I don’t do drugs and I am not a cat. Those two facts out of the way, I have to imagine this Friskies ad is what it’s like for a cat on acid. The world must be full of your food that dances with you through a day-glo universe of limitless possibilities. And here all this time you thought your cat was just a lazy hedonist.

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In the push back from gamers against Roger Ebert, something seems to be missing—an argument.  Sure, there are pithy retorts and witty comeuppances, but there’s very little in the way of genuine discourse on the subject.  Some will argue that’s because Ebert hasn’t made any valid statements, but those are obviously people blinded by their bias.

First, what is this whole calamity about?  For a few years now the “Are video games art?” debate has been raging mostly within the gaming community.  While there has been some argument for years over titles such as The Secret of Monkey Island, it has only been in recent years with increasing production values that games have been seriously entertained as an art form even among their biggest fans.  Enter film critic Roger Ebert, whose most recent volley in this battle has stirred up a Mario Bees nest again.

What is the crux of Ebert’s argument?  That video games, by their very nature and name, are games.  Games cannot be art, as opposed to film, literature, music, etc.  He compares video games to chess, basketball, and football.  Does anyone consider these games to be art?  Why are video games any different?

A lot of counter-arguments have been made from the gamer side.  I will ignore the personal attacks on Ebert in the interest of time and good taste, but suffice it to say they don’t serve as a good harbinger of what’s to follow.

One argument is that Ebert, by his own admission, does not play video games.  If he does not, how can he judge whether they are art?  This sounds perfectly valid on the outside, but it ignores the fact that he isn’t judging games on a case-per-case basis.  Instead, he is making a judgment based on the medium itself.  You might disagree, but asking that he play every potential example is beside the point.  He is no more likely to find Flower to be art than he is Ninja Gaiden 2.

A second argument is that video games contain many artistic elements, and gamers here are certainly correct.  From soundtracks to art books, the video game community has been acknowledging this fact for years.  But just because the music in a game is art, does that make the game itself art?  For example, we could play Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” at a Chicago Bulls game, but does that make the game art?  We might consider the Bulls’ logo or the artwork on their court to be art, but does that make the game art?  The obvious answer is no.

Perhaps Ebert is simply too old and loyal to his precious films to see emerging art forms?  Possibly, but this is a common mistake made by proponents of a cause.  Ebert is a fan of artful, edgy films.  He gave Tarantino’s Kill Bill films four stars and was a fan of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.  Those may seem silly examples, but they show a critic who isn’t behind the times enough to not appreciate Sin City (or, therefore, Sim City, either).

The loyalty claim is harder to argue against.  Is Ebert loyal to film?  Perhaps, in the way that anyone is to something they love.  But how is this a criticism?  One could lay the same claim against gamers arguing their medium is art.  Loyalty, or even preference, should not be enough to disqualify someone’s opinion.

Of course, all of this brings us back around to Ebert’s initial claim that video games cannot be art due to their inherent game structure.  They set goals, award points, etc.  This is not something any conventional art form does.  On the contrary, even interactive art exhibits such as Andy Warhol’s Silver Balloons have no set goals or achievements to be made.  They’re simply to be experienced and enjoyed, and possibly even gained perspective from.  Any game that was given the same parameters, such as possibly Wii Music, is decried by the gaming community as boring and a failure.  In fact, Wii Music is much closer to art than God of War III.  Still, even it would qualify at best as an undergraduate art exhibit.

So, am I an Ebert convert?  Not entirely.  Instead, I think from his perspective he is 100% correct.  From his definition of art, video games simply cannot be true art, despite having artistic qualities.  In order for games to be art, we would have to strip away that which at their heart makes them “games.”

Can we expand the definition, then?  Perhaps, but then what is that bold new definition that we give to art, and where do we draw new boundaries for it?  That, instead of what is the wittiest put-down on Ebert, is the question the gaming community should be asking.

Via | Game With A Brain

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Bob Dylan, from the outside looking in, seems like a cool guy.  While he might not be the most influential artist of the past fifty years when it comes to music, it would be hard to argue against him being the most influential on society.  He’s one of the few musicians you’ll find profiled in a high school history textbook.

