Participatory Culture

I think Star Wars is the biggest (and possibly the richest) production of this culture. Mostly targeting younger audiences, it's also the cute face of capitalist system that we all love.
Altough I am not a Harry Potter fan, it's first volume was the first novel I properly finished in my teen days. I know it is very embarassing but that is the truth. I was more of a comic book kid. And novels were so...uninteresting to me back then. The good thing is that Potter book led to other books (better books), which have actually played roles in changing the way I looked at the world.
I get it though. It's easy to loose yourself in different realms of participatory culture. But when fans get really serious about it, I don't understand it very much. Like the example below :

Skyrim

I chose to play the newest game of Elder Scrolls series Skyrim for the video gaming week. I've been following the series since Morrowind (it's the third game in Elder Scrolls). I would like to start from my experiences with Morrowind first rather than jumping to Skyrim since Morrowind was my introduction to the series.

Morrowind was like no other roleplaying game that I had ever played back then. It offered a lot of freedom, a non lineer playing style with a world map that had a great vastness in it. Also you did not have to pick a class and stick to it like classic dungeons and dragons games. So basically players were not clamped between the borders of conventional role playing game systems.

Years later, we have the newest game to the series, Skyrim. I must say this is my favorite one mainly because it has a focus to nordic theme and this game has definitely less buggy then it's predecessor, Oblivion. Is there a big improvement in this new game? I think not, apart from better graphics and little improvements such as having a companion in your journeys. But after all, aren't all games like this ? They don't offer many new things or experiment with the playability. I think the whole industry used to have a bolder attitude in the early 2000's and late 90's. I think this is an upsetting situation for players from my generation, and personally this is one of the reasons that I do not enjoy playing games like I used to.

Back to Skyrim. The game is pretty damn addicting, and I have only spent somewhere about 20 hours on it. So it's not much.

My character was a warrior Nord called "Edwig", I mostly spent my skill points on two handed fighting and heavy armor, but next time I will definitely have a character more like a wizard/thief with a different race. And it will be totally a different experience I'm sure.

Here's a video of the game that shows the first 10 minutes:

Asterios Polyp

     This entry is coming from one's perspective who have spent most of his childhood with Marvel comics. Hell, I still read the adventures of men in tights all the time and I loooove them. I don't care what indie fans say about superhero comics, my opinion is storytelling in superhero stuff has progressed a lot. Look at "Requiem" by J.Michael Straczynski collaborating with Esad Ribic, or "the Joker" by Azarello and Lee Bermejo as recent examples.
     Before reading Asterios Polyp, I did a mini internet research about it and came across some positive feedback (like "best graphic novel of the year!!!"). So I set my expectations very high when I flipped the first page. Although I really really liked the way of story was told (like separation of the worlds of Asterios and his girlfriend with line and form, like very smart and effective use of typography with different speechbubles, each one having a unique character... All these stuff is pretty cool) I didn't enjoy the story. Well, to put in better words; I did not like the story. And I think this is the most crucial thing in a graphic novel. I remember enjoying graphic novels which had great stories but they had poor art. Or they had art that I didn't like.
     Maybe I didn't like the story because the ups and downs in it weren't enough for me. I wanted more tension. Especially the first half. The story's second half has more action in it, and I enjoyed it more.
But I feel like this piece needs multiple readings. It's one of those works which offers something else than just a good story. It has little details. It's been made cleverly and uniquely. Nobody can argue with that.

     It's just doesn't appeal to me.

Oryx and Crake

I don't know how healthy would it be to write about a book when you're only halfway through it but I still want to write a few words about this book - Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood.

Okay now, I've never read any works of Atwood until now. The only thing I knew about the book was that it had a post apocalyptic setting. Thats all. So I was expecting a lot of "chaotic stuff" in it (oh how i love labeling and having prejudice!) and got the first surprise in the very first page. The page was describing a tropical beach scene, how lively things they are in that setting. After reading many chapters, and getting into the story, I started to think that the beach that was described in the first page was author's "chaotic stuff", same thing that we know but in a different package. But then I find myself doubtful about this thought. Which one was more chaotic? A world with full of people, their corruption, their rules, their words, terms, science, culture or the absence of all these?

