Archive: Posts about History
March 19th, 2007, 6 Comments »
The tech world is all excited about Twitter. I’ve managed to avoid the rage thus far, and am not very interested in hopping on board this particular train. I like what Kathy Sierra has to say about Twitter, and how we’ve possibly crossed a kind of attention event horizon.
Chris Pirillo solicited and recorded some reader feedback (MP3), which includes a mini-rant from me (just after the halfway mark, more or less) about the pridefulness of blogging, and the sheer hubris of Twitter.
Listening to it again, I sound like a Twitter hater, when really I’m currently Twitter ambiguous:
Twitter, it seems to me, is hubris of the highest order. Why would I think that anybody, even my friends and family, would want to read an unedited stream of the pitiful minutiae of my life? Isn’t that self-indulgence on a grand scale?
Beth has also gathered a bunch of opinions on Twitter, and its potential applications for non-profits.
Twitter is a Performance Medium
Today Tara Hunt drew some erudite connections between Twitter, Virginia Woolf and Shakespeare:
Many stories have been lost over the centuries because of assumptions, narrow ideals of what ‘genius’ is, and the very fact that ‘genius’, a relative term defined by a few, is the yard stick for recorded history.
She makes the case that a history of person’s Twitters is an important historical record. Kathy replies in the comments of Tara’s post, and Tara replies to that. They’re way more articulate than me, so go over there and read their debate. Regardless of whether or not we’ll ever have the technology to meaningfully sort through a lifetime of Twitter history, I do wonder whether we’ll have the brain capacity or interest to mull over the content.
The other aspect of Twitter that I haven’t seen discussed is that (like blogs) it’s not a diary, it’s a performance medium. We’re not recording our thoughts and feelings. We’re broadcasting the thoughts and feelings for others to hear. That’s a profound difference, and certainly changes the context for a schwack of historical Twitter data.
Shakespeare on Twitter
Tara’s post got me thinking about how that old dog Bill Shakespeare might have used Twitter:
4:47pm
Drinking Mead. Sweet, sweet mead.
5:03pm
Cavorting with maiden.
5:16pm
Methinks she doth protest too much.
5:34pm
Bollocks. Struck out with maiden.
6:01pm
Sketching out ending to R & J. Totally lifted ending from that cheeky Brooke.
6:03pm
Screw the sodding play. Checking out mop boy.
7:10pm
Making the beast with two back with the mop boy.
7:12pm
Done. Feeling guilty about Anne back in Stratford.
In truth, that’s one guy’s Twitter history that I’d really like to read.
6 Comments »
March 9th, 2007, 4 Comments »
“You are dead. Game Over. Congratulations! You’re the last Spartan to die, so you’ve successfully finished 300: Last Stand of the Spartans, the newest smash game from EA Games, Vivendi Universal and Vijay’s Game Development and Chutney Haus.”
300 is the latest, greatest example of the convergence of movies and video games. With its hyper-realism, generous slow-motion, muted colour palette, excessive narration, flying gibs and unrecognizable cast, it’s easy to imagine grabbing a gamepad and playing as Malthusis, Spartan #187, slayer of Persians.
Technically, the movie is incredible eye candy. Like Sin City (the graphic novels for both films were written by Frank Miller), it looks like no movie you’ve ever seen before. Writing about Sin City and The Incredibles, I said this:
[These] show us what comic book movies should aspire to. They should render imagined worlds, not follow around guys in rubber suits.
The script isn’t going to win any awards. The dialogue is mostly reduced to sloganeering, with King Leonidas gruffly yelling (in Gerard Butler’s Scottish brogue) things like “This is where we fight! This is where they die!” or “Enjoy your breakfast, for tonight we dine in Hell!” It sounds good in the trailer, but all that shouting can get a bit wearing.
300 is about as straight-ahead a movie as you can make. It’s not remotely historically accurate, but that doesn’t really matter. There’s a silly, entirely moot sub-plot which enables us to gawk at Lena Headey, but it’s basically the story of a long, bloody battle.
On a related note, some sensor in the my cerebral cortex went off while listening to some of the film’s narration. I can’t find the quote online yet, but the narrator says something like “numbers are for nothing”. It took me a while to make the connection, but it reminded me of a quote from “Powderfinger”, a Neil Young song about a last stand:
Daddy’s rifle in my hand felt reassurin’
He told me, Red means run, son, numbers add up to nothin’
But when the first shot hit the docks I saw it comin’
Raised my rifle to my eye
Never stopped to wonder why.
Then I saw black,
And my face splashed in the sky.
If you watch the film, please make a mental note of the quote and let me know what it is.
