Rev. Tobias Fünke

Dragon*con is certainly a unique experience.

The only thing I can compare it to is the "Elvis burger" served at The Vortex restaurant in Atlanta:

-Both are far off the average person's beaten path.

-Both are pretty weird, by any standard.

-Both seem to have a little bit of everything: while the Elvis burger is made up of peanut butter, bacon, and fried bananas all on a think beef patty, Dragon*con is concocted of fantasy role playing, scifi television shows, and Japanese anime, all on a huge room of people playing board games.

-Both are things that I don't want on any regular basis, but I'm glad that I tried once.

- . . . also, Mickey Rooney is always at Dragon*con, which I've never quite understood. The Elvis burger doesn't have a good analog for Mickey Rooney, I guess, but it bears mentioning, simply to express what a bizarre universe the event creates.

When I did attend Dragon*con, I spent a lot of time on the science track, which is how I realized that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is really, really homoerotic.

I jumped ahead there a little, let's go back.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is a deity invented, originally, as a way to criticize the idea of teaching intelligent design in schools. Since its inception, the FSM been picked up as a symbol for atheists and agnostics to mock theistic ideas.

Now let me be clear. I'm fully against teaching any sort of religion or "intelligent design" in public schools. And I'm not some militant anti-atheist, despite being a believer myself. And I'm certainly not against mocking the ideas of others . . . it's one of my very favorite things to do.

That's not what this is about.

This is about the moment when I was sitting in a little room, waiting for a skeptics panel to begin, and the picture below*, by far the most popular image of the FSM, was flashed up on the screen.

At the time, I wasn't familiar with the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or any of its religious connotations. So going into it tabula raza, here's how I interpreted this image:

-it's most prominent feature is two great big balls, hanging there right next to each other

-it is reaching out toward a naked man

-the caption reads "Touched by His Noodly Appendage." Not "touched by his pasta hand" or "touched by his noodle finger." But "touched by his noodly appendage." That's the phrasing they came up with. Seriously.

I was sitting in that room, full of people who like this image and think it's super-clever, and I was the only one laughing.

*The copyright holder of this file allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that a link to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster website remains with it. Having just demonstrated that they accidentally made something super-duper homoerotic, I gladly comply:

http://www.venganza.org/

What the "S" really stands for.

I flop down on the bed and turn on the TV, and there they are again, just waiting. These two, the smiley-Asian guy and the curly red-headed woman, have spent all weekend telling me about the many features and amenities of my fine hotel decision.

There's wireless internet at the business center, they say. And room service is available if I need it. Oh, and there's the high-def TV in my room, smiley-Asian guy can't shut the hell up about that. He insists that I just "kick back and watch" my wonderful wide-screen.

Let's think about this: He is informing me of the thing I am watching him ON. The thing that I clearly know about, or else I wouldn't be able to hear him. He's encouraging me to do the thing I'm already doing, the experience of which is somewhat degraded by having to hear him encourage me to do it.

Lewis Black would call this "a mobius strip in your mind."

You'd probably imagine that these two people are young actors who took a little gig doing a looping video for this hotel chain.

If you think that's what I imagined, then well . . . welcome to my blog, it's always nice to have first-time readers.

In my mind, the hotel channel must be some kind of special hell. And those two are not actors, but pitiful souls, forced to forever repeat the same mindless, non-threatening mantras of hotel accomodations. Each time curly-redhead talks about ordering movies that are still in theaters, I sense her true pain and desperation. When smiley-Asian guy subltly nods in agreement, he's not thinking "Yes, what a wonderful feature," he's thinking "Yes, get me out of here. Now."

How terrible it must be. Even having to listen to their super-clean presentation is painful, I can't imagine being trapped in there, like the bad guys at the end of that one Superman movie, endlessly repeating this trite sludge of words and pretending to be excited about it all.

Curly-redhead woman just smiled even bigger, her eyes fixed just off camera. I assume she's staring into the maw of whatever dark monster is assigned as "director" for her torment.

What did they do to deserve this? Am I staring at two of the most evil dictators in history, reconstituted in clean, comforting forms? Or does this kind of punishment require more than the regular transgressions.*

*When he says "don't eat of that tree," he means don't eat of that tree.

To my students . . .

I don't know what your problem is.

Maybe you were raised in a religious tradition that, in an attempt to stamp out foolish pride, accidentally taught you self-deprecation.

Maybe our society's gospel of success made you so afraid of failure that you began downplaying your potential from the start, giving you an excuse to give up whenever you didn't immediately excel.

