Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: The Musical Future
Years ago, I had a conversation with my son about my record collection, and he couldnt believe that we used to put records in crates that were heavy and bulky, and actually took them with us to parties. I remember holding up my iPod which was big and bulky by todays standards and telling him that I could hold more music in this little thing than I could fit in my entire apartment on vinyl when I was in college. I may as well have told him how great it was that we didnt have to worry about Indian attacks in our house, he was so unimpressed.
And why would he have been impressed? Hes grown up in The Future. My kids have never seen a floppy disc, heard the sound of a modem connecting, blown into a NES cartridge in the futile hope of making it work, or looked up an address in a Thomas Guide. I have experienced all of these things, and though Im grateful that I dont have to deal with them in any meaningful way now, unless I want to, its odd to me that, at just 36 years-old, I straddle this tremendous and significant technological rubicon, while my children can barely see it in on the distant horizon behind them, as they speed away on their jet packs and rocket bikes. I mean, they hardly remember cassettes, let alone cassingles, and occasionally I will consider this fact and quietly weep for them, alone, while they play Call of Duty against some stranger on the other side of the world in real time.
This memory came to me over the weekend, when I commented on Twitter that I loved side two of Abbey Road. Mentioning side two of a record made me realize that my kids have grown up in a world where records are as relevant to them as Kodak Disc cameras
or being afraid of the bubonic plague. If I close my eyes, I can see the apple on Abbey Roads label spinning on my parents turntable, and know that side two begins with "Here Comes The Sun" from personal memory. The only apple my kids will see if they listen to the Beatles now is the one on the front of the computer, and if they didnt have me holding up my Sansabelt slacks and filling their heads with musical trivia whenever they cant outrun me, the only way theyd know where side two started was if they visited Wikipedia on a lark. You know, to examine ancient history, for fun.
But, ever mindful of what the world was like when I knew the pops and skips in my records as well as I knew the lyrics, and recalling a time when I listened to them through giant headphones connected to the turntable by a 20 foot long coiled black cord, Im grateful that the album spins in my memory while a digital copy that will never degrade currently plays in iTunes, streaming wirelessly via Airtunes to a set of small speakers behind me in my office. While I dont need to look up the track listing on Wikipedia to know how the record was originally heard, having access to the most extensive collection of liner notes in history just a few clicks away makes my inner music geek squeal with excitement, then quickly look around and make sure nobody saw him break his carefully-crafted facade of cool disinterest.
For example:
Toward the end of [the album], immediately prior to [the] "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make" line played over piano chords, are eighteen bars or measures of guitar solo: the first two bars are played by Paul McCartney, the second two by George Harrison, and the third two by John Lennon, then the sequence repeats. Each had a distinctive style which McCartney felt reflected their personalities: McCartney's playing included string bends similar to his lead guitar work on "Another Girl" from the Help! album; Harrison's was melodic with slides yet technically advanced and Lennon's was rhythmic, stinging and had the heaviest distortion. Immediately after Lennon's third solo, the piano chords of the final line "And in the end...." begins.
Ive been listening to Abbey Road as long as I can remember, and I didnt know any of that until just a few hours ago. Damn, living in the future is so cool!
Just dont tell my kids, because they wont believe you.
Wil Wheaton lives in the future, is from the future, and has come back from the future to warn you about
Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen: I'm Not Like Everybody Else (sorry)
Some idea of perfection, or some perfect way which is set up by someone else is not the true way for us. Each one of us must make his or her own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way. This is the mystery. When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything. When you try and understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything. So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others, and you will be helped by others. Before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you. To be independent in this true sense, we have to forget everything which we have in our mind and discover something quite new and different moment after moment. This is how we live in this world.
-- Shunryu Suzuki, from Zen Mind, Beginners Mind
That statement is one of the most truly punk rock things Ive ever come across. The first time I read it 0DFx, the hardcore band I played bass in, had just broken up. The hardcore punk scene Id been part of for the last couple years was turning to shit. Wed started off rejecting society and almost immediately set about creating our own miniature version of the very society we rejected -- only ours had cooler clothes and better music. I thought punk rock was about independence, but very few people within the movement were interested in real independence. They were just interested in the appearance of independence.
