Aug 14, 2008
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.
Ah, Orwell. Cantankerous, but usually right. Thoughtful essay on the downfall of modern English in political writing found by way of 43folders.com. Many a salient point here for anyone who writes regularly, or worse, for a living.
Aug 7, 2008
Aug 5, 2008
Twilight
OK, OK, no one is surprised that I devoured this book in a day. I like vampire stories. I can admit that. I'm starting in on the second book in the series tonight. (Unless I can hold off until tomorrow. I've got In Bruges at home, and I really want to watch it...)
Anyway, I decided to start look at some of the promotional materials for the movie since it's coming out in a few months and this book probably wouldn't have crossed my radar otherwise. I'm a little apprehensive. The book is really engaging, but I'm not sure the movie is going to be at all how I imagined the story.
The main issue is this: the movie looks like Buffy. The way it's shot, the costumes...even the titling is reminiscent. Don't get me wrong. I love Buffy, but it's not all how I imagined the world of Twilight. Buffy, for all that it was, was low-budget. (I mean, it was big budget for television, but I think you catch my drift.) You can see that in the fight choreography, the lighting, even the quality of the film. So the fact that the two resemble each other is bothersome to me. The book has sold remarkably well so there's not way that they had trouble getting enough funding for it to be polished. Beyond that, Twilight isn't at all about kicking ass and taking names. It's about how awkward it is to be a teenager and the sheer electricity of falling in love for the first time. There are times that Buffy touches on those topics, but they're meant to be rare moments. Awkward teenage love does not lasting television make. (I mean, My So-Called Life got canned after one season.)
Also, some of the casting, actually, most of the casting isn't to my liking. I mean, I love Peter Facinelli, but I would never have made him Carlisle, and I feel that way about most of the siblings in the Cullen family, as well. Robert Pattinson is great, particularly since he reminds me of Robert Sean Leonard, and the girl playing Bella is growing on me.
We'll see...Alright, I'm going to return to being 25 years old now and not 15.
Anyway, I decided to start look at some of the promotional materials for the movie since it's coming out in a few months and this book probably wouldn't have crossed my radar otherwise. I'm a little apprehensive. The book is really engaging, but I'm not sure the movie is going to be at all how I imagined the story.
The main issue is this: the movie looks like Buffy. The way it's shot, the costumes...even the titling is reminiscent. Don't get me wrong. I love Buffy, but it's not all how I imagined the world of Twilight. Buffy, for all that it was, was low-budget. (I mean, it was big budget for television, but I think you catch my drift.) You can see that in the fight choreography, the lighting, even the quality of the film. So the fact that the two resemble each other is bothersome to me. The book has sold remarkably well so there's not way that they had trouble getting enough funding for it to be polished. Beyond that, Twilight isn't at all about kicking ass and taking names. It's about how awkward it is to be a teenager and the sheer electricity of falling in love for the first time. There are times that Buffy touches on those topics, but they're meant to be rare moments. Awkward teenage love does not lasting television make. (I mean, My So-Called Life got canned after one season.)
Also, some of the casting, actually, most of the casting isn't to my liking. I mean, I love Peter Facinelli, but I would never have made him Carlisle, and I feel that way about most of the siblings in the Cullen family, as well. Robert Pattinson is great, particularly since he reminds me of Robert Sean Leonard, and the girl playing Bella is growing on me.
We'll see...Alright, I'm going to return to being 25 years old now and not 15.
Jul 30, 2008
Marketing to Teens
I'm working on a proposal right now on how to improve the appeal of a site we recently put out. This site is aimed at teens with the benign purpose of helping them to make healthy life decisions. But the numbers kind of suck, in terms of visitors, so we're trying to improve that.
So right now I'm doing some research on how to "grab" teens. I stumbled into the PBS site on their series "Merchants of Cool." There is this one guy, and every time I read his stuff, I find myself nodding in agreement. Mark Crispin Miller. He's described as "a media critic and the author of Boxed In: The Culture of TV." Listen to this little gem about how media content and marketing to youth has changed:
"And there's another development that I think is significant. If you look back at the youth markets of, say, the 1940s and the 1950s and the 1960s, you're struck by a very important difference, in that the figures who tended to be admired by those masses were somewhat older. Kids admired James Dean. Some like Brando. Elvis Presley looked like he was around 20. The Beatles were in their early 30s. The rock musicians of the 1960s and 1970s were a little bit older. They weren't peers of 13- and 14-year-olds. Now, the young tend to be presented always and everywhere with what is, in a way, the most seductive thing there is, and that's a mirror. There's a mirror held up to them all the time. It's the mirror as constructed by advertising and TV, but it's the mirror that tells you that you are all there is to be, or you could be, if you bought what we have to sell."
The mirror concept was really interesting to me, and he touches on it a few times. I'm a big dork, and I could listen to this kind of stuff all day. You can join me in dorkery, check out his full article here. While the article didn't help too much with my research, it was very enlightening.
So right now I'm doing some research on how to "grab" teens. I stumbled into the PBS site on their series "Merchants of Cool." There is this one guy, and every time I read his stuff, I find myself nodding in agreement. Mark Crispin Miller. He's described as "a media critic and the author of Boxed In: The Culture of TV." Listen to this little gem about how media content and marketing to youth has changed:
"And there's another development that I think is significant. If you look back at the youth markets of, say, the 1940s and the 1950s and the 1960s, you're struck by a very important difference, in that the figures who tended to be admired by those masses were somewhat older. Kids admired James Dean. Some like Brando. Elvis Presley looked like he was around 20. The Beatles were in their early 30s. The rock musicians of the 1960s and 1970s were a little bit older. They weren't peers of 13- and 14-year-olds. Now, the young tend to be presented always and everywhere with what is, in a way, the most seductive thing there is, and that's a mirror. There's a mirror held up to them all the time. It's the mirror as constructed by advertising and TV, but it's the mirror that tells you that you are all there is to be, or you could be, if you bought what we have to sell."
The mirror concept was really interesting to me, and he touches on it a few times. I'm a big dork, and I could listen to this kind of stuff all day. You can join me in dorkery, check out his full article here. While the article didn't help too much with my research, it was very enlightening.
Jul 9, 2008
Yes, we would.
Clearly someone wasn't paying attention in history class...
This is from a protest in San Francisco, regarding the Olympics in Beijing this summer. This is the reason I'm so bothered by people saying history isn't important. Not just because if we don't know, we may embarrass ourselves in public, but also because we're prone to repeating the same mistakes. Which I feel is aptly demonstrated by this photo...
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