Silent Garfield

Recontextualizing is hardly a new concept. In poetic circles it’s common enough practice now that it elicits yawns probably as much as it does genuine surprise (or course, taking a handful of salt with this assertion since I’d categorize myself as someone more interested in working with my own ideas/language than reconstituting someone else’s).

Still, the point is that it’s not genre-defying any longer and has entrenched itself as one of the many methods that poetry can bridge the insubstantial of thoughts/emotions with the tactile such as someone else’s work, a newspaper, even an old poster or piece of trash can be infused with message or newfound symbolism.

Pop culture is an obvious target for recontextualization because it’s so rife with imagery, so in love with its own paradoxically meaningless necessity. It provides so many tropes that bring forth shared meanings that it’s just begging for someone to turn it on its head. One area though that seems to be untouched by the busy hands of the recontextualizer (now there’s a noun), is comics. Why not before? Perhaps the simplicity or implied shallowness of the funnies isn’t a worthwhile target. Or perhaps, new technologies (cough, cough, photoshop) are only now available to the average user to play around with graphic files.

Whatever the reason, comics are certainly now coming under the microscope in a big way. There are numerous webpages popping up with users delighting in the reconstruction/deconstruction of their favourite comics.

For example:

The comic recontextualizer

Truth and Beauty Bombs

Two of the most popular targets are Bill Keane’s Family Circus and Jim Davis’s Garfield, two comics emblematic of the old guard, ala Snoopy or Dagwood. Doubly funny is the fact that what probably makes these comics such a target isn’t just the core content, but the willingness of the creators to battle with the recontextualizers.

For example, take a look at this: Bill Keane speaking to recontextualizer

Because Family Circus’ ideological footing is so firmly set in one place, it’s an easy push-over. The obviousness of Bill Keane’s rightist missives make it a pendulous soapbox in the swirling winds of popular culture.

Garfield, on the other hand, absolves itself of any opinion for the sake of commercial universality. By Jim Davis’ own admission, Garfield’s vision statement is summed up with the zeroing mantra of “no comment.” Like any great politician, Jim Davis says a lot without actually saying anything.

Asides from artistic considerations, Garfield is basically the same as it’s always been, and some would say, including myself, that its tired conceits grew out their welcome at least a decade ago. The shark was jumped; the shark was passed; the shark is a mere speck on the horizon.

Recontextualizing has an odd effect on Garfield that’s difficult to duplicate with other comics. Garfield relies on the tenuous reality that Jon, a lonely bachelor, can interact with his witty cat. Garfield is the straight man to Jon’s anxieties; the super-ego to Jon’s frantic id. When Garfield’s commentary is removed, a disturbing reality sets in; Jon in all his neuroses is talking to a cat, is rationalizing to a cat, is pleading the meaning of his existence to a cat.

The effect is both hilarious as below:























Or, sadly profound like such:





























Where recontextualizing Family Circus is a rote exercise in inverting Keane’s wishes for a bygone time (that never really existed), Garfield takes a new freshness, a displaced meaning where Jon’s anxieties are magnified by the lack of another speaker. Where changing Keane’s work is basically like making fun of a grandfather and his wishes for the “good old days,” changing Davis’ work adds real pathos and absurdity that actually exists in life.

By making Garfield “a cat” the comic takes on a new existential tone full of the ambiguities and disheartening reality of loneliness. It’s strangely funning, sometimes making a new joke altogether, or other times cutting out the extraneous dialogue to deliver the joke in its purest form. It’s strangely funny because it’s kind of real, while still being delivered in the “un-real” artifice that is comics.

Who knew that comics were hardly a laughing manner?

Tales from the Box...

Recently, I’ve come into possession of an Xbox 360 via a very generous girlfriend on our third anniversary. Needless to say, I’ve spent some quality time with the system lately and have come away with the following impressions.

But, first, the caveat:

I’m not a gamer in the traditional sense of the word; at least not in the sense that I can consistently commit time to games so that they can be finished in a reasonable time. Like books, I own far too many games that I’m not likely to finish within my lifetime. The problem is, I probably derive half my thrill in buying games from the actual act of buying. There’s something about finding a game for a really good price and then getting it – basically, I live for the deal.

So even with this need for buying games, I’m really only finishing maybe one to five titles per year; five being a really good year, perhaps like this past year where I finally knocked off Growlanser, Shadow of the Colossus, Shadow Hearts and Katamari Darmacy (keep in mind I’ve started and have not finished the following games: Final Fantasy 8, X-Men Rise of the Sentinels, Kingdom Hearts, Ring of Red and Dark Cloud).

The other thing of course, is that I’ve primarily been loyal to Sony and its various itineration of the PlayStation (with a little Nintendo handheld gaming on the side). With Sony, I’ve been adherent to mostly rpg-fare with the prerequisite large but clichéd story, the necessary continuous leveling up and the less-than-necessary but still included, long-ass cut scenes straight out of a bargain bin anime.

With Sony, we’re making some obvious assumptions – one of the most important being that I have little-to-no online gaming-experience. The Sony console and online gaming are essentially mutually exclusive terms. And while both are fantastic for what they are, they are two things that do not coexist in my gaming vernacular.