I thought Buddhism was the way of true independence. But Im starting to wonder how many of the folks out there who label themselves as Buddhists are any more interested in true independence than the hardcore punks who only cared about looking scary.
My Wikipedia page was vandalized a couple weeks ago. I never actually saw the vandalized version myself. It was repaired before I got there. Them Wikipedia nerds are pretty quick. But it was vandalized by some so-called Buddhist who wanted to let the world know I was actually a big phony because I didnt adhere to his standards of what Buddhist teachers ought to be like. It boggles the mind what people will waste their time doing
Apparently much of the controversy about me in the Buddhist community relates to this video I posted of a precepts ceremony I performed for my friend Ren Kuroda last month. A precepts ceremony is where someone takes a public vow to uphold the ten Buddhist precepts, which are:
1) Dont kill 2) Dont steal 3) Dont desire too much 4) Dont lie 5) Dont live by selling liquor* 6) Dont discuss the failures of Buddhist monks and laypeople 7) Dont praise yourself and berate others 8) Dont be covetous 9) Dont become angry and 10) Dont abuse the Three Supreme Values; Buddha, Dharma (Buddhist teachings) and Sangha (the Buddhist community)
Apparently some Buddhists were aghast that I performed the ceremony while reading the instructions out of a book. Look. I dont even like these ceremonies. You think Im gonna waste my days and nights memorizing that shit? As if! I didnt start practicing Buddhism because I wanted to be able to perform note-perfect renditions of ancient rituals. Thats not what its about. The ceremonies have some value. But you do them and get back to the real work.
The folks who dont like the way I do ceremonies also do not like my potty mouth, and the fact that Ive sometimes criticized stuff like Big Mind and the Holosync which are promoted as Buddhist practice but really are not. This, they say, breaks precepts number six and seven. I should therefore be quiet about the scams and let people get cheated. And, of course, they dont like the fact that I write about Buddhism for you nice people here at Suicide Girls.
Whatever.
Im not saying this stuff just to gripe about my own situation. Well maybe I am a little. I seem to do that a lot. But its actually bigger than that, I think. Its not just me. All of us encounter pressure to conform to other peoples standards of how we should behave, how we should look, and even how we should think. We are social creatures. So its important to behave in ways that are acceptable in the society we live in.
But were very lucky to be living in a society thats pretty advanced and liberal in its ability to tolerate diversity. Were not quite where we need to be just yet. But weve made some significant strides very quickly. When I was at Wadsworth High School in Wadsworth, Ohio in the beginning of the Eighties I got threatened by the jocks because I had a mullet. A mullet for Christs sake! Things have gotten much better.
Even in this very progressive society we still get pressure to be like everybody else. The problem is that this very notion that there even is a like everybody else to be is a lie. No one is like everybody else. Even the most conformist among us cant ever truly conform except in a very superficial way. Its our nature to be independent. The attempt to conform to some illusory notion of normality is just the denial of what we actually are.
But its not that easy to come to truly know what you really are and to accept that. Maybe you think you already do. But Id bet dollars to donuts you dont. It takes a lot more than just getting a really rad tattoo or dying your hair chartreuse. There are scads of things about yourself that you dont want to face. In my own case much of what I didnt want to face had to do with how many ways I was exactly like everyone else, especially the ways in which I was exactly like all the normal douche bags** I spent most of my life seething with hatred at.
Because theres so much about you that you arent ready to accept right now its good to move slowly into this stuff. If you go too fast the shock can be too much to take. When you do a practice like zazen youll discover aspects about yourself that are truly disturbing -- no matter how cool and unsettling a person you might think you are. You can only recognize that which you think is the worst in human nature because its part of you.
Still its a worthwhile pursuit. Because when youve learned to accept what you are then you can manifest what you are in a way that truly benefits you and truly benefits everyone you come in contact with. And thats good for all of us. Thats the way you can save the world.
And stop it with trashing peoples Wikipedia entries, OK? Thats just stupid***.
* Liquor? Didnt even know her!