That being said, I’m sure he has his bad days.  I’m sure there’s days he wakes up and just figures it’s not worth washing his hair or cleaning the spit from his harmonica.  On those days he’s Bob au naturel, and loving it.  July 23, 2009 was one of those days.

While walking in Long Beach, south of New York, Bob got pulled over by the cops.  Why?  Apparently someone called to report a man wandering around the neighborhood.  It was a mostly minority neighborhood, according to reports, which means some minority person called to report a strange looking Jewish man was wandering about.  This used to happen all the time in Poland, but it was just Uncle Jeremiah.  Anyway, so the police show up and it’s two young cops who don’t recognize Dylan, which might be because it’s an au naturel day.  It might also be because he’s not Hannah Montana.  Either, or, type of situation.

After asking him for his ID (which he did not have on him at the time), the police ask him to come with them back to his hotel so he can be identified.  They must have felt foolish driving up to the hotel asking if they could identify one of the biggest names in music history, but then again he’s no Pink.  Though, in fairness, they might not have been able to understand a word he said.  Still, apparently Bob stayed quite nice and friendly throughout the entire incident, which leads me to one Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Gates, as you may recall, is the Harvard professor that had the cops called on him by a neighbor who said he looked suspicious outside his own house.  When the police showed up he supposedly acted uncooperatively, not wanting to produce ID at first.  This in turn led to the police officer arresting Gates, and President Obama later saying the officer had “acted stupidly.”  I do wonder which is more stupid—not recognizing some Harvard professor or not recognizing Bob Dylan?  I wonder if Obama will comment?

And before anyone chimes in with they’re not the same because one was black and one was white, please do keep in mind that Dylan is Jewish.  His real name is Robert Zimmerman.  He and Gates are both of an age where they can recall quite open racism in this country, even if today it is slightly better concealed from public view.  So, the question is will President Obama call Dylan and the two cops to the White House for a beer summit?  There’s a good song waiting to be written.

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I sit here listening to Aretha Franklin’s “Think” while writing this, and it makes me think (you should have seen it coming).  While I have little doubt that my children or grandchildren will still get the pleasure of hearing Ms. Franklin’s voice, I do wonder about those three, four, or ten generations down the road.

There is something reassuring about knowing that I’ve read the same novels that people two hundred years ago read.  I’ve read the same poetry and plays people five hundred years ago read.  It ties me to the past and gives me a sense of place in time, which by itself is a bit of a difficult concept to grasp.  To think that, at best, I might make it a century in a recorded history that goes back thousands of years.  Sharing some of the same experiences as those in the past gives me a guide rope through time—not to get too overly philosophical about it all.  But will future generations retain such ties?

The question was spurred by a new book scanner that can scan at 1,000 fps.  In essence, the scanner can simply slip through the pages of a book and scan as it goes.  It’s just a prototype for now, but it cuts the laborious task of scanning books down to a more manageable task.  And that seems like a good thing.  But I wonder  if the entire world going digital is such a good thing?

Make no mistake, I love the fact that I can access almost any information from anywhere within seconds.  The Internet and the information availability is generally a good thing, I think.  What troubles me is the idea that new ideas and thoughts, including music and books, might go straight to digital and skip the physical stage.  For instance, copies of ancient Egyptian writings have managed to navigate their way through time to us today because a physical copy existed.  Civilizations and cultures have risen and fallen, but those words remained because there was something physical to dig up and put your hands on.  Will the same be true of digital information?

Suppose the worst case scenario and the world descends into nuclear war, or perhaps just an electromagnetic war of disabling the other side’s infrastructure of communications.  Where would all the blogs of the world be, including this one?  While I doubt the loss of this particular blog would be much of a loss to the annals of time, it is true that many of today’s best young writers are doing much of their writing exclusively online.  What happens when it isn’t there?

Of course, not all writings of the Egyptians have made it to modern day.  And while much is exclusively online, surely print books will remain for some of the creamiest of the crop.  But it does give me pause to consider that while I may be connected to the past, I may in fact be cutting my own cord to the future simply be hitting enter.

