Month / February 2009

by Edward Champion

New Review: George Friedman’s THE NEXT 100 YEARS

Well, the Gerald Celente post continues to draw plenty of haters to this site. And that’s fine. Because everybody needs a hobby. But I’m pleased to report that I’ve taken on another dubious futurist in the fine pages of the San Francisco Chronicle. I had truly hoped for more from the book. I have a soft spot for futurists and I always start reading a book hoping for the best. But, alas, it proved to be grand bunk.

Today, if you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can pick up the paper and read my review of George Friedman’s The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century. Unless, of course, you want to read it now. I can’t possibly predict the future of your own decision, but I’m all too happy to embrace the uncertainty of the present.

by Edward Champion

Roundtable Discussion: Eric Kraft’s FLYING

kraft-flyingBeginning on March 2, 2009, this website will be kickstarting a lengthy roundtable discussion of Eric Kraft’s Flying over the course of the week. (For those hoping to follow along with the discussion, this is the same week that the book comes out.)

Who is Eric Kraft? Well, as I learned when enlisting roundtable participants, a lot of people aren’t all that aware of him. In fact, I only found out about the guy by accident about a decade ago, when I stumbled upon a series of paperbacks labeled The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at City Lights. I flipped through the pages, and found a number of pleasantly fabricated pictures, diagrams, and illustrations, ended up purchasing a number of these books, and began reading.

Peter Leroy, as it turned out, was a guy in the present writing his “memoirs.” Except that these memoirs are fabricated from hazy childhood memories. Or are they more accurate than can be believed? One of the pleasant side effects is that the lie of the “memoir” often reveals ebullient truths about the human condition. But we never quite know how much of this is invented and how much of this is true. Why is Peter’s wife, Albertine, so patient with his imaginative condition? Or is this likewise a put on? One character, Matthew Barber, is a miserable toy executive with an alter ego named B.W. Beath who he impersonates when he reviews restaurants for the newspaper. In Reservations Recommended, we initially believe Barber to be real. But we learn in that book, and, most notably in Passionate Spectator, that he is fabricated and that the alter ego within the alter ego is of great importance to the “real” Leroy.

Now my description here suggests that Kraft’s novels are needlessly complicated and will give you a headache. But they’re really not. What’s especially striking about Kraft’s work is that none of these postmodernist tricks come across as exceptionally showy. His books are perverse, funny, obsessive, entertaining, and sometimes quite heartbreaking.

But Kraft hasn’t quite found the great audience that he deserves. And one of the reasons I maintain this website is to draw attention to overlooked and underrated authors.

So in a few weeks, we’re going to have about fifteen people here discussing Kraft’s latest book. There is also a separate podcast interview with Kraft in the works, in which I will do my best to conduct as definitive an interview as I can. (I have read all ten books in the Leroy series. This is the first author interview in which I have conducted this kind of insane preparation.)

The book that we will be discussing is Flying.

Flying is composed of three novellas (“Taking Off,” “On the Wing,” and the previously unpublished “Flying Home”) and follows Peter Leroy’s pursuits, as he sets out to build a flying motorcycle that will carry him to such exotic places as New Mexico. Each novella takes on one part of the journey, and the “journey” often involves numerous side quests and other divagations. But how much of this adventure is by design? What of the reconstructed Babbington Historical District that looks suspiciously similar to the Babbington in which Peter Leroy grew up? And what does all of this have to say about memory, permanence, and experience?

Well, we hope to answer these questions and more when the roundtable discussion begins. Until then, keep watching the skies!

by Edward Champion

I’m Done With Facebook

It was bad enough with all the apps and the winks and the intrusive nonsense that greeted you every time you logged on, but this was the last straw. Facebook, showing how smug and contemptuous they are of community, now wants to seize the rights of anything you create and happen to distribute through their networks, by changing the Terms of Service to suit their avaricious purposes. I never agreed to these Terms of Service, and chances are that neither did you. For the record, I sure as hell do not grant Facebook any right to store archived copies of any content imported form my blog, and if these boneheads even try to use my content, they will face severe legal ramifications. And it won’t be limited to arbitration. Because I never agreed to the new terms of service. And nothing in the OLD terms of service indicated an automatic update to the NEW terms of service.

So I’ve deleted my account. If you want to delete yours, the magic link is here.

Nothing that I create will ever be distributed on Facebook again. If you want to contact me, you can get me on Twitter or email.

I would advise any writers, artists, and photographers to remove their content posthaste, and not give Facebook the right to profit on your hard labor. Creative Commons and community is the solution. Not autocratic assignation of rights.

UPDATE: J.F. Quackenbush has put up a post in relation to this, suggesting a certain hypocrisy among those who are up in arms about Facebook’s decision. (In Quackenbush’s view, since we have no problem copying a picture, we should, in theory, have no problem giving up our content.) He also calls out Chris Walters for failing to contact a Facebook representative is lousy journalism. Ordinarily, I would agree with him on the second point. But in this case (and unlike the Washington Post Book World/NBCC contretemps), we have very specific language in the TOS to work from and interpret.

To respond to Quackenbush, what’s not to suggest that Facebook wouldn’t do precisely what Eric Bauman did? Bauman, as you recall, took the content that other people created, hosted it on eBaum’s World, and profited without distributing the money back to the people who created it. This was the scummiest of business practices, running counter to the open distribution of content — that is, if we can all accept the ideal model for rights and sharing to be some optimally tuned Creative Commons license. When you upload a YouTube video and it becomes a hit, Google (most of the time) ensures that the content producer is involved with revenue. And Google, to its credit, amended the Chrome EULA when there was public concern about content rights.

But the Facebook language clearly dictates that you are giving Facebook an irrevocable and perpetual right to distribute and make derivative copies of content you upload to Facebook for any purpose. ANY. Whether it be a book, a film, or whatever other options Facebook may have cooked up. Recall Alison Chang, who saw her Flickr photo turned into a Virgin Mobile advertisement without her consent. I certainly don’t want my likeness being used for advertising “for any purpose” without my consent. And that’s precisely what I’m giving up under the Facebook “license.” Granted, my interpretation here assumes that “on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof” will be interpreted fairly broadly. (And actually, the trickiest bit in the paragraph is the final sentence, which conflicts with the previous sentence. If you’ve already granted Facebook the irrevocable right to give up your content and likeness, then how can you still have “all rights and permissions?” Perhaps an IP attorney can sort out this thorny language.) Since Facebook has demonstrated no reservations in sharing private data with developers, the company’s history suggests that this same recurring invasion of privacy will carry forth under the new Terms of Service. The only difference is that Facebook now intends to profit from the content you upload, and they can now use it in any way they want, because you’ve capitulated all your rights to it.

UPDATE 2: The Photo Attorney thinks the new Terms of Service are bunk. And Dhananjay Nene explains why he deleted his data. MediaVidea conjures up some sordid possibilities for what Facebook will do under the new TOS.

Mashable: “Until now, users had options with regards to how the data they generated on Facebook was used. Now, they have no options whatsoever, rather than quit the service altogether. It’s a major difference; I’m not going to take it lightly, and neither should you.”

Meanwhile, Andy on the Road compares Facebook and YouTube’s respective Terms of Services. When you delete a YouTube video, YouTube does not have any control over the data. The license ends. And it’s also worth noting that Twitter’s Terms of Service maintain a what’s yours is yours policy.

UPDATE 3: Amanda French compares Facebook’s TOS against other social networks. The results, in the words of Ms. French, are “extraordinarily grabby and arrogant.” Facebook has responded, claiming, “We certainly did not — and did not intend — to create any new right or interest for Facebook in users’ data by issuing the new Terms. None of the news or blog reports at the time we announced them on February 4 suggested any confusion or misunderstanding.” On the contrary, the current Terms of Service spell out Facebook’s intentions quite clearly. If Facebook genuinely was not interested in “confusion or misunderstanding,” then why didn’t they inform the users of the ToS change? This is insulting corporate boilerplate from an arrogant organization that truly believes its users are idiots. Boycott Facebook!

UPDATE 4: To clarify my stance for the FOX News crowd (you know, you could have contacted me), my quibbles are with both versions of the blanket license. But the newer one is especially diabolical because of the manner in which it abrogates rights to content that you have deleted without informing the user. As abundantly proven by Ms. French above, none of the other social networks do this.

UPDATE 5: More spin control from Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in which he claims that Facebook’s philosophy is predicated on people owning their information and content. Alas, like the Facebook spokesman cited in the Standard article in Update 3, Zuckerberg does little to mollify the salient issue. You can have all the philosophy in the world, but it’s the language that exists in the terms that matters the most. Zuckerberg promises that “over time we will continue to clarify our positions and make the terms simpler.” He may want to think about speeding up that time window, because, according to Brian Stelter, a story is running in the New York Times tomorrow morning.

UPDATE 6: Facebook has revised its TOS back due to public outcry.

by Edward Champion

Review: Friday the 13th (2009)

friday13th

Why in the hell would anyone want to see a reboot of Friday the 13th? Well, the killings, of course. Jason has such a physics-defying command of the machete that he can stab the top of a woman’s skull through the floorboards of a dock, pull the woman up with the machete so that the camera can conveniently film her tits, and then plunge her back into Crystal Lake. I’m surprised that Jason never made an appearance on Letterman’s Stupid Human Tricks or Playboy After Dark.

Over nearly three decades, the people who have made the Friday the 13th movies have transplanted Jason into Manhattan, shot the undead psychotic into space, and pitted him against Freddy Krueger. But the silent and murderous hockey-mask-wearing killer is such a bore that even these “high-concept” storylines have revealed just how utterly hopeless this horror series is. Jason has spent too many years lumbering like a dopey hulk with a chip on his shoulder. He’s the kind of mindless zombie who could probably use some therapy, but he never seems to talk back. Although he does stop sometimes if you’re a woman who looks like his mother with the talent to shout “Jason!” in an obvious and peremptory tone. Which is too bad, because even Michael Myers — the character who Sean S. Cunningham ripped off — had Sam Loomis. And unlike Freddy Krueger, you don’t even get the benefit of the wisecrack when the blood gurgles from your throat. Which seems impolite at best and a missed opportunity for full-scale vengeance at worst.

It doesn’t help that the people killed are just as vapid as our intrepid murderer. Jason’s victims, by and large, are dopey teens who like to fuck each other’s brains out. Jason — that great American Puritanical impulse — is always there to redefine the terms of afterglow. His victims have included Crispin Glover and Erin Gray. But Corey Feldman was recast between films before he could be eviscerated for popular audiences. At least there’s some more explicit sensuality in this film. Characters jack off to Hustler (and a winter catalog, of which more anon) and, put their noses close to bottles of alcohol and marijuana crop. Presumably, this permits them a last fix of living in lieu of the Krueger bon mot. Oddly enough, nobody in this film smokes cigarettes. I can really see Jason making a mortal statement on behalf of the Surgeon General.

So what do director Marcus Nispel (who also remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift bring to the formula? One of the most deafening sound mixes I’ve ever had the misfortune of being subjected to. Nispel is so incompetent at executing a proper shock that he’s had the sound designer on this show crank up the volume at the highest fucking decibel level. And this is perhaps a worse crime than the feds blasting heavy metal to ferret out Manuel Noriega. He’s even added in inexplicable whooshes of the flashlight. So be sure to bring your earplugs. That is, if you haven’t lost your hearing already. (And perhaps that’s the demographic this film has been designed for.) There’s also been an effort to incorporate present technology into this movie. You’ve got your GPS systems, iPods, and the cell phones that malfunction at convenient moments. Jason now has a mine beneath the dilapidated camp, where a victim has been held for six weeks and still manages to have impeccable hair and makeup. I presume that Jason has offered full continental breakfast service between murders. Or maybe she was fed and kept hydrated by the random rats running around.

We also meet some of the people who live around Crystal Lake, which include a redneck stereotype fond of smoking and dealing weed and permitted to live until Jason feels the need to kill him to obtain his hockey mask. (That great Puritanical impulse again. The redneck stole the weed from Camp Crystal Lake.) And I’d hate to be employed as the poor cop, who doesn’t seem to be fully aware that there’s been a major spike in disappearances and murders. There’s product placement for Pabst Blue Ribbon and Aquafina, explicit in the dialogue, which I believe may be a first for the Friday the 13th series. The murky photography is perhaps the grainiest of any of the Friday the 13th films. The dunces who shot this movie don’t seem to understand that low light, high speed stock, and silver halides aren’t the best combo.

Perhaps the film’s greatest innovation is the introduction of racism to the Friday the 13th series. We’ve come to expect sexism. But here, we get a token Black Guy and a token Asian Guy (and I hope that Angry Asian Man will be on the case with the latter). There’s initially some promise with the former, as he confronts a white woman who assumes that his music career involves rap. “Because I’m black, I can’t listen to Green Day,” says the Black Guy. And there was a brief moment in which I thought to myself that the filmmakers might actually subvert the formula. Alas, Caucasians are the only ones who get down to business in this movie. Our Black Guy, hearing all the white people getting lucky upstairs, is forced to sift through a winter catalog so that he can masturbate to a rich-looking white woman. And he doesn’t even get the consolation of ejaculating. For the door is opened, the Black Guy zips up his pants, he rushes out to look after his friend, and is then axed (asked?) in the back by Jason, wailing at the top of his lungs for his friends to save them. Well, they never do. He’s bait, you see. And Jason turns him around and punctures the axe through the front of his chest. The brother always gets it.

The Asian Guy appears inspired from the Long Duk Dong stereotype in Sixteen Candles. He drinks from a shoe and is mocked for purchasing condoms at a store. He knows how to fix things. And even the Black Guy persuades all that he knows how to fix things. (Presumably, the Asian Guy operates a rickshaw business too.) He expresses sexual interest in one of the white girls and, as he’s about to down a flaming shot, he’s too clumsy and falls over. He is mocked further. And then he goes out, drinking directly from a bottle of scotch, and is found chopped up in a meat locker.

So if you’re white, you’ll get laid. In the view of Nispel and company, you are the bacchanalian master race. And you have to hand it to Nispel and his collaborators for making Crystal Lake a world where the whites win. Where douchebags named Trent may whimper like a coward when faced with death, but inevitably get cowgirls bouncing up and down on their cocks.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Friday the 13th becomes a big hit among Ku Klux Klan members. It does succeed at upping the stakes in the Friday the 13th series, but then the stakes were atavistic in the first place.