** Apologies for breaking precept #7 just then.
*** And again there.
Ill be speaking at the Akron Public Library on November 7th (Wednesday) at 7 PM. Be there or be (Highland) Square!
Then come watch my movie Clevelands Screaming! on November 9th at the Beachland Tavern in Cleveland along with a live performance by 0DFx as well as CD Truth, Cheap Tragedies and This Moment in Black History.
Brad Warner is the author of Hardcore Zen and Sit Down and Shut Up!. He maintains a blog about Buddhist stuff. If you're in Southern California and you want to try some Zazen for yourself, he has a group that meets every Saturday in Santa Monica.
Wikipedia, Groaning, and The Shape of the World Around Us
Have you ever seen one of those fancy educational world maps, where the size of its countries are adjusted to proportionally represent their populations? We had one hanging in my sixth-grade class, and while all of the facts on the map were arguably correct enough, the curiously out-of-whack proportions -- a tiny sliver of Canada, and an India threatening to devour the entire Asian mainland -- were enough to make me stare.
Wikipedia is, I think, the abstract equivalent of a population-adjusted map of the world. On paper, compiling facts from myriad voluntary sources around the globe is simple and perfect, and as such, it has as recently as this week been touted as the premiere one-stop information shop on the intertubes. Not to even mention that it is, indeed, a indisputable and vast wealth of facts. It isn't the facts themselves that make the übersite such a curious thing; it's the potential for skewed scope and distribution of the information within that makes it (much like a population-adjusted map) not so much my primary resource for any future cross-continental hiking trips.
If anything, Wikipedia should probably be viewed less as an objective font of knowledge and more like a mirror held up to the priorities of modern society. Oh, it's a scathing indictment of our society all right, but there is solace in this: it is worlds of entertainment. Which brings us to today's topic, the fine art of Wikigroaning.
Wikigroaning, named for the "aw, gawd" or equivalent interjection you are likely to make while playing, was born in the murky depths of Something Awful, and it is the ultimate time-wasting hunting sport of the internet. It is quite simple, really, combining creative thinking and competitive spirit with that special feel-good erudite thrill that comes from knowing you're only on the outer boundaries of a truly bizarre world.
The premise is quite simple. First, find a useful Wikipedia article that normal people might read. For example, the article called "Knight." Then, find a somehow similar article that is longer, but at the same time, useless to a very large fraction of the population. In this case, we'll go with "Jedi Knight." Open both of the links and compare the lengths of the two articles. Compare not only that, but how well concepts are explored, and the greater professionalism with which the longer article was likely created. Are you looking yet? Get a good, long look. Yeah. Yeeaaah, we know, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. (We're calling it Wikigroaning for a reason.)
Though the game has spread like wildfire within the past month or so, even garnering fancy illustrated write-ups in The Wall Street Journal, it might cross your mind that, somehow, these entries are being taken totally out of context and used unfairly. Stop that. From an entirely objective viewpoint, is it not impossible to look at the data and come to the conclusion that Jedi Knights are a larger part of modern literate Western culture, more important and revered, than the knights of the medieval era? This is the heart of Wikigroaning. As seriously as the writers and editors of Wikipedia tend to take themselves, in the end it is an amateur endeavor -- that's the whole point of it, after all. The "experts" are mostly only experts inasmuch as they can inject the sum of knowledge of their own trivia-filled lives into digital form. So what we're asking through this game is: with what do we, a culture that seems to be comprised of absolute nerds, fill our lives? What do we hold most dear?
Pop culture, of course. As if it wasn't obvious. A favorite comparison to quote is that of John Locke: the philosopher's entry logs 3,800 words, while the character on Lost has 7,400. Meanwhile, a 11,000 word entry for The Sopranos dwarfs the Mafia's 6,300, Emperor Palpatine crushes Emperor Constantine, and the entry for C.A.T.S. and the gang is more comprehensive than pretty much any other definition of the word "base." (Not that we necessarily want to delve any deeper into our Wiki-writers' psyches than pop culture, anyhow: after all, this is a place where love is no match for masturbation.)
