Last Saturday, I was fortunate enough to enjoy two good Fringe shows: TJ Dawe’s “Totem Figures” and Charles Ross’s “Sev” at the Victoria Fringe. Both are ex-classmates of mine from UVic, and both are entertaining one-man shows about, among things, making art. I usually don’t go in for art about art, but these were both engaging shows with none of the wankery and elitism that often accompanies such projects. Vancouverites can see both shows, starting today, at
The next day I had dinner with TJ at the Magnolia Bakery, and interviewed him about his life and work. He’s incredibly well read, and a monologist by trade, so he makes for an excellent conversation partner. I may eventually publish some audio snippets from our chat, but the noisy restaurant plus my crappy little voice recorder makes for a pretty shoddy recording. In the meantime I’ll transcribe some bits as time permits.
TJ is the Übermensch of Fringe performers. Over the past decade, he’s written and performed in 10 autobiographical, solo shows, and been involved in some capacity in 12 others. He’ll be in Vancouver this week (as will Charles), and it will be his 82nd fringe festival. He figures he’s performed over 700 shows. His work has also been published. A few years ago he became so popular that he stopped promoting his shows with fliers, posters and so forth.
Though he has occasional gigs and projects in the ‘off-season’, the Fringe Festival circuit is his main source of work and income. It’s a marathon of 10 to 12 festivals from May through September.
TJ’s latest show, ‘Totem Figures’, is a slight departure from his previous work. While it still relies on TJ’s particular fusion of stand-up and theatre, it’s more directly autobiographical and personal than other shows. Here’s the blurb:
Totem Figures is a ninety minute monologue about personal mythology. About the idea that we’re all the main character in our own epic adventure. About having one’s own personal Mt. Rushmore. TJ extrapolates this concept, and exemplifies it with his own mythology. His life story, inner and outer. Including many things he’s never talked about in all of his previous monologuing.
And here’s the first set of excerpts from our conversation over chicken and mushrooms in black bean sauce. Looking at them now, they feel a little random, but I guess they reflect the wide-ranging nature of our chat:
On Identifying Totem Figures
DB: I was thinking about what you said, in your show, about the people who most other people don’t like.
TJ: That really tells you something. You’re not just into it because you want to fit in.
DB: That’s right, because I’ve got Bob Dylan on the list…What is the metric? What is the minimum contribution to your life to get someone on your album cover?
TJ: It’s entirely up to you. The ten-year yard stick is the short way to figure out whether you can trust it as a totem or not. A lot of people are into Bob Dylan for a year or two or three when everybody else is. But if it outlasts that. Or, if you can think of some personal involvement. If you’ve specifically learned some Bob Dylan songs that aren’t the ones that everybody learns. Another thing is something you respond to emotionally. So that it’s a movie that always makes you cry, or if it’s an album that you put on when you’ve had a really bad day.
James emailed and asked why I hadn’t written about the Conservative government’s recent cuts to cultural programs. In truth, I kind of missed that whole debacle. Plus, it looks like they’ve been sufficiently raked over the coals for that one.
It’s an odd move, because up to now it seems to me that the Harper government has been relatively benign on cultural funding. I certainly remember deeper cuts from other Conservative governments. And their cuts only amounted to less than CAN $50 million. Was saving that money really worth all the grief they’ve suffered in the media? Or maybe it’s meant to be a gesture to their base?
Section 120 is a Joke
I have, however, been meaning to criticize the Harper government’s planned Bill C-10. That link goes to the CBC’s rather critical analysis of the proposed legislation. If ever you wanted an example of the CBC’s liberal bias, there it is. Here’s a summary of the problematic section of the Bill:
The issue that concerns Canada’s film and television community is Section 120, which would allow the Heritage Minister (currently Josée Verner) to withdraw tax credits from productions determined to be “contrary to public policy.”
The minister would create a set of guidelines for film and television producers. The guidelines have not yet been established but would cover violence, hatred and sexual content in film and TV productions, or anything else the minister believes should not be financed by Canadian taxpayers. Committees within the heritage and justice departments would be charged with vetting productions and implementing the guidelines.
In essence, the legislation gives the federal government carte blanche to bypass existing vetting mechanisms to deny funding to cultural works of which it disapproves. On top of infringing on free speech (even this conservative agrees with that), it will have a chilling effect on the kinds of movies which get made in Canada. Would The Boys of St. Vincent or Eastern Promises have been made in a Bill C-10 world? It’s worth mentioning that the Liberals had similar plans to restrict arts funding. It was a lousy idea then, and it’s a lousy idea now.
