Cat5 Wiring

 

I'm styling this one -- technology and culture! Let's see if this Spaces page allows me to embed some HTML tags for a nice little badge! Shit, it doesn't, well that's no good.

 

The copywrangler site is about writing, art, culture, makin' money, spendin' money, acting, acting up, acting uppity, and general tomfoolery of that nature.

 

Come visit us (friends -- you gotta have friends) at http://copywrangler.ning.com. The site is invitation only for now, just fill in the form and I'll get you a pass!

 

And, no, this is not about zombie vaudevillians. It's about movies. Movies that appear to rise from the grave, resuscitated in a variety of unpleasant, gory styles, in the desperate attempt to create, not art, not even entertainment (as my limited understanding of entertainment goes), but money.

 

My recent assessment of film coverage is based on word count / inches of prose. Sounds reasonable? How many words (or column inches) are written about:

 

Movies qua movies -- the film itself, a review, an opinion, a thought?

 

Movies as business -- box office spread. Comparisons of revenues, intricate discussions of overseas and general revenues -- possibilities inherent in placement and collateral marketing (toys, games and such).

 

Here's an experiment you can try at home, but we strongly recommend wearing protective eyewear. Try entering the query "Spiderman 3" into your favorite Web browser. I personally use Live Search, but whatever.

 

Out of the literally millions of hits, check out, oh, say, the first 3 or 4 pages' worth. What do you find?

 

Unless you're doing a query in a parallel universe, you are likely to find:

 

Fanboy (and girl) sites with high levels of spidey-3 connectivity (the spidey3-verse, so to speak).

Sites offering related merchandise for sale

The official sites, which market hard and market often

Information about the actors/tresses -- who's doing what to whom

 

If you're feeling really adventurous, you might consider doing a News search with the same query, where you will find:

 

Weekend box office totals

Weekday box office totals

Total box office totals

Merchandise announcements for tie-ins

Stock recommendations in the entertainment/communications industry citing the success of Spiderman 3

 

WOW!! What does this mean? To be sure, it's possible to find opinions

 

One of the more interesting non-commercial postings in the "News" section came from an Iranian interest site discussing a potential new super-villain (The Mandarin versus Iron Man) who is to be played by an Iranian actor. Now, don't re-glaze this with a curmudgeonly lens, but WHY would this site have so much more search engine juice than local sites?? One hypothesis is because of the absolute dearth, the stunning vacuity, the intense absence, of any actual local commentary, other than commercially-related comments.

 

The screenwriter / director / producer / general film curmudgeon David Mamet offers a wide range of insightful, albeit somewhat dictatorially (and, hey, if somebody's got to have an opinion that matters, it may as well be him) praeceptive opinions about what I'll call "the decline of the West as seen through the decline of cinema as a legitimate form of art."

 

Read Mamet's generally entertaining, insightful and vaguely scholarly recapitulation of these themes here.

 

Regardless of what critics, or playwrights turned writer/directors have to say -- the sheer inches of prose dedicated to money vs. the inches of prose dedicated to understanding form a captivating visualization of our world's focus (or lack thereof) on art. 

 

 

More info about Gaelic Storm. They not only play amazingly (they had a new fiddler for the evening's performance and she rocked), but man, do they love to tell really bad jokes! Some of them were so bad only the elan of the Irish kept everybody laughing. :)

 

Find out more about this group whose music goes way beyond genre: Link to Gaelic Storm.

 

 

 

If you want to check out a cool cartoon blog site, visit Katheleen Mullen's The Crazy Irish Chick blog. The best cartoon blogs are

FUNNY, relevant, have a point of view and style, and did I forget to mention, they're funny?? Ms. Mullen's blog definitely scores well on all these counts, plus -- Bonus -- she's a Vermonter, which definitely gets extra points in my book.

 

My friend, Lisa Sabin, has recently begun blogging about her drive towards the Boston Marathon. Lisa's blog not only covers her running efforts, but is a cool central hub about running, training, GPS training and more. Written more as a conversation between friends than a formal running log, this is an interesting view on running, motivation, fitness and even.  . . life!