UPDATE: Tim sends along an answer to my Neil Young question. The phrase from the graphic novel, and presumably the movie, is “numbers count for nothing”. Close, but not exactly the same as “Powderfinger”. I wonder, is Frank Miller a Neil Young fan?
UPDATE #2: Monique sent along a link to some cool behind the scenes footage from 300. Her company is running a contest associated with the movie.
4 Comments »
September 19th, 2006, 2 Comments »
‘Ignominy’. There’s a word I don’t use enough around here. Anyhow, Neatorama has assembled a list of 10 scientific frauds that rocked the world. My favourite are the Tasadays:
If you’re thinking it’s impossible that such an isolated group could exist in the Philippines as late as the 1970s, you’re right. It turns out that their “discoverer,” PANAMIN (Private Association National Minorities) secretary Manuel Elizalde Jr., paid local farmers to live in the caves, take off their clothes, and appear Stone Age. In return he gave them money and security from counterinsurgency and tribal fighting.
A bonus link, Neatorama also pointed me to this account of dragging a World War II tank out of a lake. With muddy, muddy photos.
2 Comments »
September 8th, 2006, 12 Comments »
Okay, I’ve got to come clean. In a previous post, I implied that a particular girl was the first one I ever dated. That isn’t technically true. Preceding Michelle, I had many phone conversations and went on a couple of dates with another girl.
My first ever date was at the Capilano West Chinese restaurant on Marine Drive in West Vancouver. We ordered way too much food, and I’m sure the bill cost me several weeks’ worth of allowance. I can, with a kind of vague recollection, remember the shirt I wore. I believe it might be back in style these days.
Shortly thereafter, I unceremoniously dumped this girl for grade 8 reasons which I cannot remotely fathom. I’ve felt bad about that to this day, and will no doubt take that particular act of youthful stupidity to my grave.
And do you want to know the other thing? I can’t remember her name.
Okay, I guess that’s two shameful truths.
I can remember the names of grade 6 and 7 (and earlier!) crushes that preceded her, and all the girls and women since then (though I know they’d never match my sweet imagination — rockin’ MIDI ahead!), but there’s a memory gap for the blonde-haired girl who liked sweatshirts (it was the style of the time) who lived in Dundarave. We went to different high schools, and I don’t think that helped.
I even asked Rob, one of my oldest friends, about her. You see, because I have such a lousy memory, Rob is my longterm storage device. He came up blank.
And so, to my eternal shame, Date #1 was with the Unknown Girl #1. Perhaps when I have a house and garden I’ll make a little memorial with an eternal flame for the world’s forgotten names.
Hey, I just got an idea. Remember my write-up on the Kay Meek Theatre? It’s attached to West Van High, the school this girl attended. If they have all those goofy roster o’ grad photos posted in a hallway somewhere, I could go scrutizine 1990 or 1991 for her. My friend is the technical director of the Kay Meek, so he could probably get me in without my looking like some dirty old man. Closure, I have thee in my sights.
12 Comments »
June 26th, 2006, 2 Comments »
I’m in the middle of reading an interesting profile in The New Yorker. It’s concerned with Stephen James Joyce (he always insists, apparently, that his middle name be included), and his manic protectionism of the Joyce literary estate:
More than a dozen Joyce scholars told me that what was once an area of exploration and discovery now resembles an embattled outpost of copyright law. Robert Spoo, who used to edit the James Joyce Quarterly, which is published by the University of Tulsa, quit the job to become a copyright lawyer. “New biographies, digital representations of Joyce’s work, analyses of Joyce’s manuscripts, and, to a lesser extent, criticism—they hardly exist,” he said. “People either despaired of doing them . . . or the demands were so high that they just didn’t feel it was worth continuing the discussions.”
That’s kind of tragic. Not end of the world tragic, because literary analysis isn’t likely to feature in armageddon, but it’s still pretty wrong. The Beckett estate is also notoriously protective of Sam’s legacy. Is it something do with being Irish?
2 Comments »
February 9th, 2006, No Comments »
While watching Mythbusters (and registering speakers for Northern Voice) last night, I learned about how Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov met his sad but unusual end.
Accounts of the incident differ. Some say a ricin-laced pellet was either fired or injected from an umbrella tip as Markov waited at the bus stop, on his way to the headquarters of the BBC’s World Service.
Other accounts suggest the assailant used a syringe to inject the poison into Mr Markov’s leg as he bent down to pick up an umbrella he had been carrying.
Well, the first option is certainly the more interesting. Wikipedia sounds more definitive.
