Obama-Biden Prospector

Looks like we have a land-shark on our hands, Levi-Strauss style.  A CNN article explains that someone bought up all the possible Obama-Biden domain names and is selling them each for $100,000 on eBay.  Presumably the price could go up if someone ELSE buys them and decides to jack up the price for a profit.  

Ahh, quite an American Dream we're living.

PS--Isn't this picture cute?  These guys are so cute.

Get your golden shower today!

...still trying to sell gold today. Watch the video. (it's not porn.)

The Bubble Prophet

Check out this article in the NYTimes Magazine, called Dr. Doom.

It tells the story of an economics professor at NYU who, in september 2006, gave a lecture to the IMF warning that the housing bubble was about to pop, taking down other financial institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with it.  He was basically laughed off-stage.  The idea of a sort-of bubble popping prophet interests me a lot.  That person, to me, is Regina, the girl with a head on her shoulders but no one listens to anyway.  It seems to me an amazing use of dramatic irony for her to warn everyone (or the audience) of the bubble popping or of the imminent doom that all bubbles carry with them, and then get laughed off-stage by the other characters.  It works because we, in the present, know it was not to be forever, but the characters surely don't.  It also relates to McLuhan's theory that "If it works, it's obsolete"... that once it's a proven rule, it's too late to cash in on it.

There seem to be issues of Fate that we have yet to tap into, but lie strongly under the surface of the play.  Cecil, no matter how hard he tries to re-rout history, is unable to change the song.  Despite his intervention, the song finds a new way to reach the same end.  I find that so powerful.  In terms of this article, Cecil is the ultimate dummy for not realizing that the Dot Com Bubble would pop just as hard and ceremoniously as the Gold Bubble.

What do you guys think?

Duck Hunt

for Regina's shot-gun...

Andrew's Gold Panning Song

we are all a panning, pan pan panning,
we are all a panning just to get a little gold
Those who come to California, come to make a little raise,
And they all go to panning in a hundred different ways.
And they still keep panning, pan pan panning,
And they still keep panning just to make a little gold.


it goes on to talk about merchants, preachers, crazy politicians, attornies, gamblers, robbers, and finnally:

and the miner in his diggings keeps a panning all the while
and he's ever well contented when he's adding to his pile
'tis an honest way of panning, pan pan panning,
tis an honest way of panning ust to make a little raise.

Ducks Selling Progress

Duck 1: would you like to improve your life?  Would you like to see your factory’s production increase by 15% or  more?  Since 1994 we have grown from a small floating company into a company that has helped over 750 small businesses increase their productivity.  Established in 1848,  Progress is one of the fastest growing agents in America.  Wouldn’t you prefer PROGRESS to your hum drum protestantism?

 

Duck 2: Here is a list of words or phrases that you should not use because they are old fashioned or rude.

 

'Would you be so kind'…

 

Duck 1: Would you be so kind as to fill out our survey…

 

Duck 2: 'I would like to take this opportunity to…'

 

Duck 1: I would like to take this opportunity to introduce to you a product that improves itself by its own very nature…

 

Duck 2:  'kindly..'

 

Duck 1: Kindly put your life savings in the envelope I have provided…

 

Duck 2: 'Thank you in advance..'

 

Duck 1: you will want to thank me in advance for the improvements upon your factory…

 

Duck 2: 'Acknowledge receipt of….'

 

Duck 1: acknowledge receipt of… what?

 

Duck 2: receipt of.

 Yes.  Do not use the phrase : 'acknowledge receipt of'… or ‘advise.’ When trying to sell a product.   

 

Duck 1: I would not advise going with our competitor…

 

Duck 2: 'As Per'

 

Duck 1: I don’t know how to use that in a sentence

 

Duck 2: Im telling you not to use it in a sentence

 

Duck 1: (mockingly) 'as per' your first comment

 

Duck 2: no that’s not how you use it.

 

Duck 1: Fine.

 

Duck 2: (sigh.)'At this time..'