Poised, Disciplined and On Message
But don’t listen to me on this. Listen to the excellent interview (MP3) that Sarah Polley gave on CBC a couple of months back. If you’re ever going to advocate in the media for a cause, this interview is essential listening. Ms. Polley is incredibly poised and disciplined, articulates her position clearly and remains on-message. She never needlessly attacks the Harper government, nor does she sound like some hippie artist who’s making porn on the taxpayer’s dollar. She makes an impassioned but rationale and professional defense of her stance.
I so often see advocates of environmental and social causes on the news, and they waste their sound bite on lame, slightly nutty critcriques of whoever they’re railing against. Plus they’re frequently dressed shabbily and look frumpy. That sounds trivial, but in a world governed by televisual aesthetics, it’s not. I don’t care if you’re just back from a week of protest and bongo drumming in Clayoquot Sound. Shave, comb your hair and put on a suit before you go on TV.
“I think as Canadians there is a bit of a tiredness in seeing all American stuff,” Shaun Donnelly, president of Real Productions, said during an interview on Friday.
“There is always that thrill for something that is local and you get the sense that these are people you can meet at the supermarket.”
It just struck as the most ludicrous quote to offer. We can finally enjoy Newfy accents in our porn? Is that really a priority for Canadians?
The Internet, as you know, changed everything. Well, not everything, but it sure disrupted the way we make and distribute art. Ever since I saw geeks posting encoded files to Usenet, I’ve been curious to watch how the web has turned content creation (an awful, generic term) on its head.
One truth of the web in 2008 is that it is a much flatter playing field for creators. If you made an independent film in 1993, and you didn’t get backing from a studio, you couldn’t imagine how, say, 100,000 people would ever see it. YouTube makes that quite achievable in 2008.
But that flatter playing field isn’t necessarily accompanied by a lot of money-wielding players. And an artist has gotta eat. YouTube and other video sites have revenue sharing programs, but I doubt even 100,000 views would generate much money. I did a few quick searches on this, but couldn’t find any sample numbers.
Email Lists and True Fans
In a lot of cases, the old economic models are shot, or in sharp decline, and we haven’t figured out new ones yet. A recent guest columnist–a musician–on the Telegraph’s blog shed some light on how his band has survived in a post-Napster world:
When we left EMI in 1995, our most recent album had sold over 300,000 units. While we were still contracted for more, EMI decided to drop us. We were no longer commercial.
Today, after the internet boom, that level of sales would get us a deal with any of the major labels. After three more badly-marketed albums with an independent label we were down to 100,000 units.
In 1999 we released our final contracted album for Castle Records and, in anticipation of the way we planned to do business in the future, called it Marillion.com. We had already collected the email addresses of more than 20,000 fans through free CDs, downloads, etc. and by asking these fans to order and pay for the upcoming CD in advance, we were able to finance the writing and recording.
The precious email list reminded me of Kevin Kelly’s excellent essay 1000 True Fans.
Indie Games Come of Age?
The video game industry has, by comparison, remained unhindered by piracy. I’m not sure why this is. I assume that the industry’s explosive growth over the last decade has more than compensated for the revenue lost to pirated games. Plus, of course, I suspect that relatively few console players have the skills or inclination to play pirated games.
In any case, I’ve seen the video game industry as kind of like Hollywood’s studio system. There are a few big publishers, and they buy development studios or license their content. Even a ’small’ development studio would, I think, have dozens of employees.
The revolution in casual gaming, however, enables smaller teams and individuals to earn more attention. There’s a ton of free casual game sites on the web now. I don’t know how much revenue a given game creator sees from advertising, but I do know that their games are constantly copied and posted on new sites with advertising wrapped around them.
Still, I recently read about a success in the relatively new world of casual gaming on the consoles. Jonathan Blow developed a reportedly excellent game called Braid. He released it on XBox Live Arcade, an in-game system where players buy and download (I gather) generally cheap games. Braid had no in-store distribution–you can only get it through your XBox 360. It cost $15 to download the game. Via Silicon Alley Insider, I read Blow’s blog post about his first week of sales:
As I write this, there are 62,242 entries on the main leaderboards. I don’t have official sales numbers for the full week, but I would guess about 55,000 people have bought the game so far.
