Organized Media
I've been thinking about Jeff and Josh's impending assault on our collective coin purse. But before I talk about that, I need to give the background on my media usage right now.
My wife and I do not have a TV; since our newborn has evicted us from our study, I moved our desktop into the living room. We have since given the TV away. The stereo next to the TV has moved, and we are left with a computer serving as the home entertainment console that Microsoft touts as the next big thing. Folks, if you want such a system, just get yourself an ATI TV-Wonder card. It costs $75, with a $20 rebate. There are fancier software packages with the various ATI offereings, and makes for a good Tivo substitute. For music, we have the iPod/iTunes set up. For movies, we actually have the DVD drive as well as a VHS/DVD combo player piped into the line in available on the TV-Wonder. The sound is supplied, quite adequately, with an Altec-Lansing 2.1 speaker system. Clearly, my wife and I don't place a premium on the experience. As far as we are concerned, we'll go to the movies for the surround sound immersion; however, neither one of us enjoy action movies. We like comedies and dramas. We are not missing anything in terms of the way in which we watch movies.
We also don't have cable. Well, that's going to be a lie; we signed up for basic cable. Not standard, but basic. We will pay for the stations we can get on rabbit ears, but with better reception. The idea here is that there's nothing worth seeing, usually, on these few affliaties of the big networks; from the short time we spend in hotels and the cable there, we know we aren't missing anything on standard or premium cable either. The general principle here is that TV is definitely a disposable commodity, but getting PBS and some TV news is nice. As for DVD movies, we subscribe to NetFlix. They provide enough for us. We aren't too interested in instant gratification; we are willing to wait for movies to pop up to the front of the queue.
The entertainment computer also serves as our lone net-enabled computer. It may interest Jeff to know that I've switched from T-Mobile to Sprint because of the differences in dataplans. I have no cable modem or DSL; I have no land-line phone and therefore no ISP. I do have Sprint Vision. I consistently obtain 9kB/s download times, good enough for surfing (hey, I've never had broadband at home; 9kB/s is a big improvement over 4.8 with a normal modem.) Latency times are high, so no fragging for me.
So what does this mean? How does it relate to Jeffness's new monthly serial program? Well, I have no desktop =base= anymore. Not between family type usage of the desktop. There isn't really one place I do all my computer shenanigans. Instead, I count on having one repository of e-stuff that I can raid for use away from the desktop - either by moving it to a laptop or to my Zodiac.
That's great for normal e-book reading, since I never read them at the desk. I just take them on the Zodiac. I don't use the computer for the occasional game anymore; the PalmOS machines take the place of that, poorly, though. Music is slightly different; either it's actually playing from the computer, or it's detached and I'm listening through headphones. Photo editing, writing, and work related computer use are relegated to the laptop.
Now I'll try to bring this all back to the original point of the essay; how do I see Jeff and Josh's attempt to publish in serial form? I see no problems with it; their analogy of the tv-drama, and the fact that Charles Dickens had such success with it over a century ago, suggest serials are viable. I am sure there is a market for it. But it ain't me.
I hope I've made it clear that I find modern entertainment to be rather commodity like. One's the same as the other. (I'll superficially defend this statemeny by the following. I'll develop it another time. Mostly because I think art has been headed in the wrong direction for some time. Ever since post-modernists entered into the academy, there has been a rise of this idea that art should mean all things to all people. What actually results are works that say nothing. Works that could be interpreted a great many number of ways. Now, this isn't a populist view of art; on the contrary, I do defend the individual interpretation as an important part of the absorbing art. However, when the artist gears his work to be ambiguous enough such that anyone can take shelter under it, it tells me that the artist had absolutely nothing to say. What are we paying for? To leave as we came? Without an iota of intellectual confrontation? Without a fresh way of viewing some part of the world?)
To some extent, TV dramas are the best example of the modern entertainment commodity. With the exception of "Babylon 5", "24", and "Desperate Housewives" (I guess I should include "Arrested Development"), most TV dramas are just done for the sake of inertia. It's too difficult to do anything else. The modern drama envisions a set of characters thrust into different situations. There is little connection from one show to the other. "Law & Order", one of my favorite shows, is an example of this mentality. "Star Trek: TNG" is another. Partly, the shows are written by different writers; but is it not true that these writers cannot tamper with the fictional world? After all, there is a "brand" associated with this product and needs to be maintained.
A show like "Babylon 5" is different, although it featured different writers; J. Michael Straczynski had a vision, a =single= story to tell. A five year story. I am certain that he farmed out the writing work because he couldn't be concerned with how details played out on each show. But the "bible" writers would conform to is to the story he wanted to tell, not as an exercise in brand-building or brand-stabilization.
