Summer Blockbuster 2011 Mini-Rendezvous

Thor: Sucked.

X-men First Class: Brilliant idea, undercooked.

Super 8: Would have been far better without the alien.

Transformers 3: I don't know if my liver can take seeing this in theaters.

Tomorrow is a latter day.

With a little dumb luck I stumbled into tickets to Broadway's hottest new show.

When I bought my tickets earlier this year, I certainly didn't imagine that a musical from the creators of South Park based around Mormonism would appeal to anybody but me. But lo and behold, just days after the Tony Awards I was having to seriously consider whether or not to unload my tickets for a profit of $500 a piece.

In the end, I made the somewhat indefensible financial decision of seeing the show. I guess my rationale was that the older I get the more important novel experiences are to me. Plus I earned bagging rights for the next few months.

After bearing witness to The Book of Mormon, I can see why this show got so popular.

As you might expect, the musical is irreverently funny. Most of the best jokes would not be quotable in the Arts section of the New York Times.

As you might not expect, it is quite reverential to the tropes of Broadway. Although the content is subversive, the form is not: this is a gloriously infectious musical.

Still, I am also quite puzzled as to how this show got so popular.

Given the press blitz that surrounded the premiere, I expected the show to pull its punches -- at least in contrast to the South Park episode. After all, one of the talking points in all the interviews was how even Mormons who attended the show thought it was funny.

I'm not quite sure I buy that.

Sure there are quite a few laughs generated from the fish out of water story-arc and the City Weekly reviewer got it right when he remarked that quite a few of these songs aren't all that far removed from what you find in Saturday's Warrior.

But a vast majority of the jokes come directly at the expense of Mormon faith. And Parker and Stone don't even take aim at the most obvious targets (polygamy or Jesus Jammy jokes): they simply present Mormon spiritual beliefs in a fairly didactic manner and let their intrinsic ludicrousness act as the joke itself.

If I were Mormon, I would probably be pretty bummed about the whole affair.

At its heart, The Book of Mormon seems to side with Nietzsche that man needs myth - whether it be Christianity or Tolkenism - for life and that any act of faith will be absurd. Thus the same manner of criticism could be leveled at any religion: one's spiritual beliefs will always be laughable to those who don't share them.

But I don't think The Book of Mormon would have been so successful if it were about, let's say, Scientology.

The musical can be both popular and transgressive due to Mormonism being so perfectly situated between the canny and the uncanny for Christians. It's the narcissism of minor differences: "We both believe that Jesus died and was resurrected but you believe that he once visited America... How silly!" Thus the lady two rows down from me could both laugh along with the musical but also be doing her rosaries at the same time.

That The Book of Mormon is able to straddle such a precarious line makes it all that more miraculous.

[Side note: the Salt Lake City set has quite a few easter eggs for the Utah crew but it also features an inexplicable Wendy's/Tim Horton's sign. Does such a location exist in the Mountain Time Zone or is this simply a heretical errata?]

The Blog-Ethicist: Machine Error in Your Favor, Part 2

You're pumping gas as a station and happen to hit the $75 pump limit, so you leave without a full tank. At the same gas station, your spouse is filling your other vehicle to the $75 limit. The credit card charge goes through like normal. But then, a few days later, your bank cancels one of the charges. Presumably because it thought that it was a duplicate charge.

Some hawaiian punch on tap.

Celebrated my birth with the new X-men movie and Burgerville. Clearly some things never change.

And I got a new song from The Rapture. What more could I possibly ask for?



05 21 2011 must have been some next-level guerilla marketing.

Grantland. . . and No Kickoffs in Football

As much as I dislike Bill Simmons ("The Sports Guy" ESPN), which is kind of a lot, I have been captivated by a lot of the non-Simmons pieces on his new daily, ESPN backed sports-pop culture venture with Chuck Klosterman, Grantland. I don't really like Klosterman that much either, but for some reason I'm excited about Grantland. (EDIT: Here's where I should have mentioned that Grantland has lured in some pretty considerable talent, guys who don't have the initials BS or CK.)

