"I think it's my best work yet" - Napoleon Dynamite

]]> http://thomaswebb.net/2010/05/20/my-entry-into-draw-your-own-mohamed-week/feed/ 1 http://thomaswebb.net/2010/01/23/thoughts-on-avatar/ http://thomaswebb.net/2010/01/23/thoughts-on-avatar/#comments Sun, 24 Jan 2010 04:35:53 +0000 Thomas J. Webb http://thomaswebb.net/?p=740 Continue reading →]]> Today, I had to see what all the buzz was about. Me and my wife saw Avatar in 3D before she had to go to work. The  3D was a nice effect, but after over two hours of that, I had pretty bad motion sickness getting out of the theater. I think I’d enjoy the movie more minus the nausea.

spoiler alert ** do not continue if you don’t want the plot revealed (this is really intended reading for people who watched the movie anyway, not a proper review; I don’t do movie reviews)

I’m not a movie critic, but an appreciator of Sci-Fi, so I’ll focus mostly on the alien biology and “anthropology” of the aliens themselves. The movie had all the things that make American movies frustrating – the overused noble savage against technology plot (think Dances With Wolves or Ferngully… anyone remember Ferngully?) and the handlebar mustache-twisting (figuratively) villain that you can never find in real life. Yes, people are greedy, incompetent or just plain wrong about the world around them, but people aren’t motivated by evil (‘What about Hitler?,’ you ask? Yes, file Hitler under wrong about the world around him – deeply wrong about what is right but he fought for what he believed to be right). The movie also had what makes American movies great and particularly well suited to their often blue-collar audience – wish fulfillment. Who doesn’t want to be 10 feet tall, blue and run around an idyllic wilderness half-naked and ride alien Pterodactyls? Oh, and the guy lands himself a hot alien chick. Double-score. There’s also the interconnectedness – with nature and with the tribe, that modern Americans lack severely. People secretly yearn for that as they spend more and more money to be further and further from dirt and from their relatives.

I could go on and on about inaccuracies, but what’s the point? Sci-fi is about changing reality, holding certain fantastic things for granted and, outside of that, have an internally consistent universe. I could just grant all sorts of sillinesses and that, by wild coincidence, the aliens on Pandora happen to be astonishingly humanoid (maybe they are of Terrestrial origin or vice versa – panspermia) and I think I will. What interests me, though, is the biology of the planet. How and why the synergy between all life forms on Pandora happened is an interesting question. I find myself wondering if the Navi began having that bio communication port in their ponytails and bred various animals and plants to interact with it, in much the same way dogs, though slightly dumber than wolves can understand human language better (I am told). It’s hard to imagine life evolving towards standardizing on a way of exchanging information, but then again bacteria have just that (with plasmids) and benefit greatly. The Gaea Hypothesis holds that natural selection has applied not just to individuals, but to the ecosphere herself. Indeed, we metazoans are symbiosis of countless eukaryotic cells (and, for that matter, prokaryotic cells) which earlier in evolutionary history would have only existed singly and for their own purposes. For this synergy to have happened, however, all the cells must come from the same genes. That is key. So, for the world of Pandora to exist, the rest of the ecosphere and at least the Navi themselves must share DNA to some degree. Maybe there is rogue genes or viruses that infect all of life with cooperation genes. Maybe that connection port is a sort of zoological plasmid they share?