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It is possible that they mean God is like a friend–a good one.  This good friend will be there in dark times to pick you up.  It is unlikely they mean God is like a bad friend who will be there to pick you up to take you drinking the night before a job interview, but you never know with people.

It’s also possible that people mean God is literally their best friend.  On their wedding day they would choose God as their best man or maid of honor.  And this, strikes me as odd.  It isn’t that I don’t think God could pull off a smashing tuxedo or fuchsia dress, because after all, he is omnipotent.  It’s more that I don’t think God fits the friend label, or perhaps more accurately, that it does not fit Him.

Isn’t friendship a reciprocal act?  If Jude Law and I are going to be friends (and this is more likely than one might assume, relatively speaking), then don’t we both have to consider one another a friend?  I can’t simply start calling Jude my pal and get away with it, can I?  Wouldn’t people assume I was nuts?  Sort of a stalker?  Aha, but what about what Jesus said to the Apostles in John 15:15?

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

But doesn’t my cat know my business?  My two cats routinely wander into the bathroom when I am in the mist of all sorts of business others never bare witness to.  No, I am not playing a game of semantics but actually inquiring.  Despite this, I do not consider my cats real friends, or at least not in the manner I think some call God a friend.

In reality, I am not sure it’s possible for any higher being to be friends with a lower one.  I can no more be friends with God than I can with my cat.  We occupy three distinct levels of advancement.  Nor is my cat buddying up to any caterpillars.  The cat may be amused by the caterpillar, and it may bring enjoyment to my cat’s life, but friends?  I think God listens to me, but so does my cat.  My cat brings me joy, but it can’t actually give me anything of value that I need, though it does bring me slobbery cat toys.  I don’t really give God anything He needs.  I’m sure my praise and happiness bring Him joy, but does He actually need any of these things?  I doubt it.

Instead, my relationship with God is far more similar to my relationship with my cat than to any friend I have.  Far too often modern American culture tries to conform God to convenient maxims that allow us to get on with the more important tasks of installing coffee shops into our churches.  Those are great for our friends, but that sadly does not include God.

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Police statements about a letter left by the man seem to point to a man bitter towards women for rejecting him (one assumes romantically, and not for jobs or something odd).  He took out this aggression by walking into an aerobics class and opening fire on a room full of women.  In other words, he probably was not the type to deal with rejection well.

But no one deals with rejection well.  In fact, if the least you do is lock yourself inside a closet for a week while easting Hostess Cupcakes that’s a pretty good reaction.  But hating those that reject you?

In my life I have been rejected for jobs, dates, and probably some other random category that I can’t currently think of.  I would say credit card, but that would be a lie (though I know plenty of people with good credit who have been for whatever reason).  Okay, so I am familiar with rejection.  Again, short of being Gene Simmons everyone is.  But it has never led to hatred from me.  Sure, I had feelings of disappointment and regret, perhaps even of envy, but hatred?

When I didn’t make the middle school basketball team I didn’t hate the students who did.  Envy them?  Perhaps, but not hate.  All too often, however, I see rejection lead to hatred, and not just among disturbed individuals such as this man in Pittsburgh.  I’ve seen it in everything from loss of dinky jobs nobody should care about, to people bitter about not being the right one for an attractive match.  As a man, I am perhaps most often disturbed when I see it in other men towards women.  Not because women deserve some special protection, but because it’s such a frivolous waste of energy.

Hate all women because one rejects you?  Allow yourself to devolve into a ranting string of gender slurs because of one woman’s negative reaction to your advances?  Breed genuine contempt towards half the population because you didn’t get exactly what you wanted?  Get over yourself.  Women can be mean, cruel creatures at times.  They can be petty, childish, and spiteful.  They can be all sorts of fun synonyms to string together, but at the end of the day they are as human as men, and therefore as graceful and flawed.  Expecting anything more or less is simply, well, idiotic.

The man who did this is a monster.  But too many men allow themselves to be monsters in training–spouting rhetoric that is highly disturbing and just a little bit frightening in the face of such an incident.  Your penis may have been emasculated by the cute girl who rejected you, but a gun is not just a bigger penis that will impress her.  Please retake freshman biology.

