Author: josh

Hedgehog in the Fog

My friend Eddie just posted a link to a film called “Hedgehog in the Fog” on YouTube. I watched it, enjoyed pieces of it, didn’t enjoy several others, and now I’m feeling quite shallow. Let me explain. (Warning, some spoilers ahead. I recommend watching the film before reading further.)

For the first minute or so of the film, I really enjoyed it. The style is very playful, disarming, and unique. The folks who worked on the film are obviously very talented designers and animators.

Then I got further into the story and my feelings shifted. I started wanting a concrete plot. As the story progressed, it began making less and less sense. I understand that the hedgehog is disoriented and scared, and that the world is a beautiful, mysterious, frightful, wonderful place. I also understand that sometimes it’s nice to see new things, and sometimes it’s nice to be in a familiar place with familiar friends. Outside of that, though, the whole film felt like 95% style and 5% story to me. Heck, even 99% style and 1% story.

The thing that I’m calling “shallow” in myself is that I don’t enjoy those ratios, at least not in film. Or in books, for that matter. In music, dance, and visual art those ratios are fine. I don’t really need a concrete story in those art forms. (I suppose I’ve proven that by my love of Beck; you’d be hard-pressed to come back with anything very concrete from any of his songs.)

For some reason I hold film and books to a different standard than music, dance, and visual art. I’m not sure why exactly. I think it may be because film and books are highly capable of telling a deep, intricate story with lots of detail and dance, music, and visual art would have a very hard time matching film and books in that way. So I let them off the hook, so to speak, and expect something different from them. When I think of the movies and books that I tend to prefer, they’re all fairly plot-driven (e.g. Harry Potter) and not as deeply metaphorical or stylistic as some of their counterparts. I’m struggling to come up with a “counterpart” here because I tend not to read those kinds of books. Let’s say Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. But that’s exactly my point. It took me two minutes to come up with that book and two seconds to come up with Harry Potter.

So, is that shallow? I do occasionally enjoy an artistic film. 2001: A Space Odyssey is actually one of my all-time favorites, and we can all agree the plot breaks down quite completely near the end of the film. But films like that are certainly an exception for my favorites list.

Has anyone else felt the way I do on this issue? What are the pitfalls of this perspective on art, and should a person strive to move beyond it? If so, how can that leap be made?

Hey, Frank

Kooks have always fascinated me. There are so many varieties, and it’s interesting to see what they latch onto and why. They express their ideas in a way that must seem so clear to them but is completely opaque to others. It’s obvious that the Internet has a special way of bringing even more of these folks out of their dark corners of obscurity. Sites like Time Cube and Rixstep are fun to browse. (I insist Rixstep is a real up-and-comer in this category. He’s got a special Mac Developer slant to his work that brings him closer to home for me personally. His software has even inspired haikus in those who have used it.)

Today as Steph and I were leaving the Moscone Convention Center and heading back to our car, we ran across a minor San Francisco celebrity. As we passed him, I turned my head and said, “Hey, Frank.” Steph waited until we got a few steps away and said, “Who was that? Do you know that guy?” I don’t really know him, but it’s hard not to recognize Frank Chu once you’ve seen him. No one really understands his message, of course, but that doesn’t deter the forward-thinking companies who sponsor his sign. He’s apparently been getting sponsors since 2001 and I can confirm he had one this afternoon, though I didn’t have time to stop and see exactly who it was.

Rock on, Frank. Maybe some day we’ll all find out you were right and impeach Clinton for colluding with the 12 galaxies. Until then, get more of your stuff on YouTube! Even an idiot with a totally stupid video can get 270,000+ views up there.

By the way, Zegnotronic would make a great band name. zegnotronic.com is available!

MacBook Air

MacBook Air

So very, very thin. I had to cross my eyes just to see it, like some kind of Magic Eye picture.

It’s strange because in this photo, it doesn’t look that thin. In person it’s a different story. I can’t believe they fit a functioning computer into this package. The Apple Employee working the show floor who showed me the working model confided that she suspects secret alien technology is at play somehow in its design.

Caleb’s Story: Parentnoia

In late September I wrote an entry promising that I would write at least once more about the first few days after Caleb’s birth. Over three months have passed, and this is long overdue, but it must be done because some pieces of this fascinate me still. I want to move forward and write several more entries on other topics, so this is the last entry I’ll write on Caleb’s birth. I mean, I only posted once in December. Once! Am I really still a blogger? I’m not sure. But here I go, anyhow.