 

Duck 1: 'at this time' is a great way to make them feel like you are a professional

Like you would be great to work with

Like your product is

 

Duck 2: do not use the phrase “ at this time.”

 

Duck 1: Duly noted.

 

Duck 2: “duly”

 

Duck 1: I cant say Duly?

 

Duck 2: no. Don’t send mass email mailouts. 

 

Duck 1: SPAM!  Hah!

 

Duck 2: don’t send a fax.  Don’t send out sales letters that have spelling or grammar mistakes.  Or use out of date English. 

 

Duck 3:

Buy our progress.  Its really great. 

 

Duck 2: right.

 

 

Duck 1: right.  What he said.  

A monologue by Clementine

Im going to go over to Michaels house right now, and I mean im definitely going to present this as a great opportunity for us… and if he would just give me, like, $100,000, then I would DEFINITELY be able to flip it.  Kennedy says that if I get the money and purchase the right equiptment then I would really be in a good place to start… I mean I would really be able to move forward, you know?  And Michael should be able to make a profit as well, and I mean it takes money to make money…Right? So,  and he should want to make me happy, anyway.  He should want me to do well… to thrive, because that’s what you want for people when you love them.  You want them to live in prime real estate, and, like,  be young forever, and look really great in any outfit.  And this would be such a great opportunity for me.  I mean, I could really make it.  I could really be something.  I just need, like, 150000.  

steam punk (quack quack!)

A Poem

"In men whom men condemn as ill

I find so much of goodness still

in men whom men pronounce devine

I find so much of sin and blot

I do not dare to draw a line

between the two, where God has not."

~Joaquin Miller (gold rush survivor)

TEAM WORKSHOP QUOTES

Here are some quotes that stand out from the TEAM workshop about the company/development phase:

"Epic storytelling is intimate storytelling."

"if as a performer you felt something for it then as a company we should support it."

"You begin to make up rules within the world you are creating."

"aggressive attitudes in the room are not unhealthy."

"What should the main character teach the audience about herself right then?"

"Dont go further, but detail with more story questions.."

"I always want to teach the audience what OUR rules are.."

"You have to talk about the psychology of every moment."

"How do you make manifest huge abstract idea's?"

"Can you do it again, but stupider?"

ClivePitch: CRANSPORT

Have you ever been cut off in the middle of an IM?
Has your phone ever given up on you?
I'm sure it has. It has everyone.
But if you're like me, and always wanting to be there for your loved ones
so that they won't be gone and lost forever,
use the CRANSPORT for all of your most urgent needs.
Replace glib, humorless emails ...
you can do better than fuzzy, jumping webcams...
the CRANSPORT will bring your loved ones to you in a way you've only seen in movies.
That's right, movies. Remember those?

The CRANSPORT is a hybrid camera and transporter that conveys the soul of each correspondent to the others' location.
It's perfect for long-distance relationships...
and communications where lying about where you are and what you're really doing will now be obsolete!
Instead you can actually be together for the duration of your conversation!

What's the catch you ask?

Well, for those of you silent types out there, get a thesaurus!
The only thing that the CRANSPORT responds to is vocal vibration!
Which means that if there's a lull in the conversation...for more than 22 seconds,
you're immediately transported to Delaware's Port Authority until you can think of something to say!

Temporary glitches can only be improved with testing...so get your CRANSPORT today for an affordable &249.99 and start bringing your loved ones back home for just long enough to say I LOVE YOU! It has everyone!

I'm so rich I got a landline, B

Wesleyan Sociology superhero, Sam Han, is just a couple years out of college, is teaching undergrad without an advanced degree, and just got his book, Navigating Technomedia, published with a foreword from famed theorist Charles Lemert.  

On his blog, Caught in the Web, he writes several McLuhan-y posts.  One in particular stands out.  Why?  Because it's all about him!  Look (and don't skip over the 2 youtube videos):

I’m so rich I got a landline, B.