Also of interest and an area where the movie lets me down is the religion of the people. Indeed, very seldom is religion treated fairly and realistically in sci-fi or fantasy. It’s often superficially glazed over without people putting their minds into the believers themselves. If you ask me, it’s one of the more fascinating aspects of a culture and playing with hypothetical religions (and asking why they don’t exist) is probably one of the next great frontiers in the world of sci-fi. What you see in the movie is essentially a Christian attempt at Paganism, crossed with Earth (or Pandora)-worshipping deep green religion. When you die, you go to heaven, but heaven exists in the ecosphere’s data storage. There’s a God, but she’s a woman who doesn’t take sides (except in the epic battle in the movie). It’s even interesting how what they believe in is fully naturalistic, but I’m afraid the movie captures the typical liberal naive idealizations about tribal peoples’ spirituality. Yes, people who live in nature love and worship nature, but it is a very different kind of biophilia than what is found among us cosmopolitans. Nature isn’t a relaxing vacation – it is everything. It is all the good and all the bad in the world. To understand how their beliefs really would have been, one need only look back in time and keep in mind “God fearing Christian” – Pagans are Nature fearing Pagans! Jór provided for her worshipers and protected them from outsiders, but she also greedily demanded human sacrifice – as countless well-preserved bog bodies will attest – on threat of more famine and harsher storms. It makes sense that the “Great Mother” protected the Navi, knowing that Humans would do to her what they did to their “mother” but this also means that she is prepared to keep the Navi in check by disease and famine, should they live beyond her means. If you want to see how more beautiful it is with the dark side left intact, see any of Miyazaki’s movies. He makes nature out to be what she really is – both beautiful and scary. He adds the supernatural element for entertainment and effect, but there’s something real about his surreal worlds.

My wife was irritated at the ending. Why did he choose to live with the aliens? He’s from such a different world. My thinking is it’s going to be an adjustment, but what would have made me feel better is if they exposed wrongs and injustices within the tribe. Their extreme idealization of these noble savages actually makes their culture less appealing. If I could see the ways in which we know cultures that emphasize connectedness and tribal solidarity also squelch the individual or that the Navi too are capable of wrongheadedness, their culture would appeal so much more to me by seeming real. That’s what I wanted to see. Their world would be more beautiful if it was less like a paradise and more like something that almost could be, with even its pitfalls laid out before me. That’s what I wanted to see. This movie is Earth-worship without the soul. But the graphics were awesome. I definitely recommend seeing it.

As is my fashion, I read a book on the plane. I read Time Machine on the way to Japan and King Hrolf Kraki’s saga on the way back. I have nothing to say about the latter except it would make an awesome series of movies with endless sequels and that modern literature lacks the sheer succinctness of poets of old. Of the Time Machine, well, what can I say, it was awesome, as expected. I also wonder why I didn’t read it earlier. It’s exactly the kind of book I would have read as a teenager, though I was much more into Asimov and Clark back then.

What made H.G. Wells such an awesome sci-fi writer (aside from those qualities that made him just plain old a good writer) was his ability to suspend disbelief by bringing heavy doses of real science into his stories while he makes his political commentary. My disbelief is not so easily suspended (one reason I seldom enjoy movies), so of course the SciFi I like is hard sci-fi, though I can appreciate the preposterous if it is at least internally consistent (e.g., if the way magic works makes sense and the world is as it would be were there magic; Lovecraft did this better than anyone else). His science isn’t the point of the novel. It isn’t to warn of an eventuality, but to make a separate point. It’s the good (for the time) science that draws you into the tale.

Even if you’ve never read Time Machine, there’s a good chance you’ve heard about what the time traveler finds in the future – mankind split into two separate species, one descended from the upper classes and one from the lower classes, the Eloi and the Morlocks, respectively. Aspects of the old relationship persist with the Morlocks creating everything and maintaining infrastructure for the Eloi, but with a twist – the Eloi are food for the Morlocks. The relationship has become something like cattle raised for slaughter. Both species have lost strength (and size) and intelligence compared to mankind now, but the Eloi much more so.

Thinking like a biologist [in training], the main thing that was nagging at me after reading the book was the explanation for why the Morlocks still clothe the Eloi. It was brushed off as vestigial behavior. That could be the case, but if it is so, it would have to be on its way out as it is expensive (what isn’t? Nature is a Miser) and will go away rather quickly in evolutionary time with the selective pressures for relaxed. But that’s not satisfying for me, since this makes a big part of the plot vestigial. The whole story is resting on a tail bone.

One explanation could be simply cultural. The Morlocks and the Eloi are at least smart enough to have language, and the Morlocks are smart enough to maintain infrastructure. Any instincts aside, Morlocks will continue the practice of clothing the Eloi as long as not doing so will make the Eloi lose any incentive to breed and be complacent. There can always be break-downs in Morlock society, though, as more and more Morlocks selfishly shirk their duties to Morlock-kind for personal gain. Given that global thinking evades their kind, one can be pretty sure it will happen, provided their care of the Eloi is a cultural practice they understand. It basically goes to game theory with all the players having marginal intelligence.

Alternatively, if the behavior is strictly instinctual (like the book implies), we are getting into evolutionary stable strategies. If it benefits an individual Morlock to shirk its Eloi-clothing responsibilities, there will be that pressure on being a selfish bastard who leaves the Eloi in their birthday suits, even if it threatens the survival of the species. There could be kin selection where such behavior is selected since it benefits others who carry the gene, but if there are variants where a group of Morlocks steal Eloi from rival bands (there’s no talk of tribes of Morlocks in the book, but given primate behavior, it’s a certainty), that would be selected for. If it is the case that being selfish always pays and there is no equilibrium where being more selfish is to one’s detriment (unlikely, since in primate culture, there’s social reciprocity), then individuals will strive for personal gain until the last Morlock is starving from uncared for Eloi failing to mate or running away when it’s light out.

Perhaps it is the fate of the Morlocks to go extinct. Indeed, in a section that the publisher had Wells add to the book (and he disagreed and won in the end) that showed the next stage in human evolution, there were no Morlocks in sight, but some small hopping animals descended from Eloi (The Grey Man). Perhaps the time traveler happened upon a collapse? Hmmm…

and replaced it with this monstrosity:

It’s hard to believe that they are (supposedly) the same song. The first is emotional, fun, bouncy, full of life. There’s expressiveness in the kid’s voice. The second sounds like I was sleep deprived and drunk and needed to turn in a song by the next day.. Sure, the first lacks “cool” (as if that’s what’s needed to make something kids like), while the second tries so hard to be cool, which only means that in 3 short years it will be worse than uncool. It will be like latter-era Elvis. FAIL

</rant>

Anyway, do watch the movie. Disney deserves credit for putting the effort (if sometimes misplaced) in bringing Miyazaki’s movies to the monolingual masses in America. I recommend watching it subtitled if you can read fast enough. If you’re watching it with kids then, yeah, you’ll probably want to dub it. Better yet, teach your kids Japanese! You know how kids have this annoying tendency to do things over and over again? Well, if your kid insists on watching this repeatedly, let them, but force them to watch it in Japanese with no subtitles subsequent times. That’ll teach ‘em.. Japanese, that is.

(read below for what I think of the movie, some spoilers contained)
As for the movie itself, there’s not much I can say without revealing the plot or saying what’s been said a gillion times. It’s not Miyazaki’s best movie, but it’s quite good. I knew I was going to like the movie when the very first scene contained Trilobites! That, and countless other Cambrian organisms.. Also, in a sea of Miyazaki “forest” movies, we find an ocean movie. Loosely based on Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, there are no mermaids, but the human-faced fish offspring of a mad sea-scientist and some sort of sea elemental or sea Goddess. Oh, but the girl does still have red hair (but so do all her sisters).

One theme that’s strong in the movie is something you see quite a bit in a lot of his recent movies – morph. Characters oscillate at different speeds in different directions at different times towards different forms. It is almost as if suggesting you don’t have an essential nature, but you are the sum product of events that occurred to you, and decisions you made. The sisters, too, morph at one stage into giant fish, and in turn to great tsunami waves and also for a brief second into beautiful girls alongside their mother. Indeed, her sisters are more like a mass than a collection of individuals – very Japanese.

