How to Pass Your Finals with Pop Culture

PSA: Everyone mark your calendars for awesomeness: July 20, 2010 is Warner Bros. announced date for Christopher Nolan's third Batman movie! Now back to your regularly scheduled post:

College students rarely have the time to sit down and do their Herculean task of assigned reading. Who has time to lounge around and skim the sparknotes for Mrs. Dalloway when there's week-old pizza to eat, TV shows to watch online, and beer pong tournaments to win? But it's finals time, and everything's starting to catch up to you. Once again, Poposophical is here to help. Pop culture covers a lot of what you'll be forced to read in in college courses, so if you find yourself behind in your English, French, or Spanish courses, you're covered. (If you're in the sciences, sorry. You're going to fail.)

Español
Were you upset by the lack of chalupas on the midterm? When your professor calls on you in class, do you repeatedly respond, "Yo quiero Taco Bell"? Do you find yourself going to your professor's office hours to request field trips to Chipotle to order carnitas burritos? Is your Spanish vocabulary pretty much limited to food? Well Señor Hambre, I have good news for you. Here's a whole semester's worth of Spanish vocabulary, in easy-to-memorize love song format!



If you've already managed to not fail your first semester of Spanish, or are just looking for extra credit on your final, check out the sequel:



Français
Spanish not your thing? Maybe you took French so you could speak to our Canadian neighbors, or just generally act pretentious. You're covered, too. Again, in easy-to-learn music video format, here's roughly a semester's worth of French in Flight of the Conchords' "Foux De FaFa". (Note: This will not teach you all that many French words. It will, however, teach you how to convincingly invent them.)



Literature
The bad thing about literature is that it's been around so long, half of it doesn't even sound English. The great thing about it is that it's been around so long, most of it has been adapted in more easily digestible formats by now. Sure, there's always movie adaptations of books, but there are also more creative adaptations, as seen below.

Just about any course on Western Literature is bound to have one of Homer's works on the syllabus. If that work is the Iliad, sucks for you, because you're stuck either reading the book or watching Troy. (Despite the promise of Brad Pitt's ass, I wouldn't recommend the latter.) If you were assigned the Odyssey, though, you're in luck. The same guys who directed The Big Lebowski also directed a movie that's loosely based on Odysseus's journey. According to IMDb, the Coens claim to have never read the original work, which seems a little unlikely if you look at the enormous list of Odyssey references also on IMDb. Too bad the people behind Troy couldn't get Clooney for their movie.

At some point in their collegiate careers, most students will be forced to grapple with Shakespeare. The majority of them will lose. Shakespeare is deceptively inviting because, hey, all his work is either poetry or plays, which can't take more than a few hours to read, right? But then he drops all the ers, wherefores, and exsufflicates, and you feel like you're back in a foreign language class. Fortunately, the majority of books, TV shows, movies--well, pretty much everything--is derived from Shakespeare. West Side Story. She's the Man. The fucking Lion King! I personally recommend 10 Things I Hate about You because of the Heath Ledger and JGL factors. If you're reading (or watching) any of the tragedies, I recommend checking out the Sassy Gay Friend series on youtube. West Side Story was never this good:



Maybe you're reading something more recent. Maybe something more feminine. Maybe something like Jane Austen's Emma. Or maybe you took one look at the novel about a teenage chick playing matchmaker and decided against it. In that case, the alternative isn't much better, because it's movie that epitomized high school valley girls: Clueless. If you're looking for motivation to get through the movie, it has Paul Rudd. Also, the director is the same woman who directed Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which is famous for a naked Phoebe Cates. Otherwise, good luck tolerating one of the worst casting choices in Batman movie history.

Eighteenth and nineteenth century British poetry isn't quite as annoying as Shakespeare, but it's still plenty frustrating, what with its dropped verb and convoluted syntax. That's why we have 80s British metal band Iron Maiden: to take boring poetry and make it rock. Don't want to read Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner? Listen to Maiden's version. sure, it's almost fourteen minutes long, but that's fourteen minutes of awesome. Have absolutely no desire to read "The Charge of the Light Brigade"? Listen to "The Trooper". Better yet, watch the video, which includes actual lines from Tennyson's poem!



Or maybe you're stuck reading more recent fiction. Something written by Philip K. Dick, perhaps. Don't worry, just watch any science fiction movie ever. It's an adaptation of something Dick wrote. Don't believe me?

Blade Runner
Total Recall
Minority Report
Paycheck
A Scanner Darkly
Next

All Dick's stories. Even Disney's taking a crack at it. Also, they're apparently planning a movie adaptation of Ubik, which turns the word "ambitious" into a severe understatement.

