"we have met the enemy..."

go see district 9. i know, it's the big sensation. the movie makers spent next to nothing, campaigned obliquely and it shredded the box office opening weekend. the plot is not complex. aliens landed on earth and for some reason can't leave. they've been quarantined in a place called 'district 9.' in johannesburg of all places--not very subtle. but don't write it off yet. i loved this movie. the premise is pure science fiction genius. aliens have come to earth in a disc-shaped spaceship, but rather than being bent on human destruction, they are refugees.

the nerd in me became excited as soon as i saw the preview. is that a giant alien spaceship? is it hovering over johannesburg? are those humans clad in white supposed to be bad or good? is this filmed like a documentary? so many of the right questions.

from the perspective of the science fiction nerd that i am, the movie did not disappoint. the aliens and their technology (read: cool weapons) was creatively imagined. the actor portraying the main character does an excellent job. i instantly empathized with him as a very real but flawed character. he's no hero. he seems somewhat pathetic and then only interested in saving himself. one of my favorite things about this movie is that it does a wonderful job of letting all its character play to their self-interests in really authentic ways.

there are several antagonists, but all fall under the umbrella of mnu, a giant defense company, not unlike blackwater (now xe servcies). this adds another layer to an already rich story. one that increasingly reflects our own, boring, non-sci-fi lives.

i think the most difficult part of the film is the audience's ability to identify with aliens that resemble large bugs (their referred to as "prawns" in the movie). the filmmakers fight to make the audience empathize with the aliens by giving them eyes similar to our own. the dialogue style between the two species is also authentic. the humans and aliens can understand each other vaguely, but each speaks in their own language and they often misinterpret one another. again, though the subject is pretty fantastic, the way the characters operate is very believable.

throughout the film, the parallels to our own society are purposefully explicit. it is this lack of subtlety that i think makes many true science fiction movies great. this movie does an excellent job of trying to let its characters and situations play themselves out in the world they inhabit. at the same time, this is sci-fi and it's supposed to be absurd. we're talking about an alien spaceship floating over johannesburg for 25 years. things should get a little crazy. naturally, there are a lot of ridiculous explosions--buildings explode, aliens explodes, people explode, pigs explode. it is over the top. does this make the movie contradictory? yes, but as any good sci-fi film would be.

like i said earlier, it's pretty explicit from the outset that we're getting into some heavy stuff when the human-alien relationships reflect apartheid-era south africa. the documentary-style filmaking helps parallel the fantastic events of the film to our own society. the sight of burning and armored cars rumbling through the hulks of destroyed cars are too familiar to make this escapist.

the fundamental theme of the film is the "us versus them" mentality. without giving too much away, we watch the main character, who has been profiting off the status quo come to realize that he is a 'them' and not an 'us.' it's great stuff--engaging and fun to watch.

at the same time, this has me thinking alot about metaphors, particularly in science fiction. i worry that the very nature of the genre will mean that much of the weight of the story is lost on the audience. again, i love science fiction and i think that more often than not it reflects more about the society of the creator than the fantastic scenes it portrays. i fear though that in a film like this, the metaphor can become too theoretical. the film uniquely portrays a very old story: that we will always seek division over unity. that it will inevitably be easier to justify persecuting and demonizing the other side than to struggle to live together. but i guess it has me wondering that the power of that simple theme will be lost or overwhelmed by extravagant nature of the broader story. i know that it is part of the limitation of the genre. maybe that is what differentiates a simply interesting story with one that is ultimately true. the lessor story will be lost in the spectacle while the truest narrative will penetrate even the most fantastic situations. i prefer to think distrcit 9 is the latter.

things that make me laugh part vii

more to come soon. enjoy this for now.

see more Fail Blog

who owns who?

perhaps this is mostly me fumbling to make sense of the ins and outs of everyday, but my life seems to take on themes. right now, it feels like the theme that keeps coming up is digital hyperconnectivity and anxiety. ben got the ball rolling on his blog a few weeks ago. it's definitely worth following the conversation on his blog. my contribution was the thought that with technology, like all things, we must find a balance rather than clinging to simple extremes.

then, a week ago i listened to an excellent podcast on econtalk. econtalk is my weekly chance to listen to people who are smarter than me talk about things i don't understand. actually, whether you care about economics, markets, and human social behavior or not, it's a really interesting podcast. one of my favorite traits of the show's host, russ roberts, is that he has plenty of guest who hold opinions that differ from his own and engages them in honest, tame discussion.