Maybe you simply never had anyone in your life to provide encouragement and support, and now you beat yourself up purely because you don't know any better.

But the reasons don't matter, because today is a new day.

So let me lay it all out for you.

There is no aptitude. The great dancers of the world weren't born with a "natural" ability for movement. The best musicians didn't have some "magic" that let them sit down and create beautiful sounds. God does not need to bless us with talents individually, because everyone of us is blessed enough already.

When you came into this world you couldn't even walk or talk. You learned how to do those things, and you didn't need some inborn "gift" to do it, did you?

Do you understand how complicated walking is? Imagine trying to design a robot that can shift constantly from one state of balance to the next, quickly correcting for any change in the terrain, all while being ready for a sudden shift in direction. But you do that everyday, and you learned to do it.

Do you understand how amazing speech is? Not only do you remember the definitions for thousands of words, but you know how to construct them into logical ideas. You can even structure a sentence, then vocalize it into sounds on the fly while you're thinking of what to say next. And as if that wasn't enough, you can then listen to other people talk, and interpret their words while also taking into account inflection, context, and emotional content. And you learned to do all of that.

But those are just the tip of the iceberg of what you've accomplished. You've learned more about math than most of the people who have ever lived. You can find what you need in a phonebook, a library, and the internet. You regularly operate a host of different machines, from calculators to cars to telephones. And you do it all without even thinking about it.

You have succeeded in learning an enormous array of things in your lifetime, simply by putting in the time to study and use them. In short, you are a miracle.

And I will NOT stand here any more and let you INSULT THAT PERSON.

So stop it. Stop telling me that you suck, that you can't do this, that you're hopeless. Stop rolling your eyes at yourself and shaking your head in disgust every time you make a mistake.

You have no idea how ANGRY it makes me.

You want to know why those people became great dancers, great musicians, great anything? Because they never had time to doubt themselves, they were too busy practicing. You think those people didn't fail? They failed constantly, failed so much that failure didn't bother them anymore. THAT was their gift, and even THAT was something they learned.

Are you standing here with a working mind and body? Then you can do anything, ANYTHING, you decided to do. Period. And don't you EVER try to tell me otherwise.

And if you're going to walk into this classroom, if you're going to walk into MY classroom, ever again, you'd better learn one more thing right now. Three little words that sum up exactly how I feel about all your self doubt, all your self deprecation, and every nagging, angry little voice in your head that calls you pathetic:*

*Now get to work.

Comic panel provided by XKCD. The original comic is here: http://www.xkcd.com/137/

Note to self: Write this post

Some people say that it's not what you believe that defines you, but what you do. I like to think that we are best defined, not by the things that we do, but by all the crap we've been meaning to do.

(Note the change in phrasing. When you've actually done it, it's a thing. When it's yet another item on the backlog pile, it becomes "crap." That change isn't my invention.)

I struggle with this problem constantly. I think I waiver between a state of complete mental focus and terminal distractability, and the end result is that I generally can't hold on to a "to-do" item for more than a minute. If I remember something as I'm parking my car at work, I'll have forgotten it by the time I walk to my office.

And forget about leaving the house with everything I need.

I should really get a notebook and carry it with me all the time, so I can write all the things I need to do in it.

Note to self: get a notebook.*

*No, not a laptop. Actual pieces of paper bound together.

GREAT MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE!

MYSTERY THE FIRST!

Why is the phrase "the things you don't know would fill volumes" considered a snappy comeback?

The thinks I don't know DO fill volumes. In fact every library on Earth is chock full with volumes of things I don't know. And the same is true for everyone. In fact, it would be supremely arrogant to think that "the things you don't know" DO NOT fill volumes.

MYSTERY THE SECOND!

Why does every handyman think it's perfectly ok to throw all their spare crap in your garbage can without putting it in a bag?

Guys, the garbage service isn't going to take that stuff. They don't have many rules, but one rule is that they'd prefer to handle the garbage itself, and I think their request is reasonable.

How did you get this far without knowing to bag your garbage? Do you not have garbage service at your houses?

. . . Wait, maybe you don't . . . that would explain why you're leaving all that crap here to begin with.

MYSTERY THE THIRD!

What do kids in Junior High School say when their friends are dealing with interpersonal drama?

The go-to line I've been hearing since 9th grade is "I'm so sick of all this Junior High School bullsh*t." Even now, if I so much as suggest that another person has acted in error, someone will be right there to trot that phrase out.

But doesn't that make life hard for people who are IN Junior High? What do they say when they want to make light of conflict?