Just look at the cover!

Obviously, this list isn't comprehensive. But it's a damn sight more entertaining than sloughing through Spanish I books or Coleridge. So the next time your professor assigns a book that looks really unappealing, just think: the Coen brothers are probably preparing an Oscar-winning movie adaptation at the very same time that you're slipping a roofie into some hot chick's drink.

→ ↓ ← → B (A Response to Roger Ebert)

As tends to happen, my recent fantasturbation session has led to significant guilt levels, along with the need to justify this blog by posting at least semi-intellectual content. This might be taking things too far in the other direction, but I suppose that's my own dirty-minded fault.

Some number of years ago (I can't find the origin of the comment), Roger Ebert made the assessment that video games are not art, and furthered the statement by commenting that this non-art will never be art. That's a pretty bold move--these are gamers we're talking about, here. The kinds of people who will perceive even the most innocuous comment as a dig against their mothers. So making any sort of negative remark about video games is essentially the equivalent of passing out steel-toed boots and taking an open, wide-legged stance: you're asking for it.

Remember, by their standards, this is normal human interaction.

I would like to start off by defying anyone, Ebert included, to play Robot Unicorn Attack and call it not-art. The character design. The color pallets. The music! But this leads us to the first (possibly insurmountable) obstacle: defining art. As this argument has developed, a variety of sources have been cited, from Plato to Wikipedia. One of the definitions getting thrown around has to do with arrangements intended to appeal to emotions. This is problematic--when I yell at my dog for snacking on poopsicles mid-winter, I'm arranging my voice and posture to provoke a particular emotion: shame. (And possibly a gagging reflex.) But that doesn't really mean it's art. Ebert wisely points out that we could circle around definitions ad infinitum. I'm of the mind that "art" is far too subjective a term to universally define; rather than trying to see if video games fall into the art section of your local Costco, let's judge Ebert's argument on its logic, and video games on their own merits.

Ebert's latest statement considers a presentation by Kellee Santiago, which can be found here. Her presentation argues that the forms we consider high art started out as simplistic, non-artistic modes of communication. Painting has been around some 30,000 years, which is literally about a thousand times longer than video games. In that context, judging the artistic quality of video games seems like betting on Mike Tyson in a fight against your three year-old--sure, both will use their teeth, but Tyson's probably had years of training/steroids. If little Bobby's been using steroids longer than a year, I'll be surprised. (So will his first girlfriend, but not in a good way.)

A major comparison used by Santiago contrasts video games to other competitive events (e.g. sports, board games). She argues that the latter are not examples of art; Ebert is quick to jump on this to further his interactive-means-not-art theory. Okay, but what about performance art, which involves public interaction and a preponderance of naked people? Conventional? No. But it has "art" in its damn name! That'd be like having a product called Something Crackers and not actually be crackers!

Damn you!

Here's one issue with the debate: other art forms have been studied as art for a very long time, now--long enough to have developed a very specific language about each form. Video games have that language to a smaller extent, but it tends to be more about performance than other qualities: "replay value", "control scheme", "n00bz". And to whatever extent (if any) that video games have been studied as an art form, it is infinitesimal in comparison to the study of video games as entertainment. By contrast, the film medium strikes closer to an equilibrium. So part of the problem is that Ebert has a long history (about 100 years) of film criticism that he can draw on, while gamers are slightly more limited. ("Better than Pong." / "Not as good as Pokemon." / "On approximately the same level as Mario Party 3.")

So there's a lack of developed language. But Mike Tyson can still talk about impressionist paintings without understanding words like "impressionist", or "painting". The problem then becomes what we should talk about. The level design? Controller response? The character's disappointingly small mammary glands?

One of those is never an issue.

Well...yeah! If the problem is that video games are interactive, then we should at least be able to judge what we're interacting with. Again, I'm trying to avoid a conversation about what constitutes art, but I think we can still talk about quality without becoming pretentious. Gamers know when the game being played feels immersive and when it feels cheaply thrown together for promotional purposes. (I'm looking at you, video game adaptations of movies.) Sometimes the elements of games just come together and really make the players feel the world they're inhabiting--and we don't need "artsy" games to do that. Marty O'Donnell's scores for the Halo games are on par with major movie scores; temple designs in the Zelda games feel like they belong in museums; the first time I played the Gamecube port of Resident Evil, I nearly peed my pants in terror and turned off the system before I even encountered my first enemy. How's that for evoking an emotional response? (Focus on that last question, not the preceding statement.) That was possible because creepy-ass soundtracks like this, and creepier-ass settings that look like this:

Yeah. You'd pee your pants too. Er, almost-pee your pants.