The other theme is something reminiscent of My Neighbor Totoro – the seeming ability of most of the characters to not by shocked by the strange universe Miyazaki made for us. I know this isn’t just a Japanese thing, since even my wife thinks it odd that none of the characters (except the grumpy old lady who correctly portented the human-faced fish bringing tsunami) finds the fish’s appearance odd. His mother only thinks she’s cute. Even the appearance of the girl, revealing herself to having been the boy’s former pet fish didn’t even close to get the reaction I would expect in the real world – I would come running to the hills! But then again, in a world full of spirits, people get used to spirits. You say you believe in X, but would freak out completely if you ever met X. Miyazaki’s atheism and his coming from a culture that’s borderline animistic (and, formerly, much more than borderline) meet together in his art and it’s lovely.

She saw the dream from the perspective of a student in a boarding school. She was at a party at a restaurant with all of her friends and everyone else was leaving for downtown LA, perhaps to go to a club or something like that. The girl had to meet her mom so couldn’t go with her friends. She called her mother and then found out, however, that she wasn’t needed, so she called her friend so they could share a cab to downtown to meet their friends. When she went down to meet her friend, she saw her in the taxi alone. When she entered, her friend told her that the taxi driver left and didn’t come back. The girl decided to drive her and her friend in the cab to the police station to let them know that the car was abandoned. The police questioned us about the appearance of the man so they could possibly identify him. Some way or another, the two friends finally arrived in downtown and had fun with their classmates.

Back in the dormitory, something weird and suspicious kept happening to the girl to make her feel that someone was out to get her. Perhaps it was a sound or just a feeling she had in her gut. She had the ominous feeling that somebody was going to do something evil. There was a poster in her dorm room that was left there from the previous inhabitant. The girl never took it down because she liked it, but took it down thinking it might be covering something up and found a hole. Her heart sunk; she realized that somebody has always been watching her. She stormed out of the room and the girl she thought was a good friend of hers (the girl she was in a cab with) was found to be a something such as a ghoul that eats humans and leads a pack of other ghouls who do her bidding. She infects them and turns them into her servants, helping her hunt down people to eat. It was a dramatic scene with all of her friends, including her best friend, turning out to be monsters and in the dorm hallway.

“Hah, you remember that one time that the taxi driver disappeared and we reported it to the police?,” asked the girl’s “friend” who turned out to be the leader of the ghouls, “You know what happened to him? I ate him! That’s why he disappeared!” The girl stormed out from the dorm, running with the ghouls chasing her. Somehow, she ended up in the fashion district. She found a costume store that looked narrow from the outside, but was really deep and two-storied. The third floor was, like many stores in the fashion district, a residential floor for the owners to live in. She arrived at the top floor. Even though she was running away from ghouls, she felt guilty about intruding into the owners’ private space. In the residence, she saw three nice middle-aged women eating dinner together. She told them that she was in danger and they said that she could stay there for as long as she wants, provided she helps with the business.

It was a peaceful period for a while. She would go out, using a different costume each time so the monsters wouldn’t find her. She’s been going out like that so she thought it would be okay to do just live that way indefinitely. Perhaps the ghouls forgot her, she thought. Maybe she could just stay this way. But, one day she saw that they found her and ran back home from the store and went upstairs, finding all three of the nice women who lived above the store, dead. She felt a rush of guilt that they hid her and because of her, died. The ghouls almost found her and almost got into the store. There was nowhere to go. She got to above a beam above the store and they were trying to get up to her, looking up hungrily. She become progressively more and more panicked when suddenly I (Thomas Webb) appeared and unleashed the ultimate weapon – I peed on them. The urine was very painful to them, especially their eyes. The girl (or perhaps by this point in the dream, the girl became my wife, identities do shift around in dreams) jumped off the beam and killed every last one of them. When I killed the leader with a Japanese sword (which the costume store had), the servants started screaming in agony.