August 8, 2008 by SH

Slate’s Daniel Gross gets into what is really killing the land-line telephone. And according to him, it’s not just the cell phone. Well of course it is the cell phone but there’s more to be said about the obsolescence of the the land line. He is speaking very specifically about residential land lines of course, which are close if not already dead media. “Dead media” is a term I learned from a 6-person seminar I took with two media scholars at NYU–Alex Galloway and Ben Kafka. (You can see some of the work that came out of that course here.) Dead media is exactly what it sounds like. Media that is no longer alive, no longer in use nor in the minds of most people. Betamax tapes, for instance, are dead media. But like human death, this is complicated. Sometimes media objects become resurrected by other media. One example is the original Nintendo, which has no been remediated in the Nintendo iPhone app, that allows you to play such classics as Contra and Bubble Bobble.

Watch the NES emulator app on the iPhone:

iPhone Nintendo Emulator

But back to the land-line telephone, is it dead quite yet? And if so, how dead is it?

In preparing for his article, Gross quite humorously does an impromptu survey of younger colleagues, to which the responses are quite hilarious.

… I was greeted with doleful, patronizing, silly-old-man smiles. The few who did have home phones used Skype. One had a phone at home that was part of a triple-play offering from the local cable company. “Nobody uses it.”

Haha. That’s probably exactly what happened. But it’s not just because everyone is using mobile phones. There’s another reason that Gross identifies–the economy. But to just say that the economic downturn that the US is experiencing is responsible for any and every decline in consumption. As Gross notes, the land-line has gone from necessity to luxury:

But in this first real slowdown of the wireless age, consumers seem to be saying that home-based telephones are expendable luxuries, like Starbucks lattes or Coach handbags. And it makes sense. Confronted with high inflation, soaring energy costs, and stagnant wages, millions of households are facing choices about which monthly bills to pay and which commitments to maintain. And if it comes down to one or the other, the mobile or the home-based land line, it’s clear which is a necessity and which is an option. One lets you make telephone calls only from your house. The other lets you make telephone calls from anywhere, send e-mails, surf the Internet, play music, and take photographs.

Couldn’t have put it any better. I think what most media critics fail to recognize is that the newest gadget won’t supplant unless a comfort threshold is met, by which the new technology is able to fulfill the function of the old technology and then some. This is what the Godfather of media theory Marshall McLuhan once referred to as new media containing within it old media.

Watch McLuhan’s awesome cameo in Woody Allen’s classic Annie Hall.

OMG OMG MARSHALL MCLUHAN AND WOODY ALLEN!!!!!!

Thus, despite what David Brooks argues about the state of culture in the age of the iPhone in today’s NY Times, technologies don’t become hot just because they are new. Something more deeply ingrained all forms of life–necessity and luxury–are at work.

So next time a rapper wants to make it rain, I suggest a land-line telephone. Maybe even a cordless one to boot.

And to top it off, Sam is a friend of mine who lives in Brooklyn.  He's gonna be big-time, and am SURE he'd be willing to come talk to us.  (He wants to see more theater... ESPECIALLY our kind, obvi.)

Like They Never Used to Make Them

Kwang Ho Lee's inside-out lamps

A Letter to My Therapist

Dear Doctor—

I'm sorry I missed my Friday session. I'm sitting on the Greyhound right now and I can't help but imagine you sitting in your office, waiting for me to come in even though I won't because I ran away to California to find gold.

Yes, Doctor (I can hear you talking out loud as you read this. Or at least I think I can. Ha!) I know the Gold Rush was 150 years ago. I know that. You don't think I know that? Because I do. But it's like this.

I don't want to be who I am. I don't want that feeling I get when I wake up in the morning and realize I have to be this person again. I do not desire any of this. (that's what you always say this is about, right? Desire? Wanting things? Things you can't have? You don't deserve? That are bad for you?) But I’ve had a breakthrough: desire pushes through the limit of what is possible; it does not recognize it and retreat. It changes who we are, it changes us into what we seek.

I desired to be someone else and I ended up not recognizing what I saw.

But now, now I'm looking for gold. Because I always wanted to feel precious myself.