And here's the point as it relates to Jeff and Josh: I gave up watching "24" and "Babylon 5" because I couldn't stand missing an episode. I just didn't care about entertainment that much to force myself to be in front of a TV at a certain time to watch, despite my being in awe of the show. And so I missed it, just through the various life happenstances. I know it sounds like "destructive criticism"; I mean, I profess to like the show, and yet I don't give it support (my mindshare) while it matters. I can't help it. It's the way I'm built, and I'm just telling Josh and Jeff not about a potential problem they may encounter, but a problem that is real, because I only speak for myself. I just wanted to tell them about this point of view. Anyway, my solution was to wait for the release on video. At the time of "Babylon 5", that was not a sure bet. There wasn't a proliferation of TV show sets, not to the extent there is now with DVDs, I think.
For books, I must admit that it would be different. I am currently reading the fourth volume of Churchill's history of the Second World War. I don't read at a proscribed time (for instance after dinner for one hour a night.) I do read in free moments during the day; during the train ride to and from work, during lunch, and maybe after house chores get done. If I'm out with my wife shopping, I do read while following her around a store or sitting on a bench. Same with gaming; I snatch minutes when I can and then shut it off. I don't even bother finishing my play, unless the game automatically saves it when I turn the machine off or exit into Launcher. In a way, I am already using entertainment serially (although I still prefer reading for hours when I can.)
Except that I couldn't even bear to begin reading the 6 volume work until I had the whole thing in my Zod. Same with Gibbons' =Decline and Fall=. Here's my thinking: I wanted the entire work at hand because I didn't want to be caught at a free time stretch without the work to read. I also didn't want to break up the flow of this particular work. So I wanted to just read this through and =finish= it. I often read more than one book at a time, unless a work is so interesting it compels me to spend all my free time one it, like the WWII history. So I don't think it's because of an inability to keep multiple plots straight in my head that makes me dislike serials. What bothers me most about serials is that when I want to read the story, there is a possibility it isn't there. It's different with a novel since, ideally, there is some closure, even if it's part of a series of books. With a serial, I think it's that I =won't= wait (and why should I march to =your= beat!), and if I just finished part 2, and I don't have part 3, I'll likely read something else with "closure". If the time I spend with that novel is so rewarding that I crowd out other things, well, I can't see how serialists would win. Namely, with me, Jeff and Josh would be competing with novelists.
That's my take on serials. This is somewhat different from the people who may argue that they didn't have the attention span, or that they are too busy to bother with remembering when chapters are available. My next post will actually be suggestions that could improve on the serial experience, though (I would likely give it a try, just because I think enough of Jeff that I wouldn't want him to starve.)
My wife and I do not have a TV; since our newborn has evicted us from our study, I moved our desktop into the living room. We have since given the TV away. The stereo next to the TV has moved, and we are left with a computer serving as the home entertainment console that Microsoft touts as the next big thing. Folks, if you want such a system, just get yourself an ATI TV-Wonder card. It costs $75, with a $20 rebate. There are fancier software packages with the various ATI offereings, and makes for a good Tivo substitute. For music, we have the iPod/iTunes set up. For movies, we actually have the DVD drive as well as a VHS/DVD combo player piped into the line in available on the TV-Wonder. The sound is supplied, quite adequately, with an Altec-Lansing 2.1 speaker system. Clearly, my wife and I don't place a premium on the experience. As far as we are concerned, we'll go to the movies for the surround sound immersion; however, neither one of us enjoy action movies. We like comedies and dramas. We are not missing anything in terms of the way in which we watch movies.
We also don't have cable. Well, that's going to be a lie; we signed up for basic cable. Not standard, but basic. We will pay for the stations we can get on rabbit ears, but with better reception. The idea here is that there's nothing worth seeing, usually, on these few affliaties of the big networks; from the short time we spend in hotels and the cable there, we know we aren't missing anything on standard or premium cable either. The general principle here is that TV is definitely a disposable commodity, but getting PBS and some TV news is nice. As for DVD movies, we subscribe to NetFlix. They provide enough for us. We aren't too interested in instant gratification; we are willing to wait for movies to pop up to the front of the queue.
The entertainment computer also serves as our lone net-enabled computer. It may interest Jeff to know that I've switched from T-Mobile to Sprint because of the differences in dataplans. I have no cable modem or DSL; I have no land-line phone and therefore no ISP. I do have Sprint Vision. I consistently obtain 9kB/s download times, good enough for surfing (hey, I've never had broadband at home; 9kB/s is a big improvement over 4.8 with a normal modem.) Latency times are high, so no fragging for me.
So what does this mean? How does it relate to Jeffness's new monthly serial program? Well, I have no desktop =base= anymore. Not between family type usage of the desktop. There isn't really one place I do all my computer shenanigans. Instead, I count on having one repository of e-stuff that I can raid for use away from the desktop - either by moving it to a laptop or to my Zodiac.