So the Xbox 360:

If there’s one thing Microsoft excels at in gaming, it’s the online play. While not nearly as robust as say, computer gaming, the Xbox 360 does offer a relatively cheap way to connect to other gamers through a simple user-interface. So, there’s some depth lost in favour of usability; but really, for someone with my level of background, it’s a valuable trade-off.

Plug in that Ethernet cable and give it a go; it’s almost that simple. While I’ve only really hit two or three games, I have to say that online play raises the console value. Instead of simply playing it out against the computer with its rote exercises, playing Madden becomes unpredictable. The computer won’t go for it on fourth and twenty. A player will. That fear of the unknown heightens the drama of gaming and makes each experience fresh.

Plus, the ability to speak to the other player adds an element that is frustrating, amusing and enriching all at the same time. It’s one thing to trash-talk a friend as you play them; it’s another thing to trash-talk some stranger from across the country, or world. On its own ironic level, the clash of cultures and the resulting absurdities of gaming against totally different subsets of people is worth the price of the Xbox alone.

As for the Games, I’ve played:

Madden 2007

Visually, it bests the other console releases. Unlike last year’s edition, there was enough time to improve the visual aspects of the game. From the player animations to the between snap close-ups of tense, sweating players, EA outdid itself with 2007.

Particularly, the physics model seems improved from previous releases. When players gain momentum, it translates in the tackles – players moving quickly are harder to tackle or take longer to fall down, while players who get stuck in the backfield can get blown up from incoming defenders. The other bonus is that the character models are finally big enough that players aren’t lost when the offensive and defensive line collide. In previous Maddens, the running back would occasionally pop out of a throng of players to break a long run; it’s much less likely now as the running back can be clearly seen when they run through a hole.

In terms of options, the standards are locked in place: franchise and superstar are entrenched as the new focus of play. Other modes, found in the other console systems are surprisingly missing, which leads one to suspect that the graphical powerhouse comes delivered instead of some of these extraneous game play modes.

One area that’s unfortunately suspect is the individual alignments for offense, and more glaringly, defense. While offense offers hot-routes and audibles, blocking assignments can’t be changed, leaving offenses vulnerable when a defenses change coverage to blitz on the fly. Most frustrating of all is that individual defensive players’ audibles are nowhere to be seen.

While overall coverage (line, linebacker and secondary) can be called; an individual player cannot be selected for a particular defensive assignment. It might seem like a minor point, until playing someone else who knows his or her way around a quarterback such as McNabb or Michael Vick. With the ability to run, it becomes increasing frustrating that all linebackers must either be set to run-support or coverage; so, a running quarterback can either throw over the rushing linebackers or run for extra yards when defenses moves back into coverage.

Add to this volatile mix that occasionally the defenses can be slow to react to a play, and it makes it disheartening to play others who simply use this exploit over and over (I kid you not, one opponent I played ran only two plays the whole game – both exploited this coverage problem).

Madden 2007 is the pretty girlfriend you’ll want all your friends to see, even if she might not have a whole lot to say. The online play adds a ton of replay-ability despite a few missteps. It’s a great looking game that runs decently; as with any console launch game, as the development catches the technology, no doubt the game will escape its current paint-by-numbers structure.

Far Cry Instincts: Evolution

Here’s a game that already exists in limitless iterations, yet UbiSoft, in all its wisdom, decided to re-re-re-release it to the Xbox 360 with additional solo missions and a ton of multiplayer levels. Man, it really sucks when a company makes improves a game and steers it towards its strengths, which is offering endless ways to play online.

To be honest, the solo missions are plainer than an Amish dance recital and about as fun as having to build a barn for unkle Ezikiel to sleep in with his mules. The real cream of Far Cry is multiplayer with its all out chaos mode or team-based modes such as steal the sample and team chaos. The one element that differentiates Far Cry from a host of other angry-looking man-on-the-cover titles lining the wills of EB is the Predator element.

Basically, Predator gives the player superhuman powers for a limited time. It’s not a genre-defying exercise in any way, shape or form, but it’s fun to be able to jump twenty stories or punch another player like a mile into the air.

The other component that adds to freshness factor is the robust map-editor built into the game. Unlike many other titles, Far Cry’s editor does not take a doctorate to figure out. And, the resulting map that players can make run the gamut from intensely tight battlegrounds to giant fortresses with huge towers well over fifty stories high.

Multiplayer battles can host 16 players, although the trade-off between lots of action and huge lags is a big one. It also depends on the time of day; the busier the networks, the harder it is to accurately aim at other players as their character models skip around the screen like sugar-addled school kids.

Still, the maps are designed for maximum flexibility in play styles and they are gorgeous – particularly the water display – which is the most accurate I’ve seen in a game.

Far Cry as a game is average at best; Far Cry as an online experience is highly rewarding and something not to be missed: one of the first games to really bring out the best components of the Xbox 360 and Xbox live.

Delicious Parables

Poor Popeye - his spinach has fallen on rough times. I only care because I enjoy a heart bowl of the leafy greens myself - although the prospect of getting e.coli somewhat diminishes my desire to eat the stuff.

