Yesterday’s Salad

One of the most interesting attributes of comic books as a media form is the frequency with which creative teams change. It’s rare to see a show-runner leave a successful TV show, and even rarer to see multiple executive producers within a year. (Commander in Chief, is the rare recent exception, but one that hardly bodes well for the system’s prospects.) Movies sometimes change personal between sequels, but, most likely, no-one gave thought to the prospect of the sequel before the first movie was made. Creators also sometimes change in genre fiction, especially after the initial creator has passed (like the new Bond novels), but authors hardly change in serious fiction. Although I’d pay money to read Thomas Pynchon write a Zuckerman novel, it’s not something anyone’s likely to see.

It’s really quite amazing how regularly comics change their creative teams. It’s such an established part of the genre that we don’t really think about it, yet something truly different and worth thinking about. Comics exist within a push-pull of long-term storylines and attracting new readers; being “true” to a character’s history and reinvention; remaining within continuity and a continuum and being accessible to anyone who buys the issue. Some stories, like “Final Crisis,” don’t even pretend to be comprehensible to the amateur reader, but other comics, like Superman, have to belong to everyone. Superman is such an American myth that any American needs to be able to read Superman and understand what’s going on. It’s why you can’t do anything truly radical to the character (like make him electric blue!)–at least not for too long. Also, while a storyline may be very good on its own (like upgrading Metropolis), there’s a strong chance that it will be diminished by later authors. Frank Miller’s “dark” superhero stories of the 80’s were brilliant, but much of what came after only cheapened them.

So it is that the first issue of the James Robinson run on Superman is just so-so. Robinson is one of the best authors working in comics. His Starman was probably the best superhero comic of the 90’s/early 200s; at least the most consistently great. Robinson made us care about every aspect of the character’s universe. His history, his city, his rogues gallery, his personal life. The lives of the families in the city. It was a completely unique world. His recent run on Batman was highly enjoyable, and one of the better Two-Face stories, even if not so unique. But his Superman, while promising, leaves a lot to be desired. Robinson clearly wants us to care about the characters, but his initial attempts (let’s let Krypto narrate part of the issue!) fell flat. Robinson has more than earned the benefit of the doubt (though, there’s always the danger that some characters are just too stupid to succeed) but on it’s own, Superman 677 was not an especially good issue and only time will tell if Robinson, a great writer, is a great writer of Superman.

When I interviewed Dave Gilbert earlier this year, he mentioned that while adventure games were well-suited to a wide audience, they had not made as much headway with casual gamers as they might be expected to.  The appeal of adventure games to casual gamers is obvious: adventure games often have engrossing stories, witty puzzles, and don’t require lightning-fast reflexes.  Yet, games in the genre frequently alienated the casual audience because they featured puzzles with arcane solutions and shorthands that were only obvious to those who had considerable experience with the idiosyncratic logic of the genre. The games were made with only fans in mind, and in short, Dave reasoned, they had become too “adventure game-geeky.”

Since I started blogging about and reviewing adventure games in the past few years (most seriously in the last), I’ve seen quite a number of games that have helped to open the genre to a wider audience.  To name a few, Dave’s Blackwell games, Alasdair Beckett’s Nelly Cootalot, and coding genius Vince XII’s What Linus Bruckman Sees When His Eyes Are Closed, have provided new takes on the genre, and are also solid adventure games in their own right (thanks should also go to Chris Jones, whose AGS engine has basically shouldered the delivery of adventure game development for the masses).  To this shortlist, I can now enthusiastically add Erin “The Ivy” Robinson’s Nanobots, which should not only turn on a new audience to adventure games, but provides a new perspective on the genre for we of the adventure game geek crowd.

Nanobots puts the player in the shoes of not one character but six — brainbot, strongbot, audbot, chembot, hotbot, and tallbot — tiny robots that love each other and work together in theory, but bicker and klutz about in practice.  Without giving away too much of the plot, which is cute beyond measure, the ‘bots must learn to overcome their differences and penchant for sarcasm… or else.  From the tutorial, in which we’re introduced to the characters’ different abilities, and onward, the dialogue is snappy and punny throughout. And while I’m generally not a huge fan of low-fi pixel art, the doodle-like appearance of the protagonists meshes pleasingly with both the story and the giddy musical score (courtesy of the inimitable Scorposer).