That works out to $825,000 in the first week. Microsoft takes a cut–possibly 33%–but that’s still terrific revenue for an independent game developer. Wikipedia provides a little information about the development process, but I’m unsure of what the budget for such a game would be, and how many people contributed to it. It’s enough, apparently, so that Blog can build another game without a day job.
I’m not sure, but I guess XBox Live Arcade and its competitors casual gaming portals can (have?) become the iTunes and YouTubes of the gaming industry, enabling the little guys to get greater distribution and, hopefully, revenue. Will indie game developers be as, on average, penniless as documentary film makers, despite their new-found distribution? Or will Johnathan Blow’s experience be repeated a thousand times over?
Clearly there are more questions than answers about the new economics of content. I mostly wrote this post to point to these two developments, and two industries at, seemingly, different stages of their evolution. For anybody interested in the background or context of these shifting tides, check out John Perry Barlow’s The Economy of Ideas and The Next Economy of Ideas.
UPDATE: Speaking of casual games, Andy points to a clever game called Coign of Vantage.
Back in the late nineties, we ran a little theatre company in Vancouver (also Darren’s First Web Design). We needed a coffin for one of the shows (George F. Walker’s excellent “Theatre of the Film Noir”, if I recall correctly) and, in light of our shoestring budget, couldn’t afford to buy one.
A member of the creative team had a day job in a retail store, and the store had a ton of pallets in the basement. He got the excellent idea to ‘borrow’ a few of these pallets, tear them apart and build a half-decent coffin out of the wood. It worked out nicely.
Pallets are great material for this application because they are sturdy, inexpensive and readily available. In most cases in a disaster relief effort many of the pallets will arrive as part of the transpiration of food and materials requiring no additional logistics to procure them. If more are needed I-Beam states that they can be built by hand at a rate of 500-600 pallets per day. One transitional shelter measuring 10′ x 20′ would take 80 pallets to build and cost approximately $500.
After those darn plastic chairs (put to great use by Brian Jungen), pallets feel like one of the most ubiquitous human-made objects on Earth. Plus, other forms of aid usually arrives at disaster areas on pallets, so nothing goes to waste.
On Wednesday, I heard a short CBC piece about an architectural exhibit in London, England on the topic of Vancouverism. It was the first time I’d head the term, so I listened with some interest. The host Jian Ghomeshi interviewed Bing Thom about the exhibit and the concept of Vancouverism. Here’s an excerpt:
It’s a spirit about public space. I think Vancouverires are very, very proud that we built a city that really has a tremendous amount of space on the waterfront for people to recreate and to enjoy.
At the same time, False Creek and Coal Harbour were previously industrial lands that were very polluted and desecrated. We’ve refreshed all of this with new development, and people have access to the water and the views. So, to me, it’s this idea of having a lot people living very close together, mixing the uses. So, we have apartments on top of stores. In Surrey we have a university on top of a shopping centre. This mixing of uses reflects Vancouver in terms of our culture and how we live together.
I did a search in Google, and couldn’t find a Wikipedia article on Vancouverism. I resolved to create one when I found the time. Happily, on Tuesday, somebody already started one. I’ll add this quote.
On Thursday night, I was thrilled to see “Dead Man’s Cell Phone”, a play at Chicago’s famed Steppenwolf Theatre. In terms of new American drama, Steppenwolf is one of the more influential companies in the country.
While not being exactly to my tastes, the production was executed at an exceptionally high level. I really enjoyed Polly Noonan’s performance in the lead role. Reading her bio, I noticed that she was credited with an appearance in the 1986 comedy classic, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I couldn’t imagine who she might have played.
When I got home, I looked it up. She’s the “girl on bus”, who Principal Rooney talks to in the closing credits. She has this awesome line:
Gummy bear? It’s been in my pocket; they’re real warm and soft.
I first watched the trailer for Portal about a year and a half ago. It kind of blew my mind.
Last night I finally found some time to play it, and the game kept me up to 1:00am. It’s a wonderfully-crafted little short story of a game. If Samuel Beckett was a game designer, he might have made Portal.
The setting is a sparse, clinical testing facility evocative of THX 1138. You are only accompanied by the friendly voice of GLaDOS, a psychotic computer with a love of euphemisms. She guides you through 19 tests of increasing complexity. This all sounds pretty ordinary, and though all the details–the level design, the voice acting, the physics–are fantastic.