An Act of True Evil

Bloodhag - Hell Bent for Letters - 2006

For every tried and true musical taxonomy, someone out there is burning to bust out the next mind-bogglingly trope to define “their” music. These new sub-genres are about as welcome as a jobless houseguest and both usually stick around long enough to go from mildly amusing to aggravating. That said here’s Bloodhag’s second release “Hell Bent for Letters” with the prerequisite “edu-core” tag firmly attached.

“Hell Bent For Letters” isn’t an epistolary affair; rather, it’s about a band getting more juiced up about the alphabet than Big Bird at the end of Sesame Street. This Seattle four-some is made up of aspiring science fiction writers whose motto is “the faster you go deaf, the more time you have to read.” It sounds like a laugh, but the band plays it serious, whether it’s throwing books at the audience at live shows, naming all of their songs after science fiction writers or including an exhaustive lyrics sheet with equally exhaustively researched lyrics.

Nerd fantasy this is. And, musically it’s serviceable too. Over buzzing guitars and attention deficit percussion, singer J.B Stratton growls about his favourite writers and their books. The guttural howls are nearly incomprehensible, which makes the lyrics sheet all that more necessary and the lyrics surprisingly sturdy. On Arthur C. Clarke, Stratton chants “because of this monolithic obelisk genesis, rewrite the ironic bit. His literary gift's eclipsed, by Kubrick and a script, but undiminished by it!”

Is it a gimmick? Sure, but one that’s easy enough to buy into. Replace Bill Kurtis with Tom Araya on Biography and what comes out is something like “Hell Bent for Letters” – a tight ball of education and entertainment coming to a library near you.

Jacob Kirkegaard - Four Rooms - 2006

High-concept albums usually focus on the novelty of the inputs, while the resulting music takes a back seat. This unsatisfying paradigm means that the critical aspect of the listening experience, the music, is often unrewarding regardless of what went into making it. Rarely does an album manage to cross the high-wire act of its own pretensions to exercise the necessary academic and emotional muscles.

Jacob Kirkegaard’s fifth album, Four Rooms, balances on this pin head, producing a resonantly haunting meditation on the silence of dislocation. Twenty years after the Chernobyl accident, Kirkegaard set out to record the sound of silence in four abandoned rooms; he deliberately picked rooms which used to be active meeting places: a church, an auditorium, a gymnasium and a swimming pool.

While the recordings have a definitive scientific bent, as Kirkegaard specifically searches for the sound of radioactive pollution, the music is also stained by the ghostly presence of what was, and is no longer there. Each room was recorded for ten minutes and then the recordings were played back into the room, while being recorded again.

The result is four distinct drone pieces, full of surprisingly different tonal structures, which reflect the forgotten spirit of these once-living spaces. Where ‘Church’ is filled with a menacingly thick hum that gets heavier as the recording progresses, “Swimming Pool” bubbles innocuously and “Gymnasium” works sinuous wavelengths that shimmer like new stainless steel.

With or without back-story, Four Rooms, brims with stark resilient beauty. The breadth of Kirkegaard’s recordings stands tall on their own, but is endlessly enriched by its harrowing inspiration.

Dress Code

rise

these reins,

former self

succinct in the turn.

resin

from redeemed

rattles disperse

this, whichever blood fogs.

Consolation Prize

a want

bettered.

wishes into objects,

frost lifts

rivulets bodied

bearing marks,

blood needs

yearn into earning.

these maws,

red open

full-throated

impalpable buys

stiffen.

DJ Shadow - The Outsider - 2006

Woe is the artist whose defining pinnacle is their first album, especially one of the caliber of Endtroducing. Since its release, it seems DJ Shadow has been trying to escape from the shadow of his own success. His follow-up, the criminally underappreciated Private Press, was a strong effort but failed to live up to the narrow-minded expectations for another dose of mind-altering beats and samples.

Now more than a decade later, Shadow makes another stab at outgrowing his persona. Credit the guy for his ambition, just don’t credit him for the music. Shadow’s The Outsider can’t feel like anything but a reaction to Endtroducing’s legacy. Whether it’s the introduction of rapping or the grime-hybrid sound of Bay Area “hyphy” hip-hop, this album clearly sits on the opposite spectrum of Shadow’s previous work.

Too bad it’s so mediocre. On “3 Freaks” Shadow lays down a poisonous synth line while Keak Da Sneak and Turf Talk expound on the virtues of money, clubs and women. It sounds like nothing Shadow has ever done, but it also sounds like every other dime-a-dozen hip-hop track. Things go from bad to parody with “Keep Em Close” and its lame-o siren and gunshot sound effects.
By the time the totally inexplicable and clichéd voice-over of “You Made It” or the Coldplay-lite of “This Time” passes by, The Outsider is already a lost cause. It’s a shame to pigeonhole Shadow to one sound. But it’s equally dishonest to give kudos for trying to be different, when that different is a disaster. Like the last twenty minutes of the “Wicker Man” file The Outsider under ‘what were they thinking?’

teststestst