Reel Pop

Commodore 64 Orchestra

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64, the first computer my family owned/cussed at. The Computer History Museum in Mountain View is celebrating the anniversary today. Jack Tramiel, founder and CEO of Commodore, will be there, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and William C. Lowe, father of the IBM PC.

The Netherlands' C64 Orchestra plays music from the games. Their tunes'll be familiar to anyone who ever waited for the 64's damnable disc drives to load the game visuals.

Coke and There.com = who cares?

Off topic, but I'm flummoxed: Why is Louise Story covering Coke's advertising efforts in virtual world also-ran There.com? That's not much of a news peg, since advertisers have been making earnest and desultory efforts in virtual worlds for years now.

“It’s really bringing the offline world, where you’re drinking our products, and the online worlds together,” said Carol Kruse, vice president for global interactive marketing at the Coca-Cola Company. Because in the online world you can do exciting things, like...look at our products. Oh. Joy.

Strikes me as similar to those stories back in 2003/2004 about all the wacky things you could buy on eBay. Old news.

Our Shared Guitar Hero Future

Off Topic: The NYTimes' Rob Walker on one of my favorite video games, Guitar Hero III:

Guitar Hero offers a connection to all this, but departs from it in an obvious way: You’re not actually playing the guitar. No matter how good you may get at Guitar Hero, if you decide to take up the real instrument at some point, you’ll be starting from scratch. (The reverse is true as well: Slash, the guitarist of Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver fame, recently confided to Conan O’Brien that while he enjoys Guitar Hero, and his actual playing is included in the new version, he stinks at it. “It’s two different animals,” he said.) This isn’t to say that Guitar Hero doesn’t require the steady acquisition of a measurable skill. It does. It’s just not a skill that involves creating music. But maybe that kid at Best Buy isn’t fantasizing about the end of the long and tedious road to attaining musical virtuosity and stardom; maybe, like the controllers of the various warriors and outlaws and strategists whose triumphs unfold in digitally created worlds, what he really wants to be is a great pretender.

Interesting. But I have no doubt whatsoever that during the next year we'll start seeing Guitar Hero enthusiasts start creating original scores via either an upcoming version of the game or some kind of hack/plug-in. The future of music is interactive gaming, bet on it.

And for those of you who doubt there's any skill involved in Guitar Hero, watch this video of an absurdly talented faux shredder.

Label Maker

Nothing to do with online video -- unless you're a futurist musing on the future of TV/movies -- but very, very chill: RCRD LBL, the new ad-supported free download site from Engadget founder Peter Rojas, launched today. The WSJ has the exclusive with some good background information on the fetid music industry. Download options so far are pretty strong: Tracks from Cold War Kids, Battles, New Young Pony Club, many more.

The Superest

The Superest: Player 1 draws a character with a power. Player 2 then draws a character whose power cancels the power of that previous character. Repeat.

Duty as a journalist to read the paper?

Poynter's Roy Peter Clark writes "It is your duty as a journalist and a citizen to read the newspaper -- emphasis on paper, not pixels." Is there any irony in the fact that he's making the argument online? That I heard about the article through the online journalism listserv?

Here's the rub, Roy: No amount of guilt-induced personal/professional subsidizing will counteract this simple fact: Journalism's all about inviting people to the agora, and the online agora simply accommodates more people, and more efficiently. Embrace it.

Google Health

Does anybody else feel like Google Health is just one more step towards Idiocracy-esque types of diagnosis?

Heroic simplicity in a time of strife

Consider the following: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, the Spider-Man franchise, both Fantastic Four movies, Hulk, The Incredible Hulk, Transformers, 300, Ghost Rider, and the new Iron Man movie.

In the last five years we've seen an explosion of superhero-based film (not to mention heroe-esque TV fare). What all these movies have in common, besides silly underwear and big box office returns, is an easily-digestible good vs. evil dichotomy.

Some observers would call our obsession with heroes a form of escapism during a time of societal tension. And while I'm inclined to share that view, it's worth noting that the simplistic dualities of our imaginary worlds are at the barest remove from the simplistic dualities espoused by our real-world leaders. Consider the "with us or against us" cowboy-isms of George Bush, the charisma-heavy, experience-light platform of Barack Obama, or the 12 commitments of Rudy Giuliani, which boil down to "a leader should lead regardless of what the people say."

All of this is simply to say that our reality is becoming its own form of escapism, repeating back to us the platitudes we're accustomed to consuming in the theater. I'm not a fan.

Transformers Soundwave MP3 Player

Nothing to do with video, but so kiddie toy-tastic that I had to post: Soundwave as an MP3 player, available to order or on eBay.

On the implausibility of the Death Star's trash compactor

2. Why do both walls of the trash compactor move towards each other, rather than employing a one-movable-wall system that would thus rely on the anchored stability, to say nothing of the strength, of the other, non-moving wall, to crush trash more effectively?