my like for econtalk aside, i really enjoyed a recent podcast in which roberts interviewed author mark helprin. though they ostensibly were debating intellectual copyright, about halfway through the show, they begin to discuss humans and technology. helprin makes a good point that rather than technology making our lives easier, it often forces us to bend to it, making our lives more complicated for the sake of productivity. he notes after all that has changed about this world, humans still need food, friends/family, and rest. this thought is at once obvious and revolutionary. at this moment, if the general trend in our culture is moving towards anything, it is certainly not for doing less in the name of rest. it is to utilize the latest gadgets to do as much as possible. rather than allowing us more free time, most technology seems to give us more work and more stress. check the podcast out here, i think it's worth a listen.

recently, i've been thinking alot about the role of anxiety in my own life. my worry-free external persona is often an act, covering anxiety about some of the most mundane tasks. i wonder to what extent this anxiety is exacerbated by being connected to the internet all day long. i know the ability to learn next to nothing about almost any topic has destroyed my attention span. i also wonder the extent to which knowing about something i have to do the second the email arrives creates added stress.

i know that in many ways this topic is far from new. people much smarter than i have been saying "less is more" for years. it also seems like simplicity is definitely back in style, most likely as a result of our collectively hyperconnected lives. the super nerdy sci-fi part of my mind thinks that if the world was ever going to be taking over by machines, it wouldn't look anything like the movies. instead, we would simply continue down our current path, each generation altering their lifestyle more and more to accommodate the machines. i know this is ridiculous sounding, and i don't mean it in all seriousness, but i still think it's worth puzzling over. ok, maybe it's not worth puzzling over the robot takeover (and make no mistake, they will take over). but it is worth thinking about our own dependence on machines. don't worry, i'll continue to use my computer, i may even get a fancy phone one day. so i'm certainly not refuting my earlier point about technology, like most things, being both good and bad. but the more i think about it, the more difficult it seems to find the balance between owning the computer and the computer owning you.

my birthday party

about this time last week i was pretty frustrated with my wife. a few days earlier she'd told me we had to go to nashville for one final birthday present. i know, this makes me sound like an ass, which i am. but at least let me explain. first, we've been out of town a lot this summer. second, sonic youth was playing in st louis for free last weekend, i thought on saturday, leaving plenty of time for us to get back. last friday morning i checked the concert date and found it was set for friday evening. of course, i protested, "do we really have to go this weekend? why do we have to go to nashville to get this?" again, you can see what a jerk i am. my wife has a present for me in nashville, clearly she's put some thought and care into whatever it is, but i want my plan.

despite my efforts, we got on the road friday afternoon and drove to nashville, had dinner with my parents, and went to the barmes' house to hang out/receive my present. to some of you it might seem obvious what was coming next. the thought went through my mind several times during the 4.5 hour drive, "either she's gonna give me some lame antique that she bought in nashville, or all my friends will be there. she should know that all my friends would make me the most happy. just prepare for a random gift, jason. otherwise, you'll be disappointed." obviously, i'm egocentric and cared little for whatever my wife had actually invested in this present. it didn't help that i talked to several nashville friends along the way who told me they probably could not hang out friday night.

we arrived and anna and joe's house and said hello. franny urinated all over there brand new carpet so i took her out back. at this point, i had resigned to the belief that it was just the four of us hanging out. mildly dissappointed, but still happy to be among friends, i went out back and was surprised by everyone hiding under the porch.

you can check out the few picture we got of the party below. the last of us were up until 3, so i'd say most had a good time. in spite of my selfish whining, my wife planned a great birthday present.

drama

i was looking through old emails the other day and came across and something i'd written to myself over three years ago. i had just started my first job after college. now, it seems dramatic , miserable and verbose. but because i just found out i'll continue to work at that same job for the foreseeable future, it seems fitting to put it up here. i cringed re-reading it at times--fill free to ridicule me, but in some strange way, i'm also proud of myself for actually writing it when i did. my nature is to keep things bottled up and outwardly complain as little as possible. which is obviously not the healthiest way to live life. maybe i should be writing my thoughts more often as a way of processing my life. don't worry, this blog is not about to turn into a cyber-emotion vomit session.

here it is in all it's unedited glory.

It's the sitting that eventually wears me down, day by day. Sitting in the same place all day long, yet somehow still unable to make my body stand and walk around the office. Surely at the very least I could convince myself I needed to go to the bathroom.