"I'm so tired of this . . . right here . . . right now . . . bullsh*t."

I like to think that the 7th grader who will one day be "the guy who accuses people of JHSBS," just stands there for a second, knowing he's supposed to say something but not being able to yet. He blinks, shakes his head, and says, "This sort of bullsh*t is entirely appropriate for our current station in life." And he walks away.

MYSTERY THE FOURTH!

Why is it that, as soon as you commit to going out of town for the weekend, awesome things are suddenly happening IN town that same weekend?

When I buy plane tickets now, I just go ahead and log onto facebook to watch the invites roll in.

"And . . . yes, confirm purchase . . . there's my confirmation from Delta. And let's see, one, two, three parties and a cookout, everything's free for one day only at my favorite coffee shop, concert, concert, . . . real live ninja giving ancient ninja magic class Saturday morning, that's a new one. Thanks, Universe."*

*Hello beautiful girl . . . no, I cannot go out for coffee with you next weekend. Yes, I know it's free that day."

Posted at 12:06AM

It must be difficult these days for the chronically late.

(I pause here to let my brain roll over my unintentionally appropriate use of "chronically," since it's a modification of "chronic" which comes from khronos, which means "time." Word origin thoughts regularly halt my thought process in this way.)

It used to be that, upon arriving late, you could simply blame your watch for not keeping good time. Or you could say that you didn't wear your watch today, and you were outside and didn't know what time it was. If daylight savings time had begun or ended in the past few days, you always had the "forgot to set it back/forward" line of defense.

But then came CST, or Cellphone Standard Time:

"Sorry I'm late. I didn't notice what time it was."

"Oh yeah? Hmm. It's too bad you don't have some small device on you that displays the current time by keeping in constant sync via radio waves to computer servers that are themselves synced with the national atomic clock, one of the most accurate clocks in the world . . . oh wait, I guess you do have one of those, it's right there in your pocket."

Never in history have so many people been locked on the very same minute. When my generation is very old, we'll tell crazy stories about how the "current time" was this vague, lucid thing that varied from person to person.

"In my day. If you asked a guy for the time, and he always sets his watch 5 minutes fast, then that guy just screwed you over good. You were gonna miss the bus and have to walk home in the snow. Only way you could get accurate time back then was to call the BANK."

"Uh huh, sure, the bank. (Grandpa's lost his mind.)*"

*"Don't you go using that 'loud whisper' joke on me, sonny. I invented that joke back in ought two, sold it to "The Simpsons," for a pretty penny. Speaking of which, doesn't the new season premier tonight?"

Déjà You

Anytime I have to see people-when I'm waiting in line for a concert, shopping at the grocery store, looking for seats at the movie theater-I get the distinct feeling that I've seen them before.

Not the EXACT people, mind you, but other people who are just like them. I don't know the individuals in any sort of personal way, but I've had enough experience with humanity that I've got a good general idea what they're about simply by looking.

Does that give us some form of relationship?

Should I greet them as we pass?

"Hello tallish bald guy. Hello heavyset guy with a crazy beard.* Nice to see you, grumpy-churchy white girl, I like that v-neck sweater.

Hang on a second, unkempt loose-clothes dude just walked in, I want to ask how his job hunt is going. And if you see attractive crazy-eyed girl, send her over, I think those two could really hit it off, just like they have so many times before."

To be fair, I live in a college town, so maybe I see a lot of people before time sands off the more generic elements of their personalities. Just as a young person loses his "baby-face" as he grows into adulthood, maybe the striking features of personality only become defined with a few more years . . .

. . . but there is one guy I can always identify. Doesn't matter where I am.

"Hello tool, who never has anything to talk about except how drunk or high he was this one time. How's your herpes?"

*Not wearing your Zelda shirt today? That's cool, the "Empire Strikes Back" shirt is good too.

When it goes wrong

You probably don't know what Playstaton Home is. You are the better for it. Playstation Home is, as Penny Arcade would say, "a stupid place for dumb people."

Should I provide a few more data points before we procede? I'll see what I can do.

Every Playstation 3 system comes with a clunky, shambling "virtual world" where a person can log in and, concievably, hang out with other users as they play games and chat together.

Sounds like a pretty cool idea, when you say it that way. But the reality is that the Home experience consists of constant waiting so that you can design a lifeless avatar, then run it around trying to find something worth doing.

Sounds a lot like high school, when you say it that way.

There are many problems with Playstation Home, and I don't have the patience to detail them all (and you wouldn't have the patience to read it all.)

So I'll summarize it's problems with one word: realism.