The Exorcist of Emoticons

Just a brief note to say that the smiley face emoticon in Gmail is really starting to freak me out. You type it, it's sideways, then it rotates 45 degrees while morphing into a creepy GIF image. The winking smiley, the one you type with a semicolon -- that one actually winks at you. Just stop it. Stop stop stop stop stop.

MySpace is for poor kids, Facebook is for WASPs

Danah Boyd discusses the socio-economic class divisions between MySpace and Facebook:

"MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn't go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. Teens who are really into music or in a band are on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers...That "clean" or "modern" look of Facebook is akin to West Elm or Pottery Barn or any poshy Scandinavian design house (that I admit I'm drawn to) while the more flashy look of MySpace resembles the Las Vegas imagery that attracts millions every year. I suspect that lifestyles have aesthetic values and that these are being reproduced on MySpace and Facebook."

Posting slow Thursday and Friday

Hey folks, thx for stopping by. Posting will be slow for the next few days as I gear up to host the first annual Wiimbledon tournament. Thx for your patience, and thx for reading. In the meantime, check out the video spoof on Microsoft's surface computing. High-larious.

Wiimbledon.net

On the off chance that you live in New York and like to play Wii Tennis, you are hereby invited to sign up for Wiimbledon.net's first Wii Tennis tourney, to be held on Saturday, June 23.

Survivor

(via) Netherlands public service TV network BNN plans to debut a reality show on June 1st in which a 37-year old terminally-ill brain cancer patient will choose live on TV which of three contestants in need of a kidney transplant will receive hers when she dies. EU politicians at The Hague are a wee miffed about the idea.

Wikipedia + IMDB would be nice

Every time I look for info on a movie, I check two sites: IMDB first, Wikipedia second. But I always check both, because they offer different benefits. IMDB is consistent with actor names, directors. Wikipedia is consistent with narrative information and esoteric, cross-referenced factlets. It'd be convenient if somebody combined the two.

Off Duty

Reel Pop is having a busy busy busy week. Apologies for the paucity of posts, which will resume in earnest tomorrow, if not sooner.

Shot dead at 25

As I was looking for set photos on Flickr from IFC's new web comedy, Getting Away with Murder, I ran across this photo of a man shot dead on a street in San Francisco. The photographer: An out of town guest. The photo description, in part:

A voice came onto the phone.
“California Highway Patrol.”
“Yeah, I’m on 17th and Mission and…”
“Oh, you’re in San Francisco? Please hold.”
I looked at those around me, at the dead kid.
“California9-1-1whatthefuckit’sretarded,” I said.
“San Francisco Emergency.”
“Hey, I’m on 17th and Mission. You got a guy here with two visible bullet holes in the chest.”
“Is he breathing?”
“No, he’s fucking dead.”
“Can you confirm your phone number.”
I did.
“Your name sir?”
“Eric.”
At that moment, I turned to look at Jennifer. She stood at the edge of an alley.
“We need to go, now. This is bad.”
Behind her lurked two male shadows.

Read the whole thing. Riveting.

Beachboyz II Men

On the YayHooray forums, band name mashups. A few of my faves:

Jason Priestley and the Argonauts
Vanilla Ice T
XTC & C Music Factory
Dave Matthews Band of Horses
REM Speedwagon

For what it's worth, my 8th grade middle school nickname was REO Steve Wagon. So there's that. Related: Coudal Partners' Booking Bands, in which the names of books and bands are mashed together to form:

The Things They Might Be Giants Carried
The Old Man and The Sea and Cake
Charlie Daniels and the Chocolate Factory
Catch 182
Of Mice and Men at Work

Keyboard Waffle

I'm not sure I want to be reminded of my keyboard at breakfast, but this design by Chris Dimino is intriguing. I wonder if you can get carpal tunnel from eating those things.

One month without the Internet

(via) Writer Stephen Elliott on taking a month off from the Web: "What is it like?" some asked. "I bet it's relaxing," they said, venturing a guess. "I wish I could do that," others mused wistfully, as if it were simply not possible for them. Still others thought I was a fool; they seemed to actually resent me for it. "Don't ask me what time the movie's playing, Mr. No-Internet." They refused to call when they found out I wouldn't be using e-mail: "I'll talk to you next month, when you're normal again."

Good umbrellas for bad weather

It's raining in New York. Again. If you're in the gift-buying mood, I will gladly accept delivery of a SENZ original umbrella. Apparently indestructible, even in a Netherlands windstorm. They are so choice, don't you agree?

Why come you have no MySpace?

Among the many disturbing consequences of the Virginia Tech tragedy may be an increased awareness of people who choose not to have public profiles. Loners. Miscreants off the grid.

Cho Seung-Hui didn't have a Facebook or a MySpace page. Several reports pointed to that as supporting evidence for his status as a "loner." Meanwhile, the news ran riot over MySpace and Facebook profiles, delving into the comments, the pathos, the digital memento mori. Fact, the social networking sites acted as a kind of perfect biosphere for the kudzu-like spread of the news. Everything was prepared for consumption and analysis.