No.

I sit. By the slight adjustment of my left foot, I can swing the swivel chair in quick, short motions—right to left. I instinctively twist my right index finger until it pops. This is perhaps the 22 ^nd time I have performed this procedure or ritual today.

Like I said, it's the sitting that eventually makes me feel numb. My body feels as if it were asleep but its not. Unfortunately, the same can be said of my brain. Though it's more asleep than any other portion of me now. My fingers tap keys with relative precision. I only use the delete key sparingly, which usually isn't a good thing. Editing is a good thing. But that's how I got here in the first place. Editing.

Trying to type up my thoughts to a best friend, I found myself editing every word I said. For every argument I made, the counter-argument came to my mind. It was not that these 'counter-arguments' were exceptional. My primary ones were probably no better. It was that they were there. There is nothing quite so staggering as having two converse thoughts in your mind. It forces you to tiredness.

Tiredness. The phrase that seems to always be with me, making me drag my own feet below me. Why is that? i don't stay up well into the night. I walk somewhat regularly. I don't smoke that much. Barely any at all. Yet I feel like I'm missing out on something. That, by being so tired, I have succumbed to some external force applying unrelenting pressure. I can't understand it other than by association. At this moment, I associate this feeling with my current occupation.

Unfortunately, they haven't come up with a word for what I do. 'Office lackey,' is my personal term for it. I suppose like any job, it has its moments. I've found that I simply enjoy completing a task and doing it well, if I can. This is what scares me.

If I enjoy the completion of a task, regardless of the task itself, why the sluggish feeling?

I know it's not necessarily this job that continues to grind me down--though I have hoped for so long that is was this job. It is just having a job. That freedom ripped from me and hidden forever. The monotony of a daily routine so endlessly unchanging, clinked into place. Its very presence pressing out with unrelenting vigor the joys of my previous life into an afterthought. Work must now become my life.

But wait. This is normal. Everyone in the middle to upper echelon experiences this transformation, both abrupt and total, right? Had we not known that moment (most will call this higher education) free of major responsibility and time constraint, we should, in fact, be enjoying our employment all the more. Had we not known a time of plenty, the want would not seem so wanton.

I suppose.

But how much of my current job is to do with me and how much is to do with it?

This is the moment the confusion and sometimes discouragement begins to set in. What if its my own laziness? What if its the fact that I'm not being motivated? And then the inevitable question that is yet further down the path of confusion, what if its both?

If my last question, prying and unrelenting is correct, then simply getting a different line of work would have varying degrees of success--in the light of finding joy in my employment.

soulard farmers market

a few weeks ago megan's brother and his girlfriend came to visit us in stl. being good st. louisans we showed one the city's treasures: the soulard farmer's market.

now is prime season for just about anything, so megan brought the camera along and snapped some excellent pictures. though i love the fresh produce, my staples are the cheap all-beef hotdogs and beer you can purchase onsite.

the people are pretty awesome, too. most cruise the peddler's nooks, looking for the coming week's produce, but a i think more than a few just come to drink bloody marys on saturday morning and walk around. i understand that the market has become a become a kind of tourist attraction, but luckily it's not too annoying. i've had some of my best saturday mornings there.

new media

tipped off by another blog, i began following the riots in tehran and the rest of iran via twitter today. an occasional twitterer, i have rarely followed the trends on twitter until today. after a few minutes, i was addicted. not only are users in iran reporting events there as they occur, they are also using the service to coordinate protests. i can sit at my desk and read about events literally as they happen across world, from the perspective of the people actually there. not even the 24 hour news channels can give me this. the prospect is frightening.

on one hand, i can't stop reading. that some sort of revolution may be occurring before our eyes online is amazing and hope-bearing. it seems like pundits and nerds have been toting the extra-social implications of facebook and twitter for a long time. other than the obama campaign, this is the first time the utilities have really had a major role to play in the political scene. it is exciting to witness. i hope that truth and justice prevails in iran.

on the other hand, i fear that this could be nothing more than "some weird voyeurism (no idea on the source here, i believe it is a comment on a youtube video of the protests)"--an extension of current hyper-connected media outlets. what does my ability to witness iranian intellectuals and middle class protest a dishonest and oppressive government have to do with their struggle?