Sony has designed Home to be very realistic. The clothes, the furniture, the avatars, the environments, all of them were clearly made to look as lifelike as possible. It's as if they thought to themselves "you know what reality could use? Loading Screens."

But realism isn't what I want from a virtual world. It's not what I want from art. I HAVE reality. A lot of it. I've got some right here. You don't need to provide me with more. I'm good.

What I need, and what art is at it's best, is perspective on reality. I need a person or persons to give me the world from another angle so I can compare it to my own, then triangulate something of value.

When you create a "realistic" work like Home, you mute out any chance of an artistic voice. And without that voice, the experience feels empty.

A good counterpoint to Home is "Animal Crossing: City Folk."

8

This is a game that is far removed from reality. None of the visuals would be mistaken for a photograph, even forgiving the presence of anthropomorphic animals who live in houses and wear clothes.

Yet somehow it feels so much more genuine, and lifelike, than Sony's elaborate "virtual world."

The idea that a work is made better, or legitimized, by being realistic is simply a fallacy. When the credits roll, it's the deeper layers of a work that move us, regardless of what was used to express them.*

*Example: I'm fairly certain that Pluto's moon could not write it a song to make it feel better about not being a planet anymore. And yet . . .

Spec as a double entendre

You're probably familiar with mosaics, the kind of pictures made from individual blocks of color. It's an ancient, beautiful art form, and it's been used to immortalize things like the Holy Land, the Greek hero Ulysses, Jesus, and of course Pac-man.

Because mosaics came full circle when we entered the digital era. Suddenly the ability to create images out of colored squares was not a matter of styling anymore, it was built into the spec. Pixels were the new tiles, and we didn't have that many to work with at first.

And that's why the early era in digital art, which is to say the 8-bit (Original Nintendo) and 16-bit (Super Nintendo) periods, is especially remarkable. Take this image, for instance, which is rather close to my heart. It's the tiny image of Fox McCloud from the SNES game "Starfox":



You can tell that this is a picture of a fox, that he is anthropomorphic, that he is wearing a headset, that the end of his nose is shiny.

And all that from an image that's about 30 pixels by 26 pixels. When you realize that the "shine" on the end of his nose is, in fact, a precisely placed single white pixel, you'll understand why I find it impressive.

This kind of artwork represents a sort of mosaic haiku, bringing out a creative efficiency by way of limitation.

How appropriate that so many artists in this field are Japanese.

Today, we have much "higher resomolutions" to work with, so this kind of careful design isn't needed. There's no reason to carefully manipulate the human eye's visual perception when we can create images at a higher resolution than the eye can perceive.

And that's the terrifying part.

Oh I'm not scared that these great technical freedoms will spoil us as visual artists. I'm scared that, having reached the limits of what our minds can view, the only way for us to make better images will logically be . . .

. . . to alter our minds. Or our eyes. To change ourselves in some way that lets us appreciate the quality of images our screens can describe.

You thought the first cyborg implants* were going to come out of the military? I've got news for you, they're going to come from Sony.

*It's not a question of whether or not there will BE a robot apocalypse, gentlemen, but merely whether we can time it with the zombie apocalypse so that they end up fighting each other.

I'm your density.

There's really no good reason why "fantasy" and "science fiction" are so frequently spoken in the same breath.

One of them usually involves machines, the other usually involves magic.* Strangely they both seem to hit upon time travel on a regular basis. But personally, I see a pretty clear division there.

Yet go to your local bookstore. If fantasy and sci-fi aren't regarded as one section, they are certainly shoulder-to-shoulder . . . or spine to spine, I guess.

I wish the bookstore would just be honest, put a big sign that says "NERD" over the whole thing and be done with it.

It's too bad that those genre's are labeled, and at times dismissed, as geek territory, because there's also no good reason why "things that are or could reasonably be real" make for better or more legitimate storytelling.

In fact, the conceptual free reign that "magic" and "future technology" give you as an author is a powerful tool. "Back to the Future" (here I'm discussing the first movie, not the trilogy) purports to be about an awesome car that travels through time . . . and that's what it is indeed about, to some extent. But it's also a discussion of generational gaps, and how the path to adulthood involves reconciling your parents as real people, not just as the images your young mind constructed for them.

Harry Potter treads this ground, too. The narrative difficulties of character study are easily overcome when your setting includes bowls of people's thoughts.

In most stories you have to really put your character through the wringer to draw out his nature. In fantasy? Nah, bowl of thoughts! Done.

*And please don't trot out the old line about technology being magic. There's a difference, you know it. Close your Macbook, and walk away.