An unfortunate consequence: In the future, those without profiles risk being ostracized. Privacy not as privilege, but as crime.

Hysterical? Maybe. Possible? Yup. If nothing else, at least Mike Judge agrees with me. Hence the scene below, from Idiocracy, in which Luke Wilson is persecuted for being "unscannable!"

I Could Write An Episode of Lost By Mashing My Balls on My Keyboard

I've always been a fan of Facebook discussion groups. Now I have a new fave, if only because of the title: "I Could Write An Episode of Lost By Mashing My Balls on My Keyboard."

So it goes (RIP Kurt Vonnegut)

In an irony that wouldn't be lost upon the author, one of the top results when searching for Kurt Vonnegut on Google Video is an interview on the radio program The Infinite Mind, filmed live within the virtual world Second Life. What's more real -- ghost or avatar? Below, a video biography of Kurt Vonnegut.

Humus me

Humus, an online art magazine created by Mirko Filippi and Luca Masini, proudly accepts submissions from anyone and everyone -- "You are free to contribute, Humus is free to choose..." -- but keeps a keen curatorial eye. The Web-only zine boasts that it's a "territory where images, creativity, thoughts and expressions have no border line or demarcation line." Ironic, then, that armed with the boundless Web palette, the zine's designers choose to present the (excellent) work inside the image of a book. Worth a look nonetheless.

Mims the word

Quite possibly the best analysis of a Billboard #1 song ever: Rob Harvilla's graphical dissertation on Mim's "This is why I'm Hot." Below, the video to the song.

Reel Pop moderates at Ypulse Mashup 2007

Anastasia Goodstein, chronicler of the online perambulations of teens and tweens, is hosting the first ever YPulse Mashup Conference this summer at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco. Yours truly will be moderating a panel on how the old school -- linear TV, magazines, newspapers -- is tackling online obstacles and opportunities. On the panel: Diane Naughton, Vice President of Marketing, HarperCollins Children's Books; Chuck Cordray, Vice President and General Manager, Digital Media, Hearst Magazines; Jane Grenier, Publisher of CondeNet's Flip.com; and one lucky television exec yet to be determined.

The keynote speakers at the conference will be social network expert Danah Boyd and Convergence Culture author and MIT professor Henry Jenkins.

All the booze that's fit to print

"Depression, Drink and Dissipation" finds that almost half of the best people to ever push a noun against a verb in newsprint were debilitated by depression, serious anxiety, or bipolar disorder; over a third were titanic drunks, pill-poppers, or opium-addicts; nearly a third were serial philanderers, and a sizable bunch were misogynists, man-eaters, or violent bullies. In almost every case, the tendency to booze, carouse, or otherwise self-annihilate developed or seriously deepened during their days in journalism. All this is enough to make Underwood, who left a career covering politics for the Seattle Times to teach at the University of Washington, wonder whether "these behaviors and the choice of journalism and writing as a career are perhaps not unrelated." Well, yeah.

Ill Communication

(via) ITP student Ryan Holsopple has created a murder mystery using public pay phones at the muy nasty Canal Street station in Manhattan.

Related: Why some NYC subway stations like Times Square and Canal Street are such complicated labyrinths of unending misery. (Hint: They used to be run by three different private companies.)

You want the pink robots?! You can't handle the pink robots!

Aaron Sorkin, writer of A Few Good Men, Studio 60, and many more films and TV shows that celebrate hyperverbal bipedalism, has signed up to turn the Flaming Lips' 2002 album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots into a Broadway musical.

Don't you get it? If we charge the readers more, they'll stop reading free news on those other sites. Duh.

Great piece by Mark Glaser on how investigative journalism will persist despited shrinking profits at newspapers. Related: News21, a partnership among five universities to teach investigative journalism (with a hefty online syllabus) to j-school students.

Arnold Schwarzenegger on the Viacom YouTube lawsuit

Ah-nold presents an oddly articulate summation of both parties' arguments in the video-sharing brouhaha.

Off-Topic: The graphic design of Mike Judge's Idiocracy

A closer look at the graphic design of Idiocracy, a brilliant comedy that has much in common with dystopian flicks like Brazil and Children of Men.

Off Topic: 13 Sidekicks who are better than their heroes

#3: R2D2. "When even the new Star Wars movies can't make a character completely uncool, that's a sign of endurance."

Off Topic: World Press Day winners

(via) The winning World Press Day photo reveals well-heeled Lebanese driving through a bombed-out neighborhood in South Beirut. Their casual expressions of curiosity amid the rubble -- sunglasses shining, cell phones at the ready -- capture perfectly the upper class apathy that infests our perilous present. It is an attitude that Alfonso Cuaron captured perfectly in Children of Men.