That's great for normal e-book reading, since I never read them at the desk. I just take them on the Zodiac. I don't use the computer for the occasional game anymore; the PalmOS machines take the place of that, poorly, though. Music is slightly different; either it's actually playing from the computer, or it's detached and I'm listening through headphones. Photo editing, writing, and work related computer use are relegated to the laptop.
Now I'll try to bring this all back to the original point of the essay; how do I see Jeff and Josh's attempt to publish in serial form? I see no problems with it; their analogy of the tv-drama, and the fact that Charles Dickens had such success with it over a century ago, suggest serials are viable. I am sure there is a market for it. But it ain't me.
I hope I've made it clear that I find modern entertainment to be rather commodity like. One's the same as the other. (I'll superficially defend this statemeny by the following. I'll develop it another time. Mostly because I think art has been headed in the wrong direction for some time. Ever since post-modernists entered into the academy, there has been a rise of this idea that art should mean all things to all people. What actually results are works that say nothing. Works that could be interpreted a great many number of ways. Now, this isn't a populist view of art; on the contrary, I do defend the individual interpretation as an important part of the absorbing art. However, when the artist gears his work to be ambiguous enough such that anyone can take shelter under it, it tells me that the artist had absolutely nothing to say. What are we paying for? To leave as we came? Without an iota of intellectual confrontation? Without a fresh way of viewing some part of the world?)
To some extent, TV dramas are the best example of the modern entertainment commodity. With the exception of "Babylon 5", "24", and "Desperate Housewives" (I guess I should include "Arrested Development"), most TV dramas are just done for the sake of inertia. It's too difficult to do anything else. The modern drama envisions a set of characters thrust into different situations. There is little connection from one show to the other. "Law & Order", one of my favorite shows, is an example of this mentality. "Star Trek: TNG" is another. Partly, the shows are written by different writers; but is it not true that these writers cannot tamper with the fictional world? After all, there is a "brand" associated with this product and needs to be maintained.
A show like "Babylon 5" is different, although it featured different writers; J. Michael Straczynski had a vision, a =single= story to tell. A five year story. I am certain that he farmed out the writing work because he couldn't be concerned with how details played out on each show. But the "bible" writers would conform to is to the story he wanted to tell, not as an exercise in brand-building or brand-stabilization.
And here's the point as it relates to Jeff and Josh: I gave up watching "24" and "Babylon 5" because I couldn't stand missing an episode. I just didn't care about entertainment that much to force myself to be in front of a TV at a certain time to watch, despite my being in awe of the show. And so I missed it, just through the various life happenstances. I know it sounds like "destructive criticism"; I mean, I profess to like the show, and yet I don't give it support (my mindshare) while it matters. I can't help it. It's the way I'm built, and I'm just telling Josh and Jeff not about a potential problem they may encounter, but a problem that is real, because I only speak for myself. I just wanted to tell them about this point of view. Anyway, my solution was to wait for the release on video. At the time of "Babylon 5", that was not a sure bet. There wasn't a proliferation of TV show sets, not to the extent there is now with DVDs, I think.
For books, I must admit that it would be different. I am currently reading the fourth volume of Churchill's history of the Second World War. I don't read at a proscribed time (for instance after dinner for one hour a night.) I do read in free moments during the day; during the train ride to and from work, during lunch, and maybe after house chores get done. If I'm out with my wife shopping, I do read while following her around a store or sitting on a bench. Same with gaming; I snatch minutes when I can and then shut it off. I don't even bother finishing my play, unless the game automatically saves it when I turn the machine off or exit into Launcher. In a way, I am already using entertainment serially (although I still prefer reading for hours when I can.)
Except that I couldn't even bear to begin reading the 6 volume work until I had the whole thing in my Zod. Same with Gibbons' =Decline and Fall=. Here's my thinking: I wanted the entire work at hand because I didn't want to be caught at a free time stretch without the work to read. I also didn't want to break up the flow of this particular work. So I wanted to just read this through and =finish= it. I often read more than one book at a time, unless a work is so interesting it compels me to spend all my free time one it, like the WWII history. So I don't think it's because of an inability to keep multiple plots straight in my head that makes me dislike serials. What bothers me most about serials is that when I want to read the story, there is a possibility it isn't there. It's different with a novel since, ideally, there is some closure, even if it's part of a series of books. With a serial, I think it's that I =won't= wait (and why should I march to =your= beat!), and if I just finished part 2, and I don't have part 3, I'll likely read something else with "closure". If the time I spend with that novel is so rewarding that I crowd out other things, well, I can't see how serialists would win. Namely, with me, Jeff and Josh would be competing with novelists.
That's my take on serials. This is somewhat different from the people who may argue that they didn't have the attention span, or that they are too busy to bother with remembering when chapters are available. My next post will actually be suggestions that could improve on the serial experience, though (I would likely give it a try, just because I think enough of Jeff that I wouldn't want him to starve.)
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