Cecil Sells a Broken Pencil

See this?
(holds out a pencil)
Nickel. Maybe a time at one of your upscale boutiques. Reliable investment, the pencil. Everyone uses them. Official Writing Instrument of the Russian Space Program.
But then
(breaks pencil)
Worthless, right?
But, but-
Okay, follow me here: You take the broken pencil, right? Buy them buy the carton, the crate, the wagon-just buy a lot, okay?-from a-a juvenile detention facility, architectural firm, corner store wagon, anywhere without imagination. And you figure, broken pencils, penny a pound? You'd be doing them a favor, no one needs a broken pencil. It's like a calculator without a zero key: UNTENABLE
(Cecil is the only one who laughs)
Right. So you pick up these broken pencils, and okay, this is the catch, this is the only catch but you need to invest in some tape, okay? Scotch tape, masking tape, duck [sic] tape, whatever you can trade for. And you start taping the broken pencils to each other. Doesn't even matter if they match. Maybe better if they don't. Two points: double the productivity. Two erasers: twice as forgiving.
Alright, so now you got these unholy super pencils and you sell them at normal prices (your nickel, your dime at the boutique). And alongside these bad boys, you think anyone is going to be interested in a normal pencil?
America is a country that will pay well for novelty.
Ok, so lets talk profit:
Let's say you buy em a penny a pound. Say 20 pencils in a pound. Sell em for a nickel each. That's $1 off your penny investment. 1000% profit off your investment. And, right right, factor in the tape. But if you're buying in bulk (from your local Costco or covered wagon, what have you) the cost is negligible. So let's focus on our profits.
So how bout it?
Who wants to be the first to make their fortune in pencils. Because, today and only because I like you, I am willing to make you a once-in-a-lifetime deal. I will let you buy a couple of broken pencils from me. You can start your own pencil business today! What do you think?
I'll trade em for a mustache comb...

Jess' Pitch (to be read with Greg)

You look tired.
Hot sun?
carpal tunnel?
Fingers bleeding?
thirty?
out of ideas?
horse died?
good cooked?
server crashed?
fiber dark?
missed the boat?
husband left you?
house on fire?
claim jumped?
didn't make the cut?
no "eureka"?
heard the news?
family leaving?
irrational exuberance?
bubble popped?
no one there?
no one?
thirsty?

Hop in.
The water's great.

The Drakula 3000...you can't have it

Clive's Pitch

Picture this:

A young boy, ages 12 to 15, running about amongst the fallen leaves (it is october) with his young companion. Suddenly, from across Maple street, a joyous laughter has erupted. It's Davy. We zoom in. Now we are interested, "what could make such a small boy so large with laughter?" A ha. Eureka, even. We see he is carrying the Drakula 3000, a new and improved rake, just for kids (specifically kids who love Halloween, and , lets be honest folks, who doesn't love Halloween?).

The name of the game here is exclusivity. I see that Davy has acquired one, and I want my parents to acquire one for me now too! Not so fast, little Henry. Because in the first 6 months of production, we only sell it to families with the last name Jones. The Drakula 3000 is in the hands of every Maggie Jones, Jake Jones, Lily Jones, Frank Jones, hell, maybe even Tommy Lee Jones. Although he has not yet returned my phone calls. 

Now, 6 months later, kids are dyin to get their hands on the Drakula 3000. And good thing, because now everyone can have one, and they are snatched off the walls of Toy's R Us's everywhere. 

"Who wants to rake, when you can Drakula? No one. NO ONE."

"Bubble Mentality" Writing Improv - 8/4

Personal Musing:

It takes risk, a leap of faith. Faith in yourself, which is often the hardest faith to find. But when you can truly tap into it, you see yourself do things beyond your powers. In order to survive in this mentality, you must accept failure. You must know that your big leaps will never find sturdy ground, but sometimes you will catch a gust of wind that blows you high into the sky. You just gotta know when to jump.