It was a mixed victory. While she was thinking that she finally won, she also had this feeling of guilt that that killed somebody and that, though she saved herself, she has to live with the guilt of having murdered the rest of her life.

Too bad it was a festival and there were two bands I had to see, the aforementioned TG and The Cure! I got some good moments in, but between the concert-jumping I managed to miss both Genesis kissing the tattoo of his dead x-wife and “lovesong”. What’s the opposite of a hybrid… a lobrid? Yeah, a festival is a lobrid, because though in theory, the different areas are for different kinds of people, in practice coming primarily for two different headlining acts is an eventuality. Though the sounds of those two bands I came to see are quiiiite different, there is considerably overlap in their fan bases (people who dress in black.. people who like songs dripping with emotion – yes TG’s songs do!) Oh well. Maybe I can be crazy and try to see TG tonight, though I probably will not have time, what with speaking in foreign tongues to future in-laws and all…

There isn’t so much to say about The Cure. They’re performance was perfect. Robert Smith is so dramatic and his voice is impressive (I didn’t use to be a fan of his voice, even though I still liked the Cure, go figure). They started out with the first track from their new album. Robert Smith should lose weight in a way that doesn’t involve going back to his old ways. If he jogged regularly like Jagger does, then their performance would go beyond legendary to.. ugh, whatever is beyond legendary. Yes.

So, in conclusion, I might go to Coachella again. It’s a good experience, but I’m just more of a concert guy. One stage, preferrably where the fans of the main band and of earlier bands are mostly the same people. Yeah, that’s good. Nothing has topped the Current 93 concert in San Fran’ for me yet…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TerraformedMarsGlobeRealistic.jpg

Except one big, glaring hole – the craters! Why isn’t Earth all crater-y like that? Oh yeah, because we have erosion and biological processes erase and cover them up. I don’t believe we have any craters like that you can see from space, though we’ve been bombarded by Mars no less, I’ll bet. Psh.

I’m in the first stages of starting a new band (or reviving my old band, however you wanna look at it). I’m very open-minded as to what instrument(s) you can play/contribute. Right now, I’m trying to find 1-2 really motivated people to start working on new songs with. We can add more musicians later if needed. But right now, I’m looking for people who have a vision and can compose new material with me.

My goal is to practice 1-2x/week, every week and not start playing until we have a solid base of original songs that we play very, very well (I’m interested in a few covers here and there too). I already have quite a few originals I can show you how to play, or we can even rework them to sound different! Other than playing live, the only other thing I want out of this band is for us to make a really awesome CD and release it to the world!

I’m not in it for the money. I’m finding working in IT is a much better way to make money than music. I don’t want to “make it big”. Not in music, anyway (my life goal is to become a renowned food science and biotech inventor). To me, it’s a semi-serious hobby and if this is the situation for you also, then I think we’ll get along

Here is a small selection of the bands I’m influenced by. Major bonus points if you really like at least 2-3 of these:
coil, throbbing gristle, laibach, current 93, oingo boingo, bauhaus, joy division, kraftwerk, bjork, aphex twin, nick cave and the bad seeds, einstruzende neubauten, polysics, christian death (rozz williams, minus points if you listen to valor, hehe), the cure, joy division, gossamer, non, skinny puppy, david bowie, brian eno, the pixies, …

Feel free to call/SMS me with any questions 760-912-1856. Leave a message if I don’t answer, I’ll call you back. Or you can contact me through craigslist, or check my myspace
www.myspace.com/pinkboi
My previous band that died from the members all moving their separate ways can be found here (I think “Church Girls”, one of the last songs we did, is also one of our finest, despite my weak vocals):
www.myspace.com/thehappybuttons
www.thehappybuttons.com

We can change the name though, because this will be a new band, as far as I’m concerned.

Hmm…

The best occultist of all time? Why, H.P. Lovecraft, of course. Frustrated astronomer, reluctant (but good!) writer. Get a collection of his stuff and be merry.