In the sheer number of typologies (architecture, narrative, film/video, music, and interactivity) rolled up within it, HBO’s recent Voyeur project is truly, and spectacularly, ‘multimedic.’

Derived as a promotional campaign for HBO by its ad agency, BBDO, Voyeur integrates eight unfolding stories within the conceit of a single New York apartment complex, which, with its walls laid transparent, privies us to an omniscient, dollhouse view of the proceedings. The eight stories interweave and points of intersection occur throughout, both spatially and chronologically. Part of the delight in experiencing Voyeur is the intricacy of this orchestration (director Jake Scott does an impressive job knitting the pieces together); the other pleasure is purely sensual. The textures, colors, and the archetypical purity of the stories themselves (a murder in one apartment, comic hijinks in another, and two apartments linked by opposite sides of an imploding romantic affair) are intoxicating.

The multithreaded film has been done before, with Mike Figgis’ Timecode, in which the viewing screen is divided into quadrants, each one engaged in separate but realtime exposition. Set in L.A., scenes from one quadrant occasionally lazily drift into one another, but all storylines immediately synchronize and respond in unison to ‘global’ events, i.e. random earthquakes ripple through the city of L.A.; when these quakes take place, all the characters in all four quadrants hit the deck together. It’s clever, but the summary effect of the movie is baroque and distancing. Longform cinema is a commitment, and in lacking a narrative hold on the viewer, Timecode’s conceit quickly wears out its welcome. It comes off as a precious exercise in form.

The scenarios in Voyeur, on the other hand, are iconic; they are narrative shorthands that don’t require elaborate exposition, nor even dialogue. They are told, elegantly and efficiently, in broad but communicative gestures by the actors. They are hard not to watch … These vignettes are then deposited within the framework of the apartment building (the flash/video site was handsomely put together by the indefatigable Brooklyn-based boutique agency Big Spaceship), and given a new axis over which to unfold — the spatial. The filmmaker Chris Marker made a similar move with his CD-ROM project Immemory, evolving his traditionally medium of film into the interactive. He wrote in its preface:

In our moments of megalomaniacal reverie, we tend to see our memory as a kind of history book: we have won and lost battles, discovered empires and abandoned them. At the very lease we are the characters of an epic novel (“Quel roman que ma vie!” said Napoleon). A more modest and perhaps more fruitful approach might be to consider the fragments of memory in terms of geography. In every life we would find continents, islands, deserts, swamps, overpopulated territories and terrae incognitae. We could draw on the map of such a memory and extract images from it with greater ease (and truthfulness) than from tales and legends.

The little stories and tiny figures in Voyeur, bound together in the geography of the apt building, yet freed from typology and linearity, gain even more power.

The picture says it all, really. Holla.

To be honest, I don’t really give a shit about Dane Cook. Whenever I came across one of his performances on Comedy Central or HBO (which happened often, because his taped gigs and his on tour reality show Tourgasm continue to get heavy rotation on cable television), I’d watch for a few minutes, develop a mild irritation / low-grade loathing, then simply change the channel. My feelings about him, though vaguely negative, were alway imprecise, unformed. I never bothered to ask why, but then Heather Havrilesky, my favorite columnist from the halcyon Suck days (nom de plume Polly Esther), crystallized it for me when she wrote:

From his sloppy college kid look to his avoidance of anything political, cultural or remotely critical, Cook aims at appealing to those vast numbers of kids who haven’t really developed any interests yet, and are most of all focused on having fun with a big group of people. While Seinfeld or Rock or Carlin or Miller react against the world, working themselves into a lather over just how idiotic and bizarre other people’s behavior is, Cook’s stories all boil down to the most familiar, relatable experiences he’s had. His humor doesn’t require even a glance at the wider world; it strengthens the bonds within a homogenous group. “Isn’t it crazy when you…” or “How weird is it when…” By celebrating the myopia of the young, Cook has become the hottest comedian around.

Not only is his comedy opaque and totally uninteresting, but he’s an embodiment (or worse, a stereotype that turns out to be real) of common denominator imbecility masquerading as embracing accessibility. He’s the dumb kid in class who’s acts a clown and sticks pins on the teacher’s seat and ‘kick me’ stickers on people’s backs and adores the adoration he receives from his snickering comrades but is still in the end too dumb to know he’s dumb. The dumb kid who thinks he’s a riot whose antics are now amplified by television and loved afar by a country of feeble-minded fans who feel they are all in on the same big, dumb, unfunny joke.

Polly — err, I mean Heather Havrilesky – slams the overhyped and overrated pseudo-comedic buffoon in Salon here.

 

Bully for MSNBC’s Ken Olbermann and his classy and eloquent primetime response to Rumsfeld’s recent speech, in which he compared critics of the botched Iraq war to Chamberlain-style appeasers of Hitler during World War II. Although the cynics out there might fault his speech as presumptuous for its evocation of Murrow, but I can more than dig the attempt for its ambition and earnestness in this otherwise craven day and age of lapdog journalism.

Crooks and Liars has the video posted here. Richard Greene offers strong praise for the piece in the Huffington Post. And the ever-on point Frank Rich calls Rumsfeld out by invoking this damning image of a smiling Rummy himself shaking hands with Saddam 20 years ago. Sets up an amusing parallelism to the image of Neville Chamberlain swapping skins with Adolph Hitler, no?

 

As depressingly doubtful as it often seems, however, Olbermann is not the only one working in television news who hasn’t completely lost their sense of up and down. Two others, while not journalists themselves, carry the burden of journalism’s supposed commitments to rigor and investigation (noble commitments that since Murrow’s day seem to have mutated into a kind of vampiric and solipsistic pursuit of ratings and ad revenue; news has turned into an empty, anodyne, complacent, PR- and quote-friendly form of mythmaking) by mercilessly satirizing TV news journalism itself. Of course, I am talking about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

Here are some other seminal, declarative moments of television news which have cracked and rolled like heavy thunder in the fuzzy white noise of the contemporary mediasphere, seeming to stop, if only for a moment, everything in their tracks.

Jon Stewart’s brilliantly acerbic appearance (which struck a notable contrast with his warm and congenial host persona on The Daily Show) in 2004 on CNN’s erstwhile ‘debate’ show Crossfire resulted in CNN’s termination of the program shortly after this broadcast. Jon Stewart derides the left-vs-right debate format of the show as political theater, a spectacle of soundbites and crude witticisms more akin to verbal pro-wrestling than with real debate, with its hosts shilling and spouting rhetoric in their roles as partisan henchmen.

Then there is Stephen Colbert’s famous dinner roast of Bush — delivered to the president’s dazed and reddening face! — back in April.

Colbert, in a virtuoso and magnificently unfazed deadpan, delivers a ballsy calvacade of broadsides against the administration over the course of 20 earth-stopping minutes, including this one:

“I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, has he stood on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message: that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.”

This stuff that Bush, in his insulated bubble, never gets to hear, let alone hear live and in person and in front of a public. But moreover, just as he’s shielded from criticism, he is also consitutionally impervious to it; Bush, after all, believes in Divine insight, in his personal connection to jesus. Did Colbert’s lancing of his imcompetence and hipocrisy grant the Decider-in-Chief one iota wisdom, thoughtfulness, or humility? Seems unlikely (in fact, the fiercely supportive response among the blogging world was a world away from the MSM’s tepid coverage of the event). Did Stewart’s plea strip down the propagandistic facades of television news and inspire a revision in its intelligence-deadening practices? Not really (though, but Crossfire did get canceled and Fox’s ratings are declining). Will Rumsfeld watch Olbermann and take a minute to reflect, rethink his choice of words, let alone worldview? Again, doubtful. And even if our SoD suddenly ‘gets it,’ isn’t it too late for the broken Iraq and the thousands dead he’s helped create and the hubris, professional ineptitude and moral callousness he’s already displayed?

But of course to ask Olbermann, Stewart and Colbert those things is unfair. They are for their own part and in their own ways and by their own degrees rousing a sleeping country, slumbering in front of its televisions, into a state of reason and alertness. One only wishes that in 2006, as far as wider tv news culture is concerned, they were the rule rather than the exception.

  

Joy of joys — Futurama returns! The progressive and utterly subversive brilliance of the Matt Groening-created sci-fi cartoon has been picked up by Comedy Central – the hitmakers responsible for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, and Chappelle’s Show — for 13 episodes. Which is to say, a brand new season!

Futurama was axed after its fourth season, and found a second life in DVD format and in syndication on the also-excellent Adult Swim block on the Cartoon Network. It is not unique in being poorly understood and undervalued by the chronically clueless Fox, which also dumped Family Guy (which was also resurrected following a DVD-sales resurgence; Seth MacFarlane, unfortunately, still receives his paychecks from Fox) and Arrested Development. Fox’s programs and their audiences repeatedly prove themselves smarter and more forward-thinking than the Rupert Murdoch-owned network that initially funded them.

[Link here, via Gizmodo]

***

Ok, one last dig at Fox and its hellspawn, Fox (Faux) News … Here’s MSNBC’s liberal commentator Keith Olbermann launching another ball-crushing salvo against Fox News blowhard Bill O’Reilly.

“Fox’s ratings are lower than they were five years ago. Bill-Oh, 267,000 of your nightly viewers have vanished since last June. Call Fox Security, they are missing,” he noted.

Olbermann also speaks of dropping viewer numbers of other Fox shows, “All eleven of Fox’s regular shows rating are down, four of them are down by 15 percent or more,” noted Olbermann. 

Full text and video here.

[via Huffington Post]

 

These brilliant spots, edited back to back, are for a Japanese kids’ tv show called ‘Pitagora Switch.’ A Japanese colleague and I deduced the ‘Pitagora’ to mean ‘Pythagoras’ (of a^2 + b^2 = c^2 fame), the ’switch’ part, dunno. I am also assuming the tv show is a kind of science program, and that these bumpers are unique, weekly show openers. I don’t know if that’s true, but it is lovely to think so — we need more ways to make engineering sexier to the kids, because we’ll need more world-saving geeks in the future, and fewer fucking American idols.

[cheers, Theo]

 

As the torch is extinguished in Torino, the story of speedskater Joey Cheek’s donation of his prize money to the charity Right To Play (with money earmarked for children from Darfur, Sudan) will, at least for me, linger for a while longer.

‘The Olympics, in general, and athletics is a very selfish pursuit,’ Cheek said. ‘I wake up every morning and as I get ready for the day ask myself how can I focus all my energies on what I can do so I can be the best in the world.

‘After years of this and years of people sacrificing so I can be the best in the world, I feel that it is imperative for myself and also for anyone else who’s able to reach a pinnacle of their career — or whatever they’re striving for — to reach out a hand and help somebody else.’

***

Cheek was asked again what the Olympics meant to him:

‘It becomes very easy when you start having to sell stories and sell the Games like this prepackaged thing, it becomes very easy to make it a mockery of itself, mockery of what the ideals are,’ he said. ‘I look at sport and competition as something that has been personally enormously beneficial to me. It’s helped me create life skills.

‘And if we carry ourselves with grace and dignity and try our best — even when we fall on our faces, as will happen sometimes — then I think people will see that. And that will be the message of sport and the Olympics.’

Damn. What a swell bloke …

Read Mike Wise’s Washington Post column here.

As we slide into post-Olympics depression, we await the Next Big Thing with bated breath. The question is indeed existential — what will we do with all that time not spent staring at the tv for hours on end (equivalent to four hours a night for two weeks straight!), oblivious to the dissonance of watching world-level feats of athleticism while planted on our asses, eating takeout? What type of filler will pad the crater of meaning in our lives?

For all the spasmodic sportsfans (like myself) out there, a mental note: the World Cup begins in four months …

 

As a zealous Olympics junkie, I watch whatever NBC decides to feed me every night between 8pm to midnight (even though by then, Torino being 6 hours ahead, I already know the results of each competition well before NBC airs them). I even watch figure skating, though I never enjoy it; there was always something about the sport that unnerved me more than it inspired. I never really thought about the causes of this distress, but then this article came along and hit the nail on the head:

It’s astounding that figure skating maintains its self-image as an art form in the face of so much flopping. According to the rules, an athlete must display flow, finesse, and an “effortless movement in time to the music.” She has to skate with style and clarity, “according to the principles of proportion, unity, space, pattern structure, and phrasing.” In other words, she can’t just jump and spin — she has to dance.

A dancer sweeps you away with her grace and flow, and hides her sweat with a flourish. A world-class figure skater, on the other hand, pulls you into her own anxiety. She performs just barely above the limits of her skill, trying jumps you both know she can’t always land.

The stress of these make-or-break moments overpowers whatever artistry a performance may have. What should be a choreographed composition becomes a series of near-impossible leaps strung together with idle tootling. Skaters fill up the dead time with gratuitous arm movements as they catch their breath and get in position for the next jump. Meanwhile, the announcers expect the worst. Shouting over the music, they frantically set up each risky move — Here comes the triple toe loop, this is big! — and then sigh with relief when it’s over — Ohhh, gorgeous. That was huge.

As an aside: was this sadistically bitchy or what??

 

There was always something about the Winter Games that seemed cool and pristine … You think more of the slick, effortless gliding over of ice and snow (after all, which winter sport doesn’t involve this dynamic of slipperiness?) while the Summer Games evoke more grueling, sweltering, sweat-drenched associations. The Winter Games always seemed leisurely somehow, while the Summer Games always seemed like work. So what if you dug beneath this shallow, aesthetic comparison? Would you not find an ugly socioeconomic reality?

So argues Paul Farhi in the Washington Post:

‘Never mind the usual puffery about what this month’s Winter Olympics are all about. Sure, there’s the beauty of sports, the spirit of friendly competition, the dedication of great athletes and all that. But the Winter Games are about a few other things as well: elitism, exclusion and the triumph of the world’s sporting haves over its have nots.

What the Winter Games are not is a truly international sporting competition that brings the best of the world together to compete, as the promotional blather would have you believe. Unlike the widely attended Summer Olympics, the winter version is almost exclusively the preserve of a narrow, generally wealthy, predominantly Caucasian collection of athletes and nations. In fact, I’d suggest that the name of the Winter Games, which start Friday, be changed. They could be more accurately branded “The European and North American Expensive Sports Festival.”‘

Farhi is still a little on the strident side for me, too much a killjoy; call me sentimental, but the Olympic Games, be they Winter or Summer (their ego-driven dramas, idiotic doping scandals, and commercial taints aside), still represent for me one of the few embodiments of Spirit left in our modern — and my grown-up – age, now that Santa Claus and World Peace appear to have been ruled out. Nevertheless, its an argument that holds heft and it’s one I tuck under my hat.

Against the drab backdrop of Farhi’s cynicism, though, it’s lovely to see gems like these shine.

• Shani Davis, who grew up poor in gangland South Chicago and became a speedskater, is the first black athlete to win gold in the Winter Olympics.
• Joey Cheek, another speedskater (he won the silver to Davis’ gold — they are both pictured above), gives his bonuses for both gold and silver medals (totaling $45K!) to Right To Play, a charity that gives disadvantaged kids across the world a chance to play sports they would otherwise not have access to — a direct intervention against the economic disadvantages Farhi points out.

[thanks Meredith, for the ALDaily link to the Post article]

 

I did think the show got off to a somewhat shakey start, but I think it’s stabilized and found its groove. I don’t mind as much anymore that I have to watch an hour of television before bed four nights a week, i.e. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, despite that precious 11-midnight block, which has been in the past some of the most productive hours of my day. Yes I could get TiVo or DVR, but that just seems like temporal anarchy to me. Plus, wouldn’t watching the show a day later, even if it’s just the next morning, feel like watching yesterday’s news?

Yes, I think The Colbert Report is getting better and better. Because of that fact, I will just deal.

A great, out-of-character interview with Stephen Colbert in the A.V. Club last week here.

January 24 is the most depressing day of the year (tip from the increasingly brilliant Colbert Report). From the BBC:

“The formula for the day of misery reads 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.

Where W is weather, D is debt - minus the money (d) due on January’s pay day - and T is the time since Christmas.

Q is the period since the failure to quit a bad habit, M stands for general motivational levels and NA is the need to take action and do something about it.

Dr Arnalls calculated the effects of cold, wet and dark January weather after the cosiness of Christmas coupled with extra spending in the sales.

He found 24 January was especially dangerous, coming a whole month after Christmas festivities.”