From the perspective of a "Success Story":

You know, making it big comes down to one thing: you have to be incredibly gifted. People hiss and moan about the tragedy of meritocracy, but--I'm sorry--that's just how the world works. The smarter, better looking, more talented people get what they want, and everyone else just gets the life they deserve. Sure, no one should be discriminated against because of their looks. But everything else is just fair.

Bill Gates, Dot-Com Batman

Bill Gates is the personification of the American Dream during the tech bubble period.  He didn't lose a step when the bubble burst.  

Since 2001, he's spent most of his time running the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, further enhancing my Batman theory: the rich and powerful are potentially so scary to the public that they need to appear benevolent in order to maintain their happy-go-lucky position.

Monument Valley

The iconic Nevada/Colorado backdrop of John Ford's westerns.

McLuhanisms

IF IT WORKS,
IT’S
OBSOLETE

Marshall McLuhanisms

The story of modern America begins With the discovery of the white man by The Indians.

Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.

Whereas convictions depend on speed-ups, justice requires delay.

The nature of people demands that most of them be engaged in the most frivolous possible activities—like making money.

With telephone and TV it is not so much the message as the sender that is “sent.”

Money is the poor man’s credit card.

We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.

Spaceship earth is still operated by railway conductors, just as NASA is managed by men with Newtonian goals.

Invention is the mother of necessities.

You mean my whole fallacy’s wrong?

Mud sometimes gives the illusion of depth.

The car has become the carapace, the protective and aggressive shell, of urban and suburban man.

Why is it so easy to acquire the solutions of past problems and so difficult to solve current ones?

The trouble with a cheap, specialized education is that you never stop paying for it.

People don’t actually read newspapers. They step into them every morning like a hot bath.

The road is our major architectural form.

Today each of us lives several hundred years in a decade.

Today the business of business is becoming the constant invention of new business.

The price of eternal vigilance is indifference.

News, far more than art, is artifact.

When you are on the phone or on the air, you have no body.

Tomorrow is our permanent address.

All advertising advertises advertising.

The answers are always inside the problem, not outside.

“Camp” is popular because it gives people a sense of reality to see a replay of their lives.

This information is top security. When you have read it, destroy yourself.

The specialist is one who never makes small mistakes while moving toward the grand fallacy.

One of the nicest things about being big is the luxury of thinking little.

Politics offers yesterday’s answers to today’s questions.

The missing link created far more interest than all the chains and explanations of being.

In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses.

When a thing is current, it creates currency.

Food for the mind is like food for the body: the inputs are never the same as the outputs.

Men on frontiers, whether of time or space, abandon their previous identities. Neighborhood gives identity. Frontiers snatch it away.

The future of the book is the blurb.

The ignorance of how to use new knowledge stockpiles exponentially.

A road is a flattened-out wheel, rolled up in the belly of an airplane.

At the speed of light, policies and political parties yield place to charismatic images.

“I may be wrong, but I’m never in doubt.”

McMaster McLuhan

The legacy of Marshal McLuhan, technological theorist of the 1960s.  His works proposed that after a technology is created, it then changes who we are and the way we understand the world.  He wrote several iconic books, and also coined the terms "the medium is the message" (that the structure of a medium has more of an impact than the content it puts forward) and "global village".

Most importantly for us, he developed a four-pronged pedagogical tool called the "tetrad", which can define any technology:

-What action does it enhance? (Enhancement)

-What method of doing things does it make obsolete? (Obsolescence)

-What does it retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier? (Retrieval)

-What does it become when pushed to its extreme? (Reversal)

Facebook Example

-Enhancement: The Facebook extends our personality onto the internet, widening our social network.

-Obsolescence: Facebook reduces the importance of direct social communication.

-Retrieval: Facebook retrieves the importance of a writing-based social communication, such as letter writing.

-Reversal: When pushed to its extreme, Facebook can result social isolation.

I HIGHLY recommend reading the Wikipedia article.

three ducks approaching from a vanishing point [a la the moment in a Western when the marshal approaches]

always makes me think of this: