Thursday, December 6, 2012
Asterios Polyp
I read nearly all of David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp. This was my first graphic novel, or at least
the farthest I have ever read into a graphic novel. My roommate is extremely into comics, graphic
novels, and anime and has thus been showing me certain indie related
paraphernalia throughout the years. For
whatever reason comics had never excited me at any time growing up and still
today do not interest me much. I read
Asterios Polyp because it was of course assigned and can say I actually enjoyed
it. I enjoyed the non-linear narrative in
Mazzucchelli’s writing and after watching Annie Hall recently in my film class,
find certain narrative structure to be very similar. I thought the colors were interesting as well
as certain drawing techniques used to communicate different ideas or personalities. I think for example drawing himself angularly
and the woman curved is one just illustrating their gender. I also thought the blueprint style renderings
and angular drawings reference his life as an architect. I was surprised I was able to read into it as
far as I did and also surprised I was able to continue reading. In reading Asterios Polyp I have become more
open to the medium and style of comic and graphic storytelling.
Director John Hughes
I chose to discuss the work of John Hughes. I picked the films The Breakfast Club, Ferris
Beuller’s Day Off, and Home Alone.
Hughes career is typically categorized under teenage rebellion/coming of
age comedies. He is clearly interested
in this moment in his own life as well as the particular set of years between
high school and college that teenagers go through. He draws upon subject matter that we have all
experienced and immediately can pull some type of connection or memory
from. If you haven’t made it to high
school it might be an environment in which you base your perception off
of. When thinking about his own
authorship it is difficult to pinpoint specifically a character in his films
directly seeming more as a relatable blend of each person he has come
across. There are archetypes of rebels,
slackers, bullies, prom queens, nerds, and jocks, roles not missing from any
high school film ever made. A difference
you with Hughes’ films though as you continue watching though is that you began
to empathize with each and every character.
There backgrounds and believability feel real and there is no reason to
deny they aren’t that way for a reason.
It is clear that Hughes was just sitting back and observing everything
for all his formative years, witnessing these clicks first in his own
life.
The main character, although not as easily identified in The
Breakfast Club, seems typically adventurous with a little bit of a devious
side. They are out to stir something
up. There are characters in states of
suicidal breakdowns and the parents hardly seem to exist if at all. I think John Hughes has got to be a fan of
Charles Schultz. Even further the kids are
nearly abandoned from parental figures.
The idea plot of Home Alone revolves around the parents leaving their
child behind so he can essentially prove he doesn’t need them. A certain importance that makes John Hughes
films works of art has to do with the availability of each role he leaves for
the viewer to fit into. He is able to
construct an environment of nostalgia and general respect for those coming of
age years we’ve all had growing up. As
Cameron’s father’s priceless car roles backwards off the cliff we remember that
time we broke an expensive vase at a friends house or popped our mothers
exercise ball. As Kevin is swinging from
a window to his tree house or driving his video camera remote control car
around we are reminded of building forts and playing spy. He creates relationships and dynamics that
bounce of each other, characters that need each other in order to keep themselves
balanced. Hughes seems optimistic about
youth, he seems to believe in young people and ultimately is young at
heart. In Death of the Author, Barths
said that the essential meaning of a work depends on the
impressions of the reader, rather than the "passions" or
"tastes" of the writer; "a text's unity lies not in its
origins," or its creator, but in its destination.” John Hughes takes inspiration from everything
he has witnessed. Hughes may want the
film to be received a certain way or mean a certain thing but it is in fact
what the viewer can take away and how they are affected. The role of an author and his role as a
director is to create the template for the audience to mold.
Lolita (PT 2)
“I would be a knave to say,
and the reader a fool to believe, that the shock of losing Lolita cured me of
pederosis. My accursed nature could not change, no matter how my love for her
did. On playgrounds and beaches, my sullen and stealthy eye, against my will,
still sought out the flash of a nymphet's limbs, the sly tokens of Lolita's
handmaids and rosegirls. But one essential vision in me had withered: never did
I dwell now on possibilities of bliss with a little maiden, specific or
synthetic, in some out-of-the-way place; never did my fancy sink its fangs into
Lolita's sisters, far far away, in the coves of evoked islands.”
No one can directly know for sure whether or not Humbert loved
Lolita. In class we of course discussed
the morality in the work. That is
undoubtedly the ultimate question and the one that will be argued again and
again. Its doubtful anyone would firmly
say that this novel is morally decent most completely write off Humbert as a
monster. He even says so himself. Lolita is not even near an appropriate age to
be in any kind of romantic relationship
Lolita cannot simply be written off as a novel about a
twisted pedophile in pursuit of a child.