The first big difference between Portal and other games is that you have no real weapons. Though, of course, the only person to kill is yourself. You do have the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, which is the key to Portal’s extraordinary gameplay. From a review:
At heart, it’s a puzzle game built around the “portal” mechanic, which lets you blast a pair of holes onto any two surfaces and teleport between them—for example, to get across a room, or drop on top of a high platform, or blip around an insurmountable barrier. Portal adds this to the standard repertoire of sliding platforms, tripable switches, and near the end, robotic gun turrets that whisper playfully, “I see you!” (When you knock one down, it adds, “I don’t blame you.”)
To borrow a term from Douglas Adams, the result is mind-buggering. When I first saw the trailer, I thought that the portals would make the game very difficult. In fact, after a while, your brain adjusts to this new dimension of travel. Or dimensional travel, if you like.
Themes and Post-Modernism (and Beware, Half Life 2 Spoilers Ahead)
Video games are obviously evolving very rapidly. Increasingly, they’re reflecting more and more similarities with narrative art. The best new games have sophisticated plots, decent dialogue, more rounded characters and original and sometimes breath-taking aesthetics. Portal features a particularly creepy yet catchy ditty sung by GladOS over the closing credits (hear it sung by its composer).
However, Portal is one of the first games I’ve seen that reflects (for want of a degree in literary criticism) some more sophisticated aspects of art. For example, the game explores themes–the tyranny of mechanization, how corporations dehumanize us, the dubious ethics of scientific testing. They’re not examined in vast detail, but they’re present and feel reasonably fresh.
Additionally, Portal is the most post-modern game I’ve ever played. We see this in trivial ways. The whole game is vaguely reminiscent of Q*Bert. GladOS hilariously refers to “Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cubes” or a “Weighted Companion Cube”, sly nods to the crates and boxes that inexplicably populate many games (I think it’s partially because they had a low polygon count, but that’s just a guess).
But the game is self-aware in more profound ways. As you play, you begin to get peaks behind the curtain of the cold, white testing rooms. You discover debris and graffiti (hence the meme “the cake is a lie”) left by former test subjects. At the games’ mid-point, you avoid incineration after the 19th room and spend the rest of the game escaping the facility. You wend your way through rusty catwalks, grimy corridors and soulless offices. You are figuratively and actually inside the game, looking back into the test chambers. It’s the kind of radical (not to mention fun) shift in perspective that you find in novels.
Criticisms? Well, the kill-the-boss ending is ordinary, though comical. And the end game cinematic didn’t provide me with much explanation or satisfaction. Once again, it was very THX 1138.
Portal is a little masterpiece. It’s remarkable that’s it’s just one of five games that come in the Orange Box set of Valve projects. The two Half Life 2 chapters are more conventional, but still excellent (when was the last time you played a game that ended with a fade to black while a woman cried over her dead father?). I’m not a huge fan of Team Fortress 2’s gameplay, but its design is breathtaking.
Touchstone Theatre is producing “The Dissemblers”, a new play by Jason Bryden. Directed by and starring three ex-UVic classmates of mine, it sounds like a good time. It’s at Granville Island’s PTC Studio.
Dave Gorman is a gifted writer and documentary comedian from Britain. I first discovered him while living in Ireland. We watched his awesomely funny six-part BBC series “Are You Dave Gorman?”. Based on a Fringe show, Gorman accepts a bet to find 52 other “Dave Gormans”. The premise is amusing, but his presentation is fantastic, full of dry wit and illustrative charts. Here’s the only video clip I could find:
And he’s got a blog (and a Flickr account). And he’s had it for, like, three years. I’m not sure how I stumbled upon it (er, not that way), but I’m subscribed.
This is a personal bias, but to me this woman has that prototypical ‘actress’ look: big eyes, expressive face, long brown hair and nice cheek bones. I have several friends and acquaintances who are actors who fit this description. Do casting directors favour this type? Maybe, but it seems like they self-select to some degree. Peculiar.
Last Saturday, I was fortunate enough to enjoy two good Fringe shows: TJ Dawe’s “Totem Figures” and Charles Ross’s “Sev” at the Victoria Fringe. Both are ex-classmates of mine from UVic, and both are entertaining one-man shows about, among things, making art. I usually don’t go in for art about art, but these were both engaging shows with none of the wankery and elitism that often accompanies such projects. Vancouverites can see both shows, starting today, at 