It's a fun game, no doubt, but troubling nonetheless in the same way that making fun of someone's bad fashion is fun. An article in Globe and Mail tries to make sense of why it's so bothersome, and it makes a lot of sense.
I suspect that what really irks us about Wikipedia is that, as a user-written encyclopedia, it doesn't reflect ourselves with very much gravitas. Whatever its other merits, you have to admit that the Enyclopaedia Britannicamakes us out to be a Very Serious Race. The joy of wikigroaning formalizes the act of reminding ourselves that we're not.
Perhaps also, along the same lines, what's kind of irksome is that, even as we're turning that indicting mirror sardonically on the material, we're also kind of turning it on ourselves every time we think of a new potential pairing, secretly hoping that we will be perversely proven right.
Who knows, but it sure is fascinating. Today, for example, I discovered that TRON is bigger than the whole internet by two hundred words. It's a funny thing, that internet. So, what can you find? Shock and depress me. Do your best. (Or your worst.) It will only make it all the more fun.
Wikipedia Questions Importance of Internet "It Girls"
An Internet It-Girl created no interest from the folks at Wikipedia. The internet encyclopedia, which relies on user-submitted entries, deleted the entry for Cory Kennedy, a sixteen-year-old girl, semi-famous as an intern for The Cobrasnake, a random dude who photographs greasy hipsters at LA parties. She is also known as the underaged paramour of filmmaker Vincent Gallo. Wikipedia disagreed with the assertion Kennedy was an internet phenonmenon, and demanded she accomplish something before earning her own Wikipedia entry.
There is no evidence that The Cobra Snake is itself a notable website, or that the parties she attends are notable, so all the more there cannot be evidence that she is notable for being on The Cobra Snake or for attending parties.
If she's an internet phenomenon, the internet doesn't really seem to be aware of that.
If the girl actually sticks around, there'll be media, and you can rewrite the article about her then. Does it really hurt that much if the interweb's flavor of the month doesn't automatically get a Wikipedia article? There's something to be said for standards.
Kennedys reps declined to comment, probably because Kennedy is a sixteen year old blogger who doesnt have a public relations team
yet.
If youre unfamiliar with Cory Kennedy and her mealy-mouthed genius, check out this enthralling YouTube clip, in which Kennedy described why New York nightlife is "like, so much more . . . with it . . . in a different way" than Los Angeles nightlife.
Fun with Reference Guides
Remember back in the day, when learning about sex meant sneaking a peak at "The New Our Bodies, Ourselves" in the school library...when a glimpse at a Playboy cartoon had our heads spinning? Well, those days are as long gone as Pan Am and Spirograph. Thanks to the internet - and moderately monitored websites like Wikipedia - all it takes now is a modem and a little curiosity. Check out a few gems from the dubious reference guide, some of which may surprise even you seasoned sexaholics:
Mammary intercourse
Footjob
Spit roast
ATM
Donkey punch
Daisy chain (found in the entry for the flower, a favorite of little girls)
from Wikipedia
One of These Kids is Doing Her Own Thing...
The Guardian UK recently reported on a brewing controversy in the world of open-source information dissemination: specifically, the problems that have been afflicting Wikipedia and its open-door, "anyone can edit, anyone can submit" policy user submissions and documentation of topical phenomena.
It seems as though the open-door policy may be in need of a red carpet, after all, the site's administrators have acknowledged, due to recent "cyber-vandalism" and erroneous or libelous edits made to entries for various well-known figures. As such, the administrators have had to place such "controversial" entries, behind a protected, un-editable wall of sorts.
Who or what topics qualify as "controversial" and prone to such acts of cyber-vandalism, and have therefore been "protected" from users' tweaking?
· 2004 United States voting controversies, Ohio
· Cuba
· Islamophobia
· Elitism
· Kosovo
· George W Bush
· Christina Aguilera
· Human rights in the People's Republic of China
· Military budget of the People's Republic of China
· Messianic Judaism
· Islam and anti-Semitism
I guess people can get pretty opinionated regarding things like Jordan Bratman, the "Dirrty" single, and former Mouseketeers. I'm sure I've even seen some UN resolutions about these issues, if I'm not mistaken...