There is much more going on here.
My roommate and I had an interesting discussion attempting to decide
whether or not Humbert was a victim himself.
The backstory is presented when we discover the childhood affair between
him a girl, both 14. They immediately
fall in love and spend their days wrapped in each other’s arms, exploring the bases
of young romance. Humbert’s happiness is
cut off as his first love tragically and suddenly dies of typhus. They had apparently fooled around, but never
slept together. He never had closure, this
of course does not validate his actions, in no circumstance is a grown man ever
allowed to have intercourse with a twelve year old; but we become aware why he
is so stuck on innocent young girls. The
argument that he is in fact a victim, didn’t refer to his illness, it refers to
the way Lolita treated him from the very start.
She teases him, flirts with him, touches him and acts in a maturity
level unfathomable of a child. She is
extremely inappropriate for a girl her age and it could not work any better for
Humbert. He is in fact helpless. Just in the way that is unorthodox for a man
to be attracted to pre pubescent girls it is unordinary for a girl to flirt
with a 30 something man. I not sure the
argument is stable though. Not even a
man with morals, a man chemically should not have any desire to be with a twelve-year-old
girl. Regardless of the fact that she flirts
and plays with his heart, no matter the ability Lolita had to affect his
emotions, Humbert should refuse them. It
comes back to his past and inability to let his first love go. He has been trying to find this experience
ever since and Lolita is exactly what he was looking for. Regardless of her actions, Humbert is truly
just a victim of his condition and the tragic loss of his first love, a victim
of himself.
The question must then be asked can love based out of a
sickness, can a complete destruction of all morality in a man still be
something real? I really don’t know the answer.
I think that is a question Nabokov is aware of a puts it out there for our
own discussion. The reason this book is important
is because it pushes these boundaries and challenges what love can actual
between two people, written in the 1950’s there is still nothing quite like it
today.
Interactive Gaming
I don’t have a major relationship with video games. I’ve had my share of time with friends
huddled around some game console but I’ll always be the first one to get
bored. I never cared to actually buy a
game and finish the journey and win all of the gold tokens. I have spent many hours with one of my good
friends though discussing video games and their importance beyond a way to rot
your brain or procrastinate writing a paper.
His name is Fred. Fred is less
concerned with the graphics, character design and environment in gaming, and
more interested in an actual connection with the viewer beyond aesthetics. This seems to be very relevant when playing
some of the games linked on the lit and media BlogSpot. The creators want the viewers to experience
something while playing, they seem interested in connecting some sort of memory
the player has back with the game. If
you notice, the games are pixel games or flash games. They are not rendered meticulously for four
years while rigged up to monster servers with 2500 employees doing lighting
effects. In fact, plenty of the games on
the blog were created by just one person.
There is obviously no right or wrong, a game with near photorealist
humans can still have a story line and it still even shoot for something more
than expected.
There will still always be the demographic who continue to
spend sixty dollars each year on the new call of duty or Madden 2013 on release
night to witness the new graphics, the new guns, the new levels and the new
draft picks, never wanting to admit they’re playing the same game from last
season for sixty more dollars.
In class it was mentioned that certain video games, probably
some of the ones I mentioned, are now getting the budgets of Hollywood movies
to make a minute in a half trailers to hype up all the gamers.
Then there are dinky little flash and pixel indie games,
created by gamers at home. The creators
seem most invested in evoking some type of reaction with the viewer or making
them reconsider certain things that maybe the creator has experienced. They don’t look perfect, often times terrible
but in a sense aren’t they trying for so much more?
RomneyObama
Perhaps this videos strongest point comes at the very end
when the man that began the commercial now nearly in tears brings up Romney’s
most notorious flub of all, after describing the destruction of his
career. “He’s so out of touch with the
average person in this country, “How could you care? How could you care about
the average working person?’ Since those
private tapes of Mitt Romney have been released the Obama campaign has jumped
on the ideas of Mitt Romney’s total lack of interest in half the country
therefore being “out of touch”. The Obama
campaign very effectively in this ad with the use of interviews and a dramatic
musical score portrays an evil man only focused on money and power. I’m having difficulty finding the opposing
side in this video. There are always
some fabrications though: Romney was not
managing the plant he just made the initial investment. He was still working with Bain though not
quite in Salt Lake City. It was also
said that without the initial Bain investment the plant might not have been
able to stay open as long as it did.
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