When Snowman went back to his memories, as a reader, I always wanted book to continue in that time period and never go back to it's present time. The funny thing is though, Snowman's "Jimmy days" were much more darker. So why did I want the book to continue in that time period then ? While the present day was more peaceful? I guess it's because there was more action in Jimmy's world. And it's very similar to our world, so I didn't feel alien in there.


Note : This entry might be updated after I finish the novel.

Director Notes for "Ghostworld"

Me and Shawn discussed the story and the screenplay of Ghostworld in class. If we were to direct the movie we would keep it realistic as possible with some abstract elements (big influence of Darren Aronofsky here). A warm color palette with heavy contrast of lights and darks could be interesting. For the characters, we wanted to stay loyal to the story however, for Seymour we thought of making him a collector of models of ship's, instead of LP'S. For Josh's character (the actor would be Joseph Gordon Levitt), we made him older than Enid and Rebecca.

Lolita

Well, now I am going to pick a specific point (just only one of the many topics that is presented to readers' judgement)from the novel and bring it here. The topic I want to discuss is,if Humbert wouldn't have found love of his life (Anabel) at an early age and lost it before a satisfying experience, would he still have a strong obsession against young girls, especially Lolita? I ask this because when we start reading the book, Humbert briefly tells us his childhood and family but emphasizes on one very significant memory of his teenage years (which is the days he spends with Anabel) and keeps referring to that throughout the document in his defense. As one of the thousands of judges, I, see his reference to his past almost like an excuse for things he has done.

Before executing Humbert I am going to ask myself two questions. First question is that "is his excuse valid enough for the things that happen?" and the second is "if I had an experience like he had in an early age (like loosing love of his life), would I become somebody like Humbert? A damage that is done in one's childhood may effect strongly the other events happen in his/her life but on the other hand, it cannot be measured and compared with negative (or even positive) events that happen to others.Everybody percieve every event different.Therefore I think it's nobody right to decide how big or how small this loss was for Humbert. Maybe he had a good childhood in some peoples' mind. I think I see something benath Humbert more than "a natural born psycho" so I think the excuse he gives for his interest in Lolita is understandable. So my answer to the first question would be "yes" until the point when Humbert thinks of having a daughter from Lolita and make love with her too, which conflicts with all the love that he has for Lolita. So I think everything starts with a reason (to some extend) but then Humbert loses his control. My answer to the second question would be simply "no". Like I said above, although I can understand the impact of loosing a childhood love for somebody, it wouldn't cause me such a trouble (well, I never got along with girls at that age anyways).

To sum it all up, I find the source of Humbert's feelings(early ones, the ones he has when he first saw Lolita) understandble but not of his actions so, as one of the thousands of judges, I find him guilty. Before I finish,I would like to point out something else. Love is always greatest excuse for our crimes and mistakes. A great tool to use in defense too. Think about it this way: If Hitler would expressed himself that everything he did, he did because of his love (for a person or a country or anything), would the image of Hitler in our heads change?

The Day of the Locust

       When i found out that we were going to read Nathaniel West's novel "The Day of the Locust", i was excited because i've never experienced a pulp novel that is about 1930's Hollywood. I must admit that the first page really grabbed me. It started with an interesting scene, it was not very hard to picture the scene because of the language that was used. It was very descriptive. However this descriptive use of language became an obstacle in the following pages of the novel. Many times, i've had pause moments and this minimised the joy that i wanted to get. Of course this has to do with the fact that English being my second language too. Unfortunately i've stopped reading this novel after the first half.

       I like it when novels tell stories of people who're the outcasts of societies. The people that we don't like to talk or don't want to say "Hi" or even hate in real life. In some of these novels, writers strive for creating a strong link between their readers and their characters (the characters that are "awful people") by creating various situations . The situations that would make way for characters to be "bad people". This way, we start to have more sympathy for those characters. Many times this had changed my prejudgements about "the outcasts of societies" in real life. Although i do not expect this from every novel i read, i just wanted to have some sympathy for the characters in the novel.

      But from what i understood of "The Day of the Locust" is not about it's characters, not about the plot which i was searching for primarily. It's more likely about experiencing the uncomfortability of darker side of Hollywood. I might re read this novel again with different expectations and may love it. Happened before. Why not happen again ?