide by the force of her poetic gifts trapped in the repressive circumstances of a woman's body. Yet here in The Bell Jar we see Woolf's Judith play out in real time, in real life--and that in the mid-20th century, long after Shakespeare's far more sexist era has supposedly passed.
Now, gender-equality-wise, we are still even farther along now than the 1950s in which this novel takes place. Yet somehow this novel still doesn't feel like an anachronism, a dispatch from a lost world--no, young women everywhere are still distressingly identifying far to fully with the oppressed, depressed, and ultimately suicidal protagonist of The Bell Jar. Something is missing, something still has not been addressed, at far as our young women are concerned.
In short, it's depressing. Virginia Woolf, in A Room of One's Own, describes a hypothetical sister of Shakespeare (provisionally named Judith), who is driven to madness and suicide by the force of her poetic gifts trapped in the repressive circumstances of a woman's body. Yet here in The Bell Jar we see Woolf's Judith play out in real time, in real life--and that in the mid-20th century, long after Shakespeare's far more sexist era has supposedly passed.
Now, gender-equality-wise, we are still even farther along now than the 1950s in which this novel takes place. Yet somehow this novel still doesn't feel like an anachronism, a dispatch from a lost world--no, young women everywhere are still distressingly identifying far to fully with the oppressed, depressed, and ultimately suicidal protagonist of The Bell Jar. Something is missing, something still has not been addressed, at far as our young women are concerned.
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