The interaction actually contributes to that emotional response. Playing Resident Evil still scares me more than most movies. (Admittedly, most Resident Evil games are better made than most scary movies.) Discounting the entire field because of that interaction is just fallacious. That emotional response--which, granted, is Santiago's definition, not Ebert's--is a form of interaction. Each person will have a different experience with a work of art, just as one playthrough of Ocarina of Time will be different than the next.

I could stretch this out ad nauseam (especially since, at this point, I doubt anyone's still reading), but here's my biggest issue with Ebert's claim: "Art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices." If this were true, the entire interpretive aspect of art would be, if not non-existent, at least irrelevant. I encourage Ebert to go back and read some 19th century American literature for two reasons. 1 - Poe's middle name was spelled "Allan". 2 - Hawthorne was all about ambiguity and interpretation. Perhaps Ebert suffers from his bias as a movie critic, but literature is much more about Prufrock's "overwhelming question" than Ebert's inevitable conclusion. Which makes dismissing video games on those grounds a pretty weak argument.

Ebert may be onto something when he questions why gamers should be concerned about video games' status as art. But gamers and game developers have plenty of reason to argue their case. Again, I call for subjectivity, and if I happen to think that holding right on a directional pad to make an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog run through loops constitutes artistry, you don't have to agree with me. You keep on playing Noby Noby Boy, and I'll keep pressing right.



But seriously. It's Edgar Allan Poe.

Back to Fantasturbation: Rock Concert

People like to fantasize about things. Some dream about cars they'll never have. Others place their focus on attractive celebrities, supermodels, the like. Still others have football fantasies, and I'm really not sure how that works.

Touchdown! Pnts +6

I prefer to fantasize about things that are even less likely. Like robot takeovers. Or zombie invasions. Or, in this case, a concert made up of all my favorite songs. Played by the original artists. All in one continuous event that would shake the very foundation of rock history! Also of the planet. So I present:

Fantasy Concert I

No time for opening bands, here. I'm talking about almost two full hours of awesome music.
Sponsored by Powerthirst.

The crowd chants in anticipation. We want ROCK. We want ROCK. We want ROCK. That's not slang for crack cocaine--they want music that will blast their bones and burst their eardrums. Up on the stage are very regal-looking curtains concealing the set. As the violence escalates into anticipatory mosh pits, the lights start flashing and the cheers go up. Out comes...

Vanessa Carlton.


The regal curtains pull back to reveal a piano and even more regal-looking curtains. The sweet hard-rockin' sounds of her piano reverberate through the stadium as the female population screams and the rest of the crowd falls into general confusion. But that quickly washes away as the smooth sounds of her voice open "Home". And as the crowd is being lulled by her sweet sweet notes, another piano raises its voice as Regina Spektor jumps into the opening keys of "Us". When she finishes, people are already starting to fall into (doomed) love, so it's only appropriate that the next person to come out is Rachael Yamagata, singing "I Want You". All are happy and blissful at the closing lyrics "...until I make you mine." But don't worry, the emotional roller coaster is just starting as the first surprise guest comes out!

NPFH!

Dressed as Dr. Horrible, he duets with Rachael from the Dr. Horrible soundtrack. They cannot believe their eyes, nor can the crowd as the two belt out the rockingly sensitive and slightly tragic song. Then out comes Jenny Lewis in full Pink Ranger regalia, curing the crowd's woes by telling them to "See Fernando". Some of the crowd take her advice literally, and start trippin' on acid, which is a bit expected at a concert of this magnitude. I don't use any, but I certainly feel like I am when out comes Milla Jovovich to sing "Left & Right". The crowd goes wild, or maybe just I do--but no, damnit, this is my fantasy and I say the whole entire crowd goes crazy. And they're so hopped up on acid that they think they see Jack Black come out on stage. Which he does, because Tenacious D is there to play the greatest song in the world! Or at least the "Tribute".

At this point the crowd is writhing on the floor in pleasure and hallucinatory fits. So it's time for a set change. Jack Black has to be dragged off by security and the curtains rustle for the set change. One bathroom break and hit of skittles later, the show is ready for round two. The curtains are ripped down, uncovering a gigantic castle complete with dragons, princesses, and horse-mounted knights. We learn very quickly where those knights are from as Muse opens up "Knights of Cydonia" while the knights fight the giant dragon creatures. The first set of heroes dispatched, it's time for a new song and a familiar guitar riff and tapping solo introduce the most colorful of heroes, the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Only Jenny Lewis and I know the lyrics beyond the first chorus, but it still rocks. Chris Cornell follows with "You Know My Name," but due to copyright issues, James Bond cannot appear in any of his incarnations. Instead, Bon Jovi shows up and offers an accurate description of Bond: "You Give Love a Bad Name".