Beneath the game’s bright, chipper aesthetic, there is solid and innovative gameplay. The player must coordinate the unique abilities of the different ‘bots, as well as manage a limited inventory between them, as they can only hold one item at a time.  While dividing various abilities between characters has deep roots in games (cf. The Lost Vikings), as does managing a very limited inventory (pretty much anything that resembles the old river-crossing puzzle), Nanobots’ characters make this a fundamental aspect of gameplay.  In many games that feature different characters, the times in which you need to use a different character are well-demarcated to a fault (“I should use Jessica in this situation — only she speaks Spanish!”), and most of the time, one character is essentially interchangeable with another.

Nanobots‘ greatest appeal to the adventure gaming faithful is that the characters take apart the most basic elements of orthodox adventure gameplay. Case in point: I’ve been right-clicking to examine things for the better part of my natural lifetime.  Not so in Nanobots. If you aren’t actively controlling brainbot, you aren’t examining things. Thankfully your own brain gets some use, too: the use of the robots within the puzzles is intuitive, and there are a reasonable number of hints, but the game still requires some creative thinking (though, acquiring at least one inventory item toward the end is a little opaque).

Though the game is sadly somewhat brief, anyone with experience of the genre is likely to have one or two satori-like moments on their first play-through, complete with the realization that you’ve been thinking in adventure game shorthand.  And if you are new to games, or a dedicated casual gamer, you’ll find Nanobots to be a charming delight.  So on a list of great adventure games that can appeal to the casual gamer, I’m making a note here next to Nanobots: huge success.

For those of you wondering when the Isaac game is coming out, fear not.  With a new drawing tablet, I’m projecting that the game will be done by 2011 or so. Here’s a preview of the Japanese cartoon-looking version of Notwith…

..then again, maybe there should be a Notwith- game as well?  Where you drink a lot of coffee and grumble?

Let me start my contribution this week by saying that I think there is something to the “antifunny.”  There are plenty of things that are inherently not funny (like tragedy), but when you’re tempted by the promise of something funny, and let your guard down, the antifunny is what punches you in the gut.  So, to avoid being taken advantage of, I hereby advocate a doctrine of cynicism.  If all goes well, we’ll never expect anything to be funny or good, and we will thereby be both immune to the antifunny, and even more amused when something really is funny.

While modern definitions of cynicism cast it as simply assuming the worst, the original cynics lived like dogs.  Some might balk at the idea of abandoning bathing, but if everybody did it, we would simply lose our distinction between dirty and clean, and we would never be disappointed when stains didn’t come out in the wash.  After all, we wouldn’t be wearing clothes, which would provide incentive for both physical fitness and save us hours of chore-time every week.  Perhaps the greatest proof of this is the fact that dogs are always happy, all the time. Ergo, were we to live like dogs, we would be happy.  All the time.

For those who aren’t quite ready to abandon society just yet, realize that studies have shown that disappointment is actually hardwired in the way we think.  When monkeys were given tasty food as a stimulus, pleasure centers in their brains didn’t have their maximal activity when they ate the food; rather, they were at maximum when the monkeys secured the food and were anticipating eating it.  So, if we are to court any positive expectations at all, it will be better than what we experience. Therefore, by having positive expectations, we actively cause our disappointment.

Were that not enough, abandoning expectations has the potential to take what is legitimately funny and make it funnier. Many theories of humor, such as Freud’s, include surprise as an essential element.  This is borne out experimentally, as the comedian Buddy Hackett demonstrated on the Tonight show.  Hackett instructed Carson to ask him “What’s the secret of comedy?”, and when Carson dutifully complied, saying “What’s the secret of-”, Hackett screamed in his face, “TIMING!” and the audience erupted into laughter.  By itself, no permutation of “What’s the secret of comedy?” and “Timing.” is funny; instead it is the surprise itself that is capable of rendering it humor.

In sum, the position of cynicism might look like the best of bleak options.  While it safeguards one against the antifunny, and might make for the best vehicle to experience the funny, it appears to offer little hope for actively seeking the funny.  If you can’t form an expectation, you can’t actively seek the funny.  But perhaps there is something to be found in enjoying expectations independently of fulfillment.  As Rousseau discovered,

“This vice, which shame and timidity find so convenient, has a particular attraction for lively imaginations. It allows them to dispose, so to speak, of the whole female sex at their will, and to make any beauty who tempts them serve their pleasure without the need of first obtaining her consent.”

Thus, the expectation or fantasy of pleasure itself can be cultivated or enjoyed, free from the banality of disappointment.  Indeed, the great father of Cynicism, Diogenes, understood this very example.  Living out his life in the public square, Diogenes attended to all of his needs in full view of his fellow citizens.  When confronted by friends who were horrified to see him gratifying himself unabashedly, he replied, “it’s a pity that I can’t simply rub my belly when I’m hungry.”

Two recent neologisms led me to this week’s topic: disappointment. The first is “nuke the fridge,” a film calque of “jump the shark.” In a brilliant post on the phrase, Kottke discusses its hyper-absorption by the blogerati and the ensuing backlash. Or: his (hers? its? their?) backlash of one. And so, the post ends with these thoughts:

Memes seem to be spreading so rapidly now on the web that they burn out before they can properly establish themselves. It’ll be interesting to see if nuke the fridge makes it through this ultra-virulent phase and somehow slows down enough to jump to casual mainstream usage. (more)

The second neologism comes from A.O. Scott’s review of “The Love Guru.” In explaining just how bad the movie is, Scott argues that the it is not enough to simply say the movie is not funny. “No, “The Love Guru” is downright antifunny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again.” (link) It’s this type of insight that makes Scott’s reviews must read even if he doesn’t always have the most discerning eye.

The fact that someone decided to create an unnecessary film version of “jump the shark” attests to the seriousness we attach to being letdown by so-called “low” culture. Someone was so disappointed by “Indiana Jones” that they needed to create a whole new idiom for it, despite the fact that “jump the shark” is already used attributively (as in its main urban dictionary definition); it’s really only a matter of time before the word becomes acceptable in academic discourse, and/or used to describe a once-great bartender who can now scarcely muddle a julep. Likewise, Scott needed a new term for his review. “Funny” is a subjective category; saying you don’t find something funny is almost a challenge to the next person to find it funny. “Antifunny” looks to be an inherent quality, something that Michael Haneke might go for were he to direct a comedy. In my opinion, the word is so useful, that I’ve decided to do my part in ultra-virulently spreading the meme.

Antifunny also takes the movie out of the realm of disappointment. Disappointments, are often reevaluated, given a new lease on life (this yahoo answers thread has a nice list). Works can be ahead of their time, or released a little too late. While both De La Soul’s “3 Feet High and Rising” and the Beastie Boys’ “Paul’s Boutique” are considered classics, De La’s album came out a few months earlier, and “Paul’s Boutique” was forever endowed with a silver medal. [A wrote a way-too-long post about this about a year and a half ago.

In short, disappointments are a temporal matter and can really only be determined after the fact.

For example, is it “disappointing” that Big Brown didn’t win the Triple Crown? Sure, but history may not really think so. If his Belmont is any indication, Big Brown might just go down as the worst Derby-Preakness winner of all-time. What is really disappointing, and only so in retrospect, is the fact that Point Given didn’t win the Kentucky Derby. At the time, losing the derby upsets people close to the horse, fans, and gamblers. But looking back at years later, Point Given’s loss is devastating, a supreme disappointment. Not only did he win the second two legs of the triple crown, he went on to win both the Haskell and the Travers, becoming the only horse to win 4 million dollar races in a row. Point Given was a super-horse whose lone bad race happened to be the Kentucky Derby. Or the election of 2000. In 2000 it was a little disappointing but in hindsight, truly devastating.

To that end I propose some neologisms of my own. Maybe we need to have “antipointments,” things so bad that not only do they disappoint, they never have a chance of appointing us. Or the German-sounding “distranspointments”, things that only reveal themselves to be disappointing with or over time. I’m as open to ideas as the next person. Just don’t disappoint me.

Editor’s Note: Yesterday’s Salad is happy to welcome our newest contributor Dora Weatherbottom/Elsie Hartpence. As with all contributors, we will no doubt grow to love her only to see her disappear into the internet ether and wonder whither has she gone.

It was 2am.  I couldn’t sleep.  I was flipping between Cops and a Sex and the City rerun and suddenly I asked myself (in an SJP voice, obviously): what makes me an American?

And then I pondered…

On a recent semester in the south of Spain, I was forced to think about what it is exactly that defines me as an American.  There was something that caused me to not want to set the record straight when I was labeled as an “Inglessa” or a “Sueca” by some unknowing Spaniard.  During my time in Europe, I wasn’t particularly proud to be an American- it was tragic.  I found myself looking the other way when I saw a group of particularly obnoxious (inebriated) Americanos stumbling out of a discotec, and immediately being on the defensive when others discussed the Iraq War in my international relations seminar. I constantly felt the need to justify myself, to show that I’m not a “dumb American” the second my nationality slipped out of my mouth. Although, I do admit, I did stare in fascination at the female compatriot I saw lurching about outside a bar, yelling into her cell phone, “DAAAAD, I’m not here to study, I’m here to get WAASTED.”  It was a classy moment for our nation indeed.

There is so much that infuriates me about this country.  I observe everything, from eating habits to traffic patterns, and find fault.  I’m not proud of the United States right now, but I want to be.  What makes me American is my belief in the United States, my belief not in the government, but in the people.  I believe with all my heart that this country is ours for the taking.

As an American, I think I owe it to my country to work toward its betterment.  We all do.  Everyone here, everyone that believes Yesterday’s Salad to be completely accessible, has been greatly privileged- I’m willing to bet- in their education and place in society.  We live in a country of incredible opportunity and incredible inequalities.  Money, opportunity, education, and social status are so interconnected.  We can’t deny that the families that we are born into greatly effect our paths in life and the opportunities we pursue.  If my father didn’t have a post-graduate education, I probably wouldn’t think of getting a master’s degree as a logical step in my education. Read the rest of this entry »

Enjoy today’s response, now in podcast form.

In as much as any columnist of YS can approach anything seriously without being sucked to the cosmopolitan and post-modern vortex which is the empty soul at the heart of this endeavor and as much anyone can ask these sorts of questions without creating a spinoff, I will endeavor to provide an answer. I’ve chosen to focus on current day America for the purposes of this question.

   Partisanism has led to a sort of biasing of government, an us and them mentality which tends to minimize the shared aspects of the governing process, there is truth behind the all americans cliche. But its hard to get at. By what process does one constitue oneself as American? The easiest way out for any nation is universal conscription. Late nineteenth and early twentieth century Frenchmen learned to be French and to speak the common French by means of the army. Yet despite the brief and often harrowing experience we often have with Selective Services, there is no mechanism operating similarly in America. We share the same holidays, the same barbecues, the same times for family gathering, yet none of these are particularly unique, and the days which should in some sense embed us in our national mythology serve as little more than a pretense for three day weekends. It has also been stated that the essence of an American is to have experienced 9/11, to perhaps know the feeling of solidarity. Without minimizing the tragedy, the power of the moment and the sense of connection has been hijacked by sectarian interests, I feel like the proverbial Essene in the Pharisaic temple.   

   A discussion of what is owed is perhaps more than what Americans do. The point of the American democratic-republic is to be overly large, to channel populism and special interests into harmless channels through size. In terms of actual responsibilities to the government, the average citizen never has to do more than pay taxes, potentially fill out the census, maybe vote, and the right to pursue unlimited self-interest. This particular problem is best, I think, exemplified by the Dodge/Chrysler 2.99 gas deal. Its insane, inane, utterly unneccessary and guaranteed to keep America beholden to Middle East potentates. But its a good deal. And that seems to trump the my own sectarian American values. For others, this is potentially essential to being an American. 