Who knows where time will take Grantland, but I like its ambition, and I think it's a good idea. My initial impressions are that the writers could stand to be a less self-indulgent but it seems like once they run out of pet-stories that noone else would ever publish it (Grantland) could really turn into something good. Also, I love the use of footnotes, and the way they lay out said foodnotes.

I recommend checking it out if you haven't. Grantland.com

Whilst purusing an article on Grantland today I ran across this tidbit:

According to the Newark Star-Ledger's Steve Politi, Schiano has proposed a plan that would eliminate kickoffs and onside kicks in college football, replacing them with the option to either (a) punt, or (b) face a fourth-and-15 from one's own 30-yard line. The idea behind it is that kickoffs cause the greatest number of serious injuries — including to Rutgers defensive tackle Eric LeGrand, who suffered a severe spinal-cord injury last season — and that eliminating them is an obvious way to mitigate the full-speed collisions that cause these injuries.

After the obligatory, "Wha? No kickoffs? No kickoffs!?" I began to think that no kickoffs would actually be a great idea. A 4th and 15 would be way more exciting than an onside kick, you'd get a return on every puntoff, you could do fake puntoffs, you could try to block them. . . . Oh and fewer players would get paralyzed. I say do it. What say y'all?

E3: Bourgeoisification

God bless Nintendo for doubling down on terrible console names. Reggie must have ice water coursing through his veins.

Still Nintendo is in a precarious position with its new console: the new controllers certainly aren't going to be cheap to manufacturer and initial reactions might pressure Nintendo into making the WiiU games compatible with two or more of the touchscreen units. Furthermore, the 3DS's disappointing sales lend support to the idea that the Wii's success was partially due to its attractive price point (and Nintendo knows it is starting to lose that battle when the PS Vita came out of the gates at the same cost as the 3DS).

Apple and (more) oranges.

The concurrent XBOX and Apple iOS5 presentations today reconfirmed a few thoughts I drafted earlier this year that I never finished:

I had the opportunity to play with the XBOX Kinect over the holidays and despite my initial skepticism I walked away relatively impressed. Watching a group of drunk adults get into Dance Central reminded me of my first experiences with the Nintendo Wii and Rock Band: all three share that elusive people magnet quality, ensnaring gamers and non-gamers alike. While Sony seems content to merely mimic the Wii with its Move hardware, Microsoft made a rather bold - dare I say it - Apple-like move by re-imagining the way that consumers interact with their technology.

Yet despite its initial wow-factor, the Kinect has a distinctly un-Apple quality: it feels rushed to market to capitalize on novelty rather than performance. For example, it is often hard to get the Kinect to register what you want it to do, which strikes me as the one quality you would not want in an input device. Even something as simple as navigating menus had me practicing my zen meditation exercises so I didn't throw a stray Wiimote at the screen. Many of the E3 presentations only reinforced this impression: clumsy pantomime masquerading as intuitive input. Perhaps even more nettlesome, the Kinect demands that you rearrange you entire living room to meet its spatial demands. I couldn't get a Kinect even if I wanted to as my gaming nook is far too small. In contrast, Apple is lowering the barriers that prevent people from entering their iOS ecosystem.

In a way, the Kinect feels like the Mega-CD: forward-looking technology developed at the wrong time. Still, kudos to Microsoft for developing something the feels very un-Microsoft despite its very Microsoft like problems.

Soon you're being told to recognize your heirs.

Music in 2011, part 1

The most profound thing I can say about the new Death Cab for Cutie album, Codes and Keys, is actually a story.

I've been listening to the album all day at work. My job tends to be rather immediate and time sensitive. That means that there are people popping up and my desk and asking me to do things for them. When they show up, I'm a nice enough guy that I pause my music so that I can hear what they're saying.

So the pattern for my day is: Pause. Listen to a person. Unpause. Listen to music or a podcast and work.

Sometimes I forget to unpause.

So today, like I said, I've been listening to the new Death Cab. One of those times, I forgot to unpause.

Damn. I forgot to set the scene. So remember what I just said and imagine that, simultaneously (that means at the same time), in another room, the video guy is editing and looping license-free music. (If you've never had the joy of listening to license-free music, you're wrong. You have. You just didn't notice it.)

Anyway, I forget to unpause but I don't notice for like five minutes because I think that the license-free music is the new Death Cab.