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But it has never been a popular decision with consumers, and for obvious reasons.  Microsoft prices its hard drives at crazy inflated prices that keep most from ever upgrading.  At the same time, the limited size of most Xbox Live Arcade titles has kept this from being an issue and most simply abstained from upgrading.

Then came the new Games on Demand program which allows full Xbox 360 titles to be bought and downloaded directly to the system, and suddenly 20 GB of space doesn’t sound so large, or even the newer 60 GB drives.  Approximately ten titles would fill the larger hard drive, and even the jumbo 120 GB hard rive would only hold 20 or so titles.  So, who is this new program for?  Check out the list of announced launch Games on Demand.

• Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft)
• LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (LucasArts)
• Rainbow Six Vegas (Ubisoft)
• BioShock (2K Games)
• Mass Effect (Microsoft Game Studios)
• Ridge Racer 6 (Namco)
• Burnout Paradise (EA)
• Meet The Robinsons (Disney)
• Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis (Rockstar Games)
• Call of Duty® 2 (Activision)
• MX vs. ATV Untamed (THQ)
• Sonic the Hedgehog (SEGA)
• Viva Piñata 2: Trouble in Paradise (Microsoft Game Studios)
• Need for Speed Carbon (EA)
• Test Drive: Unlimited (Atari)
• Fight Night Round 3 (EA)
• Need for Speed: Most Wanted (EA)
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2K Games/Bethesda Softworks)
• Prey (2K Games)
• Viva Piñata (Microsoft Game Studios)
• Karaoke Revolution American Idol Encore (Konami)
• Kameo: Elements of Power (Microsoft Game Studios)
• Perfect Dark Zero (Microsoft Game Studios)
• Dance Dance Revolution Universe (Konami)

Suddenly, the hard drive issue isn’t just one for consumers, but Microsoft’s bottom line.  What’s a Microsoft to do?  Open up external hard drive use to consumers.  Nintendo does this already, to some extent, with its SD card slot.  You can buy any SD card and plug it in for expanded storage.  Granted, it still isn’t what most fans want, but it’s a hell of a lot better than what Microsoft is offering.  Sony is the gold standard in storage solutions allowing consumers to buy a hard drive off the shelf and plug it right in.

Microsoft needs to follow suit or risk submarining its own sales.  The future of content distribution is digital delivery, whether we as consumers like it or not.  Valve has worked it beautifully with Steam on computers.  If Microsoft hopes to keep up to date, it needs to make it easier for gamers to do so as well.

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Over at Entertainment Weekly columnist Michael Ausiello is reporting on the TV networks’ press tour and he specifically reports on two CW shows–the Melrose Place relaunch and The Beautiful Life.  What these shows are about doesn’t really matter, because honestly I couldn’t get past the promotional cast photos.

Seven beautiful, nondescript young people lined against a wall.  Yes, this is the show I want to watch.  It’s the equivalent of advertising every new show with a rip-off of The Usual Suspects’ film poster.  Only, in this case, the people aren’t nearly as interesting looking.  I’m all for putting beautiful people on television.  The truth is that they have a God-given-talent which is to stand around and appear nice for others to look at.  They’re the organic version of a Van Gogh painting.  But couldn’t they at least be interesting looking beautiful people?

Take Julia Roberts for example.  She’s got a smile that haunts children in their sleep.  Seriously, she could play the Cheshire Cat in a stage production of Alice in Wonderland, and that’s not a bad thing.  It makes her interesting to look at.  Owen Wilson has that odd bump in his nose, and he’s all the more interesting for it.  These kids?  Not so interesting.

The problem for me is that all the shows start to look alike.  I have the same issue with many police procedurals which cast the grizzled older man, the young nondescript blond headed guy, and the sassy dark-haired woman (who is likely ethnic).  Can we mix it up a bit?  At least CSI finally hired on Laurence Fishburne, even if it was just in the role of grizzled older man.  There should be something we’re paying casting directors for, right?

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Republicans never liked Bill Clinton, but the 2008 election caused many Democrats to turn against him.  Today in North Korea, however, Bill Clinton should have redeemed himself in many hearts and minds.  Reports are that Clinton’s visit with leader Kim Jong-il has led to the pardoning and imminent release of two jailed American journalists.

