Category: Commentary

Snow day

In the midst of a bitter cold snap, with temperatures down to -30, dropping below -40 with the wind chill. Limiting travel to only the most essential, and staying warm as much as possible.

Still working on the website behind the scenes, and I’m starting to get the framework together, in addition to the material. Not sure we’ll do a full “launch”, but it’s definitely getting close.

The big sticking point is the artwork; a colleague mentioned a couple examples to mirror off of, so I may see what I can do with my (admittedly limited) image editing skills on Canva. Barring that, I may need to reach out to a professional and see what can be done.

But today was also a day to listen to some music:

This isn’t the most well known single by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, but this is one I grew up with.

Missing audiences; working on words

A couple unrelated observations from the weekend, though perhaps so far apart as is the way of these things:

First: had a good conversation with a colleague from University about the importance of working through words. It’s a language game, and sometimes you need to sit down and do the work and get your reps in, as mentioned a few posts ago. And in works the same in comedy as it does in academia or in writing. This conversation was with respect to the Echanger episode, so… more to come there.

And speaking of comedy, that brings us to point the

Second: that part about honing the jokes through touring was also mentioned by Katt Williams in his interview on Club Shay Shay (at about the 48:30 mark):

and the timing is impeccable. (The above episode came out a day or so before I made the last post. I hadn’t seen it yet, but it aligns perfectly with the Jeselnik comment too.)

Gotta get the reps in.

Which leads us to our third point, about missing audiences.

Because, while I’ve been seeing bits from the interview all over social media (well, YouTube and TikTok), it’s been completely absent from Mastodon and the Fediverse.

It speaks to a massive hole in the Mastodon and the Fediverse more generally.

And the clip’s absence here is very telling.

Now, the most charitable argument one could make – perhaps – is that the Fediverse isn’t obsessed with celebrity culture, and isn’t interested with the beefs that actors and comedians may be having with one another.

Fair.

But we know there is some celebrity and/or Hollywood discussion does exist there, if not a ton.

The audiences that are talking about the clip: Gen Z and Millenials, young people and people of colour, aren’t there having that discussion. They’re in other places.

Why are they staying away from Mastodon?

I’m curious to find out…

2024 Roadmap

What does 2024 look like, from the perspective of January 1st, 2024?

Here’s a rough map. I didn’t have a napkin, so some hotel stationery had to do.

January: we should be seeing the site overhaul taking place. It may take a bit of time to sort out the various sections, so it may look a little bare while the framework is filled out, but like should be grouped with like, which will make it a little easier to find things than in the constant flow of updates.

The focus will be on pages, not posts, grouping together the podcast and videos, and keeping the media stuff separate from the academic work. We’ll be publishing more of the previous academic work as I sort out the rights to it, and make it available here.

February: I will be head down working on finishing a book chapter, but there should be enough of a stockpile of episodes and posts that I’ve been working on during the holidays to carry us through.

March: starting several tutorial sections for teaching and learning. Some of this is for new skills that I’m trying to develop, documenting the learning process. Other stuff will see the academic writing should be coming through to the forefront, updating on topics I’ve research on and taught on before.

That takes us through to Q1. If the above goes well, then we should have a good framework in place for publishing online, and Q2 should see us start to kick into higher gears.

Sounds fun. Let’s go!

Swift Studies

A recent article on an academic conference devoted to Taylor Swift prompted some discussion online. The article by Emily Yahr was posted on Dec 26, 2023, here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2023/12/26/taylor-swift-eras-conference-academic/

My response was as follows:

I felt similarly perhaps 15-20 years ago when a college offered a semester length course on the topic of Lady Gaga, and I was aghast, but then I kinda got out of it.
Taylor Swift is no different in this regard, though I think the Swifties are more of a force than the Monster ever were.
But that’s the thing: the fact that both of them have a fanbase large enough to be a) identified by name and b) make an impact beyond the pop music sphere warrants the study.

And it’s not like pop-culture focused conferences are a new thing. From the article:
“One academic told her that, after speaking at events focused on Bob Dylan, Nirvana and the Beatles, they were thrilled to discuss a prominent female artist.”
… so there is this, at least, with expanding the scope of artists that can be discussed.

I think that’s pretty swell.

(And in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve presented on pop-culture related topics academically at the PCA before, as well as several Games Studies and Film Studies conferences before.)

I think there’s value in the conference though. The budget is usually pretty minimal, relatively speaking, from my experience with a couple organizing committees. It let’s the researchers get some reps in too, which honestly can be invaluable.

And obviously there is *something* going on with the Swift and her fanbase, so a bit of scrutiny isn’t a bad thing, even if I’m not on board with Lacanian interpretations of Swift’s Folklore either.

(Or anything Lacanian,tbh.)

When it comes to the utility of examining, pop-culture, I’ll grab a quote by Bruce Sterling from a couple decades past:

“The most fertile ground for analyzing motives is pop culture – not because pop culture is deep, but because it’s so shallow. It’s where those wishes and longings are most nakedly evident” (Sterling , 2002, pxii-xiii).

It was informative when I was looking at the role of #ScienceFiction back in the early Double-Ohs. It’s still solid now.

This whole subject was on my to-do list for the podcast a couple episodes from now. Look for an episode titled “The Old Man and the River” in the new year. I’ll link back to this when it gets posted.

Documentary filming

Met a friend for dinner, and old mentor who has become a dear friend, and the discussion, after the usual formalities turned to recent works, in this case photography and film-making. I updated him on my experience after having visited the Sphere in Las Vegas, which I documented on the podcast in Episodes 20 and 21.

And he had some great advice. We spent a bit of time discussing beginner photography equipment (or which more in the new year), and then shifted to film.

I know it’s hard to tell by all the images I have on the blog, but I’m a pretty visual thinker, and often have an image or film clip in my mind of what I’m trying to tell.

The challenge (for me at least) is to coax that out of what I see in the real world. AI-assisted art tools can help, somewhat, if you’re comfortable with the “prompt engineering” that goes behind creating the images you want. There are some significant drawbacks, however, including the sourcing of the training data, and the power that is used to run these algorithms.

The other option is to make it yourself.

That old adage of “if you don’t see what you want in the world, then you need to make it” (or “be the change you want to see”).

But that can be a whole other set of challenges. Gear, learning to use the tools, time, energy, travel, tools for editing, and the time to do it, and a whole host more.

But it is do-able. Thousands do it every day on the online video platforms.

And in this case, the goal of what I want to see is a documentary film.

So let’s document that process, and see what we can create.