No Comments »
November 10th, 2005, 5 Comments »
My friend Kennedy writes to inform me that today is the thirtieth anniversary of the sinking of the S. S. Edmund Fitzgerald. From the Wikipedia entry:
SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a ship that sank suddenly on Lake Superior, November 10, 1975. The ship went down without a distress signal in a November gale. It sank in 530 feet (162 m) of water at a position 46 59.9′ N, 85 6.6′ W, in Canadian waters about 17 statute miles (15 nm) (27 km) from the entrance to Whitefish Bay. All 29 members of the crew were killed.
As loyal Canadians know, the sinking was commemorated by Gordon Lightfoot, with his classic song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (glorious midi awaits). Kennedy bemoans some of the rhyming:
I forgot just how poorly rhymed the song is… he sets up a fairly obvious and implicitly strict structure and then give such appalling 4-word rhymes as “Wisconsin/seasoned/Cleveland/feelin’.” The only way you can tell that Wisconsin and seasoned are supposed to rhyme is that the structure exists in every other stanza - occasionally he uses two pairs instead of four, but those first two are always a (ahem) match.
We’re currently discussing whether the instrumental version I have is, in fact, a cover by the Tragically Hip, or was mislabelled when I found it years ago on some Napster-clone.
5 Comments »
November 9th, 2005, 17 Comments »
Clay McLeod, a teacher in Kelowna, has written a wrong-minded editorial about why he doesn’t wear a poppy. Here are a couple choice bits:
What would Gandhi have done in Poland or Germany if he were faced with the advance of the Third Reich and witness to the holocaust?
Perhaps, in protest, he would have joined a line up of Jewish people waiting to board a train to Auschwitz. Would you have the courage to make that sacrifice? Would I?
And later…
That is why I oppose war and refuse to wear a symbol that justifies and glorifies it. While I’m glad that I don’t live in a country ruled by Nazis and I don’t have to protest observations of the glory of the Third Reich under penalty of death or imprisonment, I do insist on exercising my freedom by not honouring the fictitious efficacy of military solutions that divide humanity rather than renew it.
As you might imagine, the comment thread on this article is long. Happily, it’s also articulate. A couple of people dissect Mr. McLeod’s argument better than I can:
The poppy does not symbolize war. It is not a medal or a flag. Not everyone who died on the battlefield believed in what they were dying for. The poppy stands alone, away from the political and economic justifications for war. It is a symbol of remembrance.
And even better:
War is what happens when world leaders blunder headlong into crises. This is why a free press is so vitally important to a free and enlightened society — to peace.
The blood red poppy is a cry of anguish for what was lost — not a howl of triumph for something supposedly gained. I observe Remembrance Day each year, and wear the poppy, to remember that lesson. You know: “Lest We Forget.”
Mr. McLeod, wearing the poppy isn’t about nationalism, it’s about remembering and honouring sacrifice. Your Ghandi example is foolhardy, because while the sacrifice of the Jewish people was mighty, the sacrifice of voluntary soldiers who died was greater still. They went willingingly to the fight and their death, to win freedom for those who couldn’t. You can be certain, Mr. McLeod, that had no one opposed the Nazis with the warfare you disdain, that today the European Jew would be as rare as the snow leopard.
I wear the poppy for my great-uncle, whose grave is in Kiel, Germany. I also wear it for the three or four hundred men lying next to him. Most of all, I wear it because I’m free to do so, just as you are free not to. My great uncle and millions of men like him helped win us those rights, and they deserve your respect.
17 Comments »
June 7th, 2005, 16 Comments »
My friend Sarah is searching for a box drink of our youth. It’s a cousin, apparently, of Super Socco (remember that awful, tangy stuff?), came in a similar tetra pak and was actually a milk product (though it may have contained no actual milk). It came with a bendy straw, and was available in at least three different flavours (blue for vanilla, pink for strawberry and brown for chocolate). This all resonates vaguely with my early eighties memories, but I can’t think of the product. Can anybody help?
UPDATE: I’ll have to check with Sarah on this tomorrow, but I’m optimistic that AhBook got the right answer with Dr. Oh. Bonus points for any web resources anybody can find on the subject. Here’s the only reference I could find. Ironically enough, it’s in a blog entry that also concerns Super Socco.
16 Comments »
June 6th, 2005, 2 Comments »
On June 6, 1944, 156,000 Allied troops (including 14,000 Canadians) landed on the beaches of Normandy and started an 11-month campaign to take Europe back from the Axis. Three years ago on this day I walked the length of Juno Beach and took this photo. You can’t see it in this thumbnail version, but Canadian flags still fly.
2 Comments »
