in light of The Watchmen opening next week, I present Alan Moore's second greatest work:
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Writing Robot!
Writing Worries?
Paper not popping?
Book looking BORING?
How about this for a title? Clementine and the Cyber Ducks. A real kick in the pantaloons, eh? Well it's just one of the many gleaming gems generated by the hottest new computer program: Writing Robot.
A bounty of research has proven that people LOVE robots. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq8Yw19bn7Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dneLQY6ZVk
An even bigger bundle of research has shown, hands down, that writing- well . . . writing is hard.
Think of all the high school students mashing their heads into keyboards in agony!
Think of the college students who just want to . . . play a little Buck Hunter!
Think of all those recluse writers staring at the wall and resorting to alcohol!
Writing Robot uses cutting edge technology to help struggling writers generate new ideas and tweak trite ones. Based on the work of nonsense artists like Dr. Seuss, Gertrude Stein, and Lewis Carroll, writing robot uses a variety of techniques to give your work new meaning, or propose an entirely new idea for your novel/paper/thesis.
Don't like Writing Robot's ideas? It has an INFINITE amount! That's the beauty of the English language meeting the best randomization technology out there today. But robot, you say, random isn't good enough. I need something that sounds ahead of the curve! Well, never fear little literary upstart! Writing robot is well aware of the plethora of poetic devices.
Alliteration! Assonance! Consonance! And everyone's favorite: Onomatopoeia!
Well, what are you waiting for? Order now!
Clementine and the Cyber Ducks isn't going to write itself!
Paper not popping?
Book looking BORING?
How about this for a title? Clementine and the Cyber Ducks. A real kick in the pantaloons, eh? Well it's just one of the many gleaming gems generated by the hottest new computer program: Writing Robot.
A bounty of research has proven that people LOVE robots. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq8Yw19bn7Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dneLQY6ZVk
An even bigger bundle of research has shown, hands down, that writing- well . . . writing is hard.
Think of all the high school students mashing their heads into keyboards in agony!
Think of the college students who just want to . . . play a little Buck Hunter!
Think of all those recluse writers staring at the wall and resorting to alcohol!
Writing Robot uses cutting edge technology to help struggling writers generate new ideas and tweak trite ones. Based on the work of nonsense artists like Dr. Seuss, Gertrude Stein, and Lewis Carroll, writing robot uses a variety of techniques to give your work new meaning, or propose an entirely new idea for your novel/paper/thesis.
Don't like Writing Robot's ideas? It has an INFINITE amount! That's the beauty of the English language meeting the best randomization technology out there today. But robot, you say, random isn't good enough. I need something that sounds ahead of the curve! Well, never fear little literary upstart! Writing robot is well aware of the plethora of poetic devices.
Alliteration! Assonance! Consonance! And everyone's favorite: Onomatopoeia!
Well, what are you waiting for? Order now!
Clementine and the Cyber Ducks isn't going to write itself!
On Finding
Written for Brian. A first draft:
Before anything else, before the Web was even close to World-Wide, we had Archie. He wasn’t much, or he wouldn’t look like it now, but six years ago he was a revelation: a web directory with near-complete records of every FTP server out in that cold expanse. And if it only catalogued titles, and not specific content, so what? We were young. It was such a stride. But what came next? What stroke of evolutionary brilliance? What goddamn torturous fucking acronyms came nipping at Archie’s heels? Veronica and Jughead. I wish I was kidding about this shit.
Archie was not a… some fricking freckled fucking feckless kid. Some redheaded stepchild. Archie wasn’t short for ARCHIBALD, assholes. Archie was ARCHIVE, without the V. This is not cute, okay? This is not some twee little joke. This is timeless, it is epic, it is an historic watershed.
My engine is named Alex. Look, fuck Jughead and Veronica and Moose, but I still understand a little something about marketing. So, Alex. For Alexandria, Egypt, and the library thereof. Because Alex and AlexandriaAlexandria was the capital of commerce, thought, communication. A hub of research and recording, where new ideas were born as freely as the old ones could be pulled from their shelves. And it’s all because people were coming from all over, everywhere, sharing what they knew because all of them would want to hear it, and… and they knew that. These likeminded people travelled for months for no other reason than connecting, than… than, fuck it, logging on, together, always together. How fucking amazing that now we can have that without even leaving our homes? That now there is nothing, literally, nothing, to keep us from finding those people, that person… any person, with whom… because we’re all connected, inter-connected, literally, potentially; every human person, so now: NOW, how can one person not manage to find, see, touch, feel, another?
How can a person remain unfound?
I’ll make Alex, Alexandria, the new great human hub. I will make it, and everyone will know me.
Before anything else, before the Web was even close to World-Wide, we had Archie. He wasn’t much, or he wouldn’t look like it now, but six years ago he was a revelation: a web directory with near-complete records of every FTP server out in that cold expanse. And if it only catalogued titles, and not specific content, so what? We were young. It was such a stride. But what came next? What stroke of evolutionary brilliance? What goddamn torturous fucking acronyms came nipping at Archie’s heels? Veronica and Jughead. I wish I was kidding about this shit.
Archie was not a… some fricking freckled fucking feckless kid. Some redheaded stepchild. Archie wasn’t short for ARCHIBALD, assholes. Archie was ARCHIVE, without the V. This is not cute, okay? This is not some twee little joke. This is timeless, it is epic, it is an historic watershed.
My engine is named Alex. Look, fuck Jughead and Veronica and Moose, but I still understand a little something about marketing. So, Alex. For Alexandria, Egypt, and the library thereof. Because Alex and AlexandriaAlexandria was the capital of commerce, thought, communication. A hub of research and recording, where new ideas were born as freely as the old ones could be pulled from their shelves. And it’s all because people were coming from all over, everywhere, sharing what they knew because all of them would want to hear it, and… and they knew that. These likeminded people travelled for months for no other reason than connecting, than… than, fuck it, logging on, together, always together. How fucking amazing that now we can have that without even leaving our homes? That now there is nothing, literally, nothing, to keep us from finding those people, that person… any person, with whom… because we’re all connected, inter-connected, literally, potentially; every human person, so now: NOW, how can one person not manage to find, see, touch, feel, another?
How can a person remain unfound?
I’ll make Alex, Alexandria, the new great human hub. I will make it, and everyone will know me.
The Stars Align
It seems everybody is interested in what the Internet was like in the mid-90s these days. To wit, last nights "Colbert Report":
And if that weren;t enough, today on Slate:
Jurassic Web
And if that weren;t enough, today on Slate:
Jurassic Web
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Crisis Art
Beloved Wesleyan professor, Sean McCann, wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal called Will This Crisis Produce a 'Gatsby'. It considers the role of art in troubled cultural times. The work that was created during the Great Depression was largely an inquisition into the lie of social mobility, which is a fascinating aspect of the world we are creating in Clementine.
Artistically speaking, I think that the coincidental overlaps of the Recession and Obama Campaign have produced a scene that has elements of both the Great Depression and the Sixties. It's worth pondering as we try to be thoughtful and provoking artists.
Monday, February 23, 2009
CDuckC's Pitch
What is it that all Americans want? They want to lose weight, get rich and get a perfect pair of abs. And how do they want to get it? Without working! They want to get rid of the process and get straight to the gold. They want the cookies but they don't want to climb up the fridge. They want to get to the center of the Tootsie Pop but they don't want to lick it all goddamn day. they want an E-ticket but they don't want to pay for it. So what do we give them? Our all-new revolutionary patented Process! What is our Process exactly? It doesn't matter. It'll probably be some sort of combination of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Hypno-Therapy, and the Law of Attraction/Positive Thinking crap packed onto our audio and video cassettes. If Americans are too lazy to work for their own process, wel'll make one up and sell it to them. Wanna lose weight? Listen to our Process tapes. Wanna make money just by thinking about it? Watch our videos. Wanna ge a nice physique and get laid? Listen to our process CD's and MP3's. Our all new patented process will get you whatever you want so you can go straight to the land of Milk and Honey without having to actually schlep all the way there!
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Have I got a deal for you...
I would like to address what I feel is a glaring need in our California.
Just the other day I was paying my good friend CDuckC a visit. Now CDuckC has just come across a real daisy of a claim, getting the kind of pay-out we all dream about. But when I saw my friend, a cold chill ran down my feathers. CDuckC was looking awfully long in the bill so I asked him what the matter was. After all, pretty soon CDuckC is going to have more gold than you can shake your tail feathers at, what's he got to be sad about?
He tells me just this morning men had come to his claim and staked it as their own. Said they'd been on months before old CDuckC had come around. What made matters worse, several of these men were carrying hefty shovels and mighty intimidating pick-axes. My friend CDuckC is a reasonable fellow, he tried to make them see the error of their ways through civilized debate and discourse but to no avail.
I stopped him right there, I said CDuckC you don't need to worry anymore, I've got you covered. I said your days of fear and anxiety are over. I reached into my bag and produced a fine new Smith and Wesson shotgun, gave him quite a deal on it too!
Now if these men can't hear poor CDuckC, he's got something to speak up for him. Nothing says confidence like a Smith and Wesson.
Keep your claims safe.
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