A mighty wind blows in heavy thunder and lightning as the concert shifts from rocking hard to rocking like a hurricane. The crowd rejoices, except for one unfortunate soul who picks the wrong time to stagedive and gets hit by lightning. The Scorpions get shoved offstage by what appears to be a plump ten year-old, until we realize the very literal joke that's coming: ACDC plays "Thunderstruck". Don't worry, though. The 80s metal session isn't done yet. Hell's bells ring Brian Johnson offstage--but no. It's actually the opening to Iron Maiden's "Hallowed Be Thy Name"! There is much cheering, shooting-up, and air guitar. But there's bound to be more as everyone realizes the dragons are actually real and they chase Maiden into the castle! What can stop them? Who should defeat them? Only the smooth guitar hook of "Sweet Child O' Mine", and Slash finishes them off with perhaps the greatest solo in music history.

The concert breaks for a set change and carnage cleanup. The crowd is beginning to get anxious when the sounds of guitar strumming silence them. What song is this? Who's playing? None are sure until the most recognizable riff of all time literally blasts the roof off the stadium. The second surprise guest is revealed: Eric Clapton.



The closing notes of "Layla" transition into the melancholy notes of a piano. No, Vanessa Carlton isn't back onstage, it's Epica beginning "Tides of Time"--the song that transcends power ballad the same way atomic bomb transcends spark. The entire crowd falls to tears. (Again, it's my fantasy. And I say everyone cries at Tides of Time only because it's slightly more legitimate than crying at the concert's opening song.) But those tears are blasted off our faces by the powerful vibrations of Evanescence's "Tourniquet". Before anyone can recover--or contemplate the outright depressing meaning of the lyrics--Disturbed runs onstage and tears up the stage with "Torn". Halfway through the epic solo, half the crowd faints. It's up to Cristina Scabbia and the rest of Lacuna coil to revive them with "Spellbound". After the solo and the closing lyrics "I will break this spell you put on me!" the crowd comes back for the last song of the night. Killswitch Engage graces us with "My Last Serenade", and in an explosion of awesomeness, world peace spreads across the globe.


But wait! Encore! the crowd chants. Encore! Encore! One guy shouts "Freebird!" and manages not to get kicked out on account of the world peace thing. But Nightwish comes out of a swirling black vortex of rock and mosh pits form again, pretty much undoing that whole thing. Tarja sings opposite returning guest Neil Patrick fucking Harris for "Phantom of the Opera" and I have run out of words to describe the awesome. Just when the crowd things we can take no more, the final surprise guest appears from the swirling black vortex (yeah, that was literal): zombie Randy Rhoads!

He pretty much looks like regular Randy Rhoads.

Playing "Mr. Crowley", he tears a hole in the fabric of the universe taking us all from this life and transporting us all to rock heaven. Which I imagine looks something like this:

Reality Indigestion

David Shields wrote a book, Reality Hunger, about the death of the novel. It's composed of 618 pseudo-Nietzschean sections, ranging in length from three pages to three words. The sections are organized roughly by themes (A-Z), and are intended to create an overarching argument about the necessity to free words from ownership, and diffuse the dichotomy between fiction and nonfiction. Here's a review. Oh, and another. Oh, and here's a third:

1

You include sections which comment that novels take too long to get to the point. So you provide us with 200+ pages of (mostly other people's) commentary. Metaphor? Perhaps. But you could say it all in a page.

2

To read the book as it was intended, you say, cut out the legally-necessary appendix of sources. Why not the page with the copyright, which gives ownership to you (and only you)?

3

Section 238 of the book: "The contemporary vogue of not tucking in your shirttail (which I dutifully follow): a purposeful confusion of the realms." Citing fashion to critique literature is not the most valid argument, especially not when you're arguing for the sartorial mullet.

4

Richard Hugo said best what you seem to be chasing around in circles: "You owe reality nothing and the truth about your feelings everything."

5

Your book implies that the strong presence of reality TV serves as proof that literature should take the same path. Have you watched reality TV? (If an entire nation jumps off the bridge of intelligence...)

6

A collection of other people's words does not constitute an argument, but a series of declarations: "This man is innocent." Why? "This man is a good man." (That's nice--watch him go to jail.)

7

Your book states repeatedly that novels do not interest [you].
American Idol does not interest me; I watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

8

My favorite parts of this book are the ones you did not write.

9

This book has provided me with a wonderful index of authors and quotations which, because I did not perform your recommended appendectomy, I can now seek out more fully.

This picture is also a metaphor. Guess which car represents you.