My in-laws do not understand the concept of waiting until I am awake to be as loud as possible.
Loud hammering, from 9 AM to about 10:30. Sleepy now.
Author: thad
Not Only In It for the Money
I thought an article called Frank Zappa's not only in it for the money (By Derk Richardson, Bay Guardian, February 2, 1983) would make a nice counterpoint to that talk about the artist as a businessman.
Guess there's not much to it -- it's another piece about Zappa's appreciation of Varèse, with a sort of rote, more-than-slightly-condescending rundown of his career. Still, it's got some good bits and is worth a glance.
Business
Frank Zappa: Portrait of the Artist as a Businessman, by Rob Partridge and Paul Phillips, Cream, 1972. Courtesy once again of afka.net.
Frank discusses the business side of things. He was certainly a much savvier and more thorough businessman than most rock artists, then or now -- but his comments about what a good deal he has with Warner Brothers are an indication that he still had some hard lessons left to learn; he'd be singing a much different tune a few years later.
Don't You Ever Wash That Thing?
Philadelphia, 1974; uploaded by Whoaduderighteous.
It's a Christmas Miracle!
Gail Simone has been un-fired from Batgirl.
Nice to see DC reversing course on an obviously bad and hasty call. And nice to see that creators and fans do have some pull. Sometimes, anyway.
Advance Romance
Video's tough to watch but audio sounds better than the other live recordings I found. Upload by bongolampos, who says it's from a performance in Stockholm in 1988.
Motavia is Bullshit
Okay. So, big empty planet, with like four landmarks on it; the rest is empty desert with nothing but the same fucking three enemy groups, one of which you will run into every five seconds.
To get to where you need to go, you must:
- Talk to a guy.
- Talk to the same guy, a second time.
- Wander through the aforementioned big empty desert of constant annoying monster encounters until you find a cave.
- Go through the cave until you come up in a town.
- Talk to another guy.
- Talk to him a second time, too.
- Go back to the first town.
- Talk to a lady.
- Go back and talk to the first fucking guy again.
- Go back into the cave.
- If, and only if, you have talked to all those people all those times in that order, you will find a dragon hanging out at one of the dozen or so dead-ends in the cave.
So why does the fucking dragon not show up until you've done all that shit? Does he have, like, some kind of agreement with the village chief? Does he hide until the village chief calls him up and tells him "Hey, dragon, I sent some adventurers to go fight you"?
I haven't gotten that far into the original Sega Master System Phantasy Star. This is the PS2 remake I'm playing. But I assume -- hope -- this is merely a faithful translation of a profoundly stupid set of goals from the original 8-bit version.
But hey, memo to people making remakes? Automaps and item descriptions are awesome, but it's also okay to simplify down stupid, nonsensical bullshit so I don't wind up wandering the goddamn desert until I finally get pissed off and just look up a walkthrough.
Cavett, Part 3
I've always loved the nuance, the sort of duality, to Zappa's philosophy on music: he's certainly got strong opinions on what he likes and what he doesn't and that the industry is a bottomless cesspit, but he also believes the bottom line is that people like what they like and that's okay. He writes deep, complex music and lyrics -- but sometimes he writes silly stuff like Dancin' Fool, and he thinks people who overanalyze Jim Morrison's lyrics are missing the forest for the trees.
Ultimately, he's a Serious Musician who has the good damn sense to understand you shouldn't always take music so seriously.
Digital Demand
Two weeks ago I talked about how now is the greatest time in history to be a comics fan. Among other things, I mentioned Comixology. I've got concerns about Comixology -- it uses a proprietary, DRM-encumbered format, meaning there's a risk of a monopoly, same as any time a single major provider uses a proprietary, DRM-encumbered format -- but ultimately, I think that shit will work itself out. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned, shouldn't complain, shouldn't put pressure on Comixology and the publishers who use it to find another way -- but the music industry ultimately realized that a standards-compliant, DRM-free format was in its best interest, and the book publishers are beginning to get the message too; I think it's only a matter of time for comics. (TV and movies will be dead fucking last to get the message and will, like the music industry, wait until their bottom line has seriously suffered for their foot-dragging, knuckle-dragging stupidity, but they'll come around too.)
At any rate, those caveats in mind, I think that the recent announcement that Comixology is the third-highest earning iPad app of 2012 is a fucking good sign for the comics industry. It shows there's a big demand and it's getting bigger.
Moreover, while I've heard people express concern for years that digital comics will spell the end of print comics, they sure don't seem to be posing a threat -- which makes sense. The way I see it, people who get their comics through Comixology aren't any less likely to buy comics in print; if you've never bought a comic before, then you're not a lost sale, and if you have bought comics from bookstores or especially from specialty shops, you're not going to stop doing that just because you can get them on your iPad or what-have-you now.
For my part, I'm about to get a Nexus 7. For starters, the thing looks pretty small and I'm skeptical that it will even be satisfactory for reading comics on. Even if it is, I am confident it will not compare to the experience of reading a full-size comic.
That said, as I mentioned in that other post, there are a shitload of comics that are not currently in print, and if I find that it is comfortable to read comics on the Nexus 7, I will certainly start reading comics on it that are not available in my local comic shop.
That doesn't mean I'll stop shopping at my local comic shop. It doesn't even mean that I'll spend less money there. It just means I'll have one more way to experience comics (whether they're ones I've bought or acquired for free).
And while I love my local comic shop, it also means that people can make money selling comics to a niche audience without having to worry about print costs or Diamond minimum distribution numbers.
Ultimately, it's not a zero-sum game (except insofar as every consumer's entertainment budget is a zero-sum game). Digital comics doesn't mean the same audience gets the same comics from a different distributor, it means the potential for a new audience and different comics. And those are good things that make the medium richer for all of us.
Cavett, Part 2
The comment that Moon is 12 years old places this in late '79 or '80, about where I figured between the fashions and the Jewish Princess controversy.
Another abrupt cut -- from the bad old days of YouTube limiting videos to 10 minutes. (As opposed to the bad new days, where YouTube automatically flags infringing videos based on pattern-matching algorithms, whether they're actually infringing or not.) To be concluded!