     The problem with trying to classify the sepcific responsisbilites of the American citizen to one’s government is that it seems as if America is a republic of self-interest. In some very real sense, all the functions of the civil service persist and are pursued for their functions as fulfilling personal self interest. Even the military, while some can still claim aspects of duty and responsibility has morphed into a sort of functional mercenary force. One of the major draws of the army these days is economic advancement and free education. Our republic is sort of structured to take advantage of people’s self interest. And this is nothing new and nothing shameful. the old Roman republic served as a vehicle for the acquirement of prestige, power, and wealth for the Roman aristocracy. 

   So far I’ve outlined how there is nothing at the center of the American relationship to the state, besides the nominal gestures that citizens are compelled to make, such as paying taxes, having an American passport and potentially voting. I think at the center is an understanding that the republic is constituted through self interest, that perhaps the needs of most are served through this republic, and this was its sort of essential constitution, life, liberty and property. There is no idealized point in which more was given to the republic for duty and honor, these were all essentially pursuits of self-interest. The American Revolution was the mobilization of popular support through elite concerns. Thus what does the American citizen owe to the American government? Only following the dictates of self-interest under the overarching centrality of the American government. This is what is, but it is not ideal. Rather, we should follow the ways of the Swiss and through extreme localism, re-involve the citizen in American politics. 

Following the opening assault of the Great Anti-Banger, I too have turned my mind’s eye to that ignoble dwelling of savages, Switzerland and have found it wanting.

1) There was no Switzerland in high Antiquity. Every great nation of the European world has its roots in the Roman Empire. Germany was the unRoman land of the barbarians. Britain is best known for causing the Agricola to be written. France gave us the Gallic Wars and the Caesars. Spain also existed in a sort of strange primitive form as the playground of Carthaginians and Romans, and eventually came under the empire. Modern Greece is entirely based upon reconstituting its ancient past. America is in some sense the idealization of Polybian and Roman Republican ideals gone mad. Much of the legitimacy that Israel exhibits comes from its claims to be an old Judean commonwealth. The same can even be said for the most illegitimate state in the Middle East, Jordan, as a resurrection of the old Nabatean kingdom. Conspicuously absent from this list is Switzerland. While other nations place their beginnings in the the one true civilization, Switzerland is the bastard child of inhospitable mountain tribesmen, lovers of local autonomy, and those able to shoot apples off their loved one’s heads, an inelegant and incoherent beginning to an ignoble nation.

2) The Swiss Guard: Of all the most antiquated institutions of the Middle Ages with the possible exception of  Iceland (next week’s topic?) this one is most deserving of censure. Yet before we go on to heap the scorn and abuse on this venerable institution, remarkable for its protection of the pope’s life, let us reflect upon the fact that this is the last vestige of a once ancient and venerable, and dare I say cosmopolitan institution of mercenaries that was once present throughout Europe. For were the Swiss not the first to use pikes effectively? To fight their own unsung Agincourt on the plains of Germany and in the undulating vales of my own fair Italy(c.f. Virgil Georgics 2 for all the other praises that had to be left out)? This probably has something to do with the fact that the Swiss version of Henry V was written in Romansch and no one noticed. Indeed, were these Swiss not the very men who long antiquated and with particularly ineffective weapons fought the French mob at the Tulieres to the death, for the sake of Louis XVI? Such valor at least deserves some salutations particularly in regards to their cosmopolitanism. For I too, have written a speech or two on cosmopolitanism, yet due to the fiendish pressures of time, was precluded from publishing by an invasion of the Senate chamber by Cilician kittens. Thus, I must in the spirit of this new found spirit disagree with El Salade, for the Swiss were the first to exploit cosmopolitanism effectively. While other nation-states were beginning to become just that, the Swiss were out killing other people for money, proving perhaps the most important dictate of the new cosmopolitan world that was beginning to take shape, anti-Russian is anti-everyone.

3) Romansch. While usually I exhort the foolish children of today to turn to the great and good languages that are now spoken by some few men, I find this dialect utterly appalling. It is a base and brutal corruption of the most pure language ever spoken and I would prefer my books to be burned than to be translated into such barbaric filth. There are Gauls who speak better Latin, Britons even. These Swisses exist by a simple twist of fate. Had Drusus been more thorough, this column would not exist.