People say that the first time you see your child, something changes or shifts inside of you that is completely irreversible. They usually follow that statement up with, “You fall in love with that child completely, instantly.” For me, that wasn’t quite true. In the intervening four months, it has become true as I’ve gotten to know Caleb, but the emotion I actually felt instantaneously was a desire to protect Caleb from harm.

I found myself watching him carefully, watching the nurses handle him, constantly thinking about what might go wrong and how I could stop any bad things from happening. How I might… I don’t know, scoop Caleb up with my left arm while fighting off his attackers with my right. (What kind of baby has attackers, anyhow?) I’ve never had thoughts like that come flooding into my mind before, and for the first few days after Caleb was born, they didn’t stop. Is he still breathing? Is he hurt? Who is that nurse that says she needs to take him into the next room and how long has she worked here? I haven’t seen her before. What if she’s a fake? What if someone kidnaps him? (Even though he had a special proximity security tag literally strapped to his ankle by the hospital.)

Steph had some of these same feelings, and we took to calling it “parentnoia.” I can only imagine how hellish the lives of people with actual paranoia must be. Thankfully for Steph and me, the more extreme, ridiculous parts of these feelings lasted only for the first few days after he was born. Once we had left the hospital four days later, we were back to normal.

Aside from the parentnoia, there was one other moment in the first few days that really stood out to me as being really seminal. About an hour after Caleb’s birth the room started to calm down and the nurses went back to business as usual, taking care of Steph and me, asking questions, and doing paperwork as the rising sun came over the eastern hills and poured through our window. At one point Steph turned to me as I stood next to her bed and asked, “Do you want to hold him?” Keep in mind, now, that I have no experience with babies. I think before this point I had held two other babies in my life, and had never taken care of any. To me, babies were made of glass; they were priceless and delicate and one ought not handle them for the same reasons one would also not handle the Ming vase on display in a museum. So I hesitated for a second at Stephanie’s question. She didn’t look disappointed or judge me, she just smiled softly and said, “He’s your son.”

Whew! Excuse me for a second. I’m literally tearing up as I write this.

I didn’t hesitate after I heard that. I took him from her, wrapped tightly in his little hospital-supplied receiving blanket, and sat in a rocking chair by the window. As I looked down into his face, something inside me kinda tipped and fell over. I began to cry, and I just couldn’t stop. I wept like a little girl for probably fifteen minutes, rocking in that sunlit chair, my tears splashing down on his sleeping face. I’ve since then referred to this emotion as “superjoy.” I’ve never felt anything like it before or since then. It was amazing. I think that moment in the rocking chair was probably the moment that Caleb shifted inside my mind from being a baby to being my son. As I move forward, I’m finding those two things are entirely, completely different. Things other people’s kids have done for years that I never cared about or noticed are now deeply interesting and entertaining to me as Caleb does them. Conversely, other things are slightly less important to me now that he’s around. Priorities shift, it’s true. But it seems to me to be a very worthwhile shift. The currency I’m paid in by Caleb didn’t exist before his birth, but it’s very real and very valuable to me.

Thursday Rant: The Info Grab

Sometimes I’ll be browsing around online and see an advertisement for an offer that actually interests me, so I’ll click it. For instance, I saw an ad for “Blockbuster by Mail” for $4 a month, and I wanted to get more details on that in case it was a better deal than Netflix.

In this type of situation, the next page I see is always on the advertiser’s own site, which is expected. But rather than giving me information about what they’re advertising, what they’re offering me, and why I might be interested, the first step many companies take is to ask for my information. They ask for my name, email address, home address, whatever they think they can get. There’s usually no concrete, “Here’s what we’re offering you,” on the first page.

Instead, the info grab says, “We’re afraid you’re going to leave quickly when you see we’re not offering a compelling deal, and we’re kinda desperate. Please give us additional ways through which we can advertise to you so we get something out of you before you leave.” In a more subtle way, the info grab says, “We don’t really love our product, and we’re not confident you will either,” because their first actions are protection and mitigation instead of sharing information with me about their product. It’s not a conversation. It’s a game of frickin’ chess.

They fail in their attempts, anyway. I close the window every time. I never even found out whether Blockbuster’s deal was any good, because I won’t do business with a company that puts itself first in lame ways like that. I’m all for capitalism! Go ahead, make money off me. But a savvy, cut-throat consumer is the other pillar that supports the capitalist system. If you suck, you don’t get my money. End of story.