in some real ways, what we're seeing in iran via twitter goes beyond 5 minute updates on CNN. the updates come from protesters in the field, not from a news correspondent or even via an interview. the protesters themselves are using the service to coordinate, allowing users around the globe to interact and perhaps even contribute in small ways. throughout the day, users have been posting proxy address that allow users inside iran to bypass government filtering.

but in many other ways, reality remains the same. though we can see the brutality of the government crushing dissent firsthand, i fear that the images will be lost amid a sea of violence that floods u.s. and worldwide audiences every day. though personal interaction in new media removes many of the alienating aspects of traditional media, i wonder what it will actually change. our skins are thick and the problems of the world seem so daunting.

this is not to say that all of new media is nothing but the same. my views on the world are shaped far more by blogs and podcasts than by traditional media sources and i consider this a good thing. but both do require the understanding that there is nothing without bias or interpretation. i suppose you at least get to chose whose filter to receive the world through.

regardless of the reaction of the witnessing world, it is certainly true that outcome of the next few days will be wholly left up to the iranians. i have no idea what will happen, but it seems like the worst thing that can happen is nothing.

update: the new york times has a good article about twitter in iran here. twitter postponed a scheduled maintenance downtime, acknowledging of the service's significance in iran.

and this is a hopeful blog post from the daily beast. excerpt: "like civil rights protestors who sang rousing hymns as they were carried off to jail, twitterers are bearing witness to what's happening around them, and calling out into the darkenss of cyberspace for confirmation."

where HAVE i been?

i'll just skip over any apology to my readers. i know i've talked to the two of you in the months intervening my posts anyway. at this point, this blog seems to be really for myself and i can't even keep it up with that in mind. 

a couple months ago, i got a call from my boss. given to pessimism, at least internally, i'd imagined a call like this before. it was still a big shock. "we're going to have to move you to part time." to be honest, it was not as bad as i feared. but i was not getting a raise, either. so i began again my uncertain search for a new job, either part or full time. 

i had about a month from that phone call until my pay went to part time. i don't remember exactly how many applications i submitted. i don't want to exaggerate and claim it was in the hundreds, but 50 is safe number. the month began to wind down and i had no real leads. i'm not naturally inclined towards stress, but that last week, i felt like some giant thing was grinding mercilessly towards me and would certainly crush me. that's bit melodramatic, but it felt that way. 

providentially, i received two calls back later that week. one landed me a job interviewing teenagers for a study with a university here in town. it was supposed to last until this summer. it ended this week instead. while i'm grateful for the work, it got old. really fast. for the past month i was cruising malls, creepily asking teenagers for their opinion. recruiting anyone for a survey can be draining work. getting turned down by pre-teens was excruciating at times.

but, like i said, it was work. now, i'm back to the drawing board. i've got a couple more leads that will hopefully materialize into some manual labor soon. after a few years of white collar boredom, it'll be nice to get paid for using my hands again. 

i'm also hoping to branch out in my regular work. though only a hobby, i have always enjoyed graphic design (new logo, above). i'm going to begin tutorial in adobe's latest creative suite sometime next month. i hope i can develop this an additional skill. depending on my success, i may even go back to school. but i'm not willing to think about that too much right now. so if you're in need of a little design work, let me know. i'm completely fine learning on the job.

so there's my explanation for the past few months. look for another post sometime around july.

george clooney is a real person

[this post was supposed to go out last week. my abysmal blogging habits continue to disappoint even my expectations. so, one week later, here it is]

my half-hearted belief that modern film actors don't exist except as ones and zeroes on gigantic hard drives in studio back lots died on monday evening. up the block from our house, we caught george clooney and crew filming a scene for up in the air. when i say "caught," i mean we stood with a group of about 50 people and watched a movie being made across the street. i'm 95% positive that the tanish grayish head i saw driving a red chrysler was his. 

he and accompanying actress pulled into the front of the cheshire parking lot a few times and then production moved inside. while the cheshire's "fox and hound" bar is my favorite location to drink beer and pretend to be in england or a cheeky fake england, i was a little surprised they wanted to film there. it got even weirder when we realized the production crew had put wisconsin plates on all the cars. wtf?!

when you see a shabby, kitsch, tudor style motel in the movie and assume by the cars' plates you're in wisconsin, remember that it's actually missouri and my mission will have been accomplished.

where the wild things are

i know i've been absent for too long. and i promise a more in depth post soon. but for now, enjoy.

hat tip to em for mentioning the song and to AustinatMCG  for posting the linke via twitter. this made my afternoon.