This is a great day in North Korean relations, the idea of diplomatic negotiations over force, and for journalists in general who have seen recent years being very unkind towards them, what with layoffs and two major international conflicts that posed dangers for those covering.  But it should be a special day of joy also for Bill Clinton.  Once heralded as the savior of the Democratic Party, last year’s election left him labeled as a racist by some, and reviled by many others.

And perhaps with cause, though I’d disagree.  Point being–today Bill Clinton showed he’s not that terrible of a fellow (assuming he didn’t promise nuclear weapons in trade–that’s a joke).  And that presents a conflict.  How can Bill Clinton be accomplishing much abroad while our current savior Obama stumbles domestically with both his health care reform and the “Cash for Clunkers” program?  How can a Republican respect a man who they reviled for eight years?

The easy answer is that no man or woman should be so easily dismissed as Clinton has been over the years.  But admitting this means admitting that neither should Obama nor either of the Bush presidents.  For all the Democrats who hated Bush Sr. in office they had to do a second take when he was traveling around the world with Clinton raising funds for tsunami victims.  Bush Sr.’s supporters in turn had to reconsider when it was revealed that while staying in a hotel the young Clinton slept on the floor to give the bed to the elder Bush.

Too often the political discourse in this country goes binary.  Politicians are pro or con, good or evil, red or blue.  We know in our daily lives people rarely fit such a paradigm, but we persist in believing it true of politicians.  Fictional characters are often crafted to conveniently fit our moral construct of the world.  Fortunately, real people rarely are.

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That meant many years of my life were spent without a championship team to root for, but that was okay–they were always competitive.  Years later I would meet a young woman from Pittsburgh, begin dating, and later marry.  She was, by birth, a Steelers fan.  And the Steelers, as always, were competitive.  Then, they got Ben Roethlisberger, and in a period of four years won two Super Bowls.  All was well with the world.

Meanwhile, as I grew up I witnessed the fall of many of my sports heroes.  I saw baseball legends such as Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Roger Clemens tied to steroids.  I saw O.J. Simpson get away with double murder, only to later stage a daring hotel heist.  In college I saw star players get accused of rape, and I felt my stomach turn.  I rooted for these players, but how could I any longer?  How could I root for Kobe Bryant after the accusations that put him into a court room facing rape charges?  I was never much of a Lakers fan, so that choice wasn’t too hard.  But someone I did root for?

That’s the conundrum I faced with Big Ben in Pittsburgh.  Of course someone should always be considered innocent until proven guilty, but there’s also the reality of a rape case.  The Duke lacrosse team was falsely accused and it lent credence to every man who claimed to be wrongfully accused, and it hurt the case of every woman who comes forward.  Now we all tread lightly instead of jumping one direction or another, and that’s certainly for the best.  But many rape cases still come down to a question of “he said, she said.”  Because of this, many rape cases are still tried in the court of public opinion–fairly or not.

And so I sit in judgment of Big Ben as a life long Steelers fan.  I see the opportunity for a dynasty, but I hold the harsh reality of women I knew in college who were raped.  Women who were too scared to come forward.  Women who assumed they would not be believed at best, or be labeled sluts at worst.  As a fan I don’t wan Roethlisberger to be quilty, as do I as a human being.  I’d rather believe that every rape is a lie and that every death is an accident–but I know better.

I also know that both parties deserve the benfit of the doubt, but I can’t shake the memory of those women from school.  In my years of undergrad and graduate school I never once had a male friend falsely accused, but I knew plenty of women who never came forward.  As a teacher I now hear the same from female students, but rarely hear of falsely accused male students except in the vaguest of anecdotes.  And thus, I find myself leaning towards giving one side more benefit of doubt than the other, and that troubles me.

This fall I will likely still watch the NFL.  I will also still likely root for the Steelers when given the opportunity on TV.  But Roethlisberger I will be hesitant about, despite knowing better.  It is easy to say innocent until proven guilty for myself as a fan, but in reality I know that answer is simply about convenience.

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