This right here is one of the reasons why I love Slate Magazine. Most of the “first 100 days coverage” I find pretty artificial, but this is definitely an exception.
Archive for April, 2009|Monthly archive page
Rock Your Pixels Off
In Music, Video Games on April 27, 2009 at 4:44 pmI love video games. I don’t think I’ll ever really get over them entirely. When I was a kid I cared way more about Mario than Mickey and recently I’ve had a good portion of my brain eaten by Grand Theft Auto IV, a game that’s probably better written than most TV shows. When I see people mix up the trappings of video games in their work, I’m generally interested, and I think that if Warhol had lived long enough he would have done a few prints featuring Mario. Apropos of nothing, here’s a bunch of video game-laced musical things.
This video is probably one of the more awesome things that I’ve seen on the internet in a while. The video below is not game footage. It’s certainly inspired by Megaman, but all of it is the work of a guy called Myk Dawg, who’s made a few unofficial game-like videos. Kanye West really ought to just buy off this video from him and use it, as it fits well with West’s aesthetic. Take a look.
(HD) Kanye West – Robocop (1988 import version) from Myk Dawg on Vimeo.
I love this type of stuff. Nothing gets my nostalgia going like 8-bit games. Another group, Desert Planet, is sort of the audio-equivalent of this, as all of their music is intentionally made to sound like it’s from a video game.
What surprises me about these videos and music is the realization that I’m attracted to a certain kind of technological imperfection. Visible pixilation was not initially the result of any kind of artistic process. It was an artifact of technological limitation. Had the developers of Pac-Man had their way, Pac-Man would have probably have looked more like this:
And less like this:
I personally prefer the second image. As irrational as it is, I find the second image to be “warmer” or more “authentic” in some kind of way, but I know that that’s simply the result of nostalgia and conditioning. People who say they prefer the sound of vinyl to digital music are usually fooling themselves, and I know that I’m sort of fooling myself with my experience of the pixelated image, but I enjoy it anyway.
Anyway, here’s another video, but this time it’s a cover of actual video game music with footage of an actual video game:
I couldn’t post about this stuff without including The Minibosses, a band I’ve known about for some time and do some rocking covers of old 80s games. The video is amusing enough, but I distinctly remembering Castlevania III being only one player.
This sort of stuff reminds me that art doesn’t really need to be realistic or accurate. That’s obvious, when you think about it. I’m far away from being a luddite, and I think it’s great that the images that jump out of modern video games and CGI movies are more realistic than every. Realism, though, is a tool. It’s something that can aide and enforce emotional reactions in the viewer, but it’s not a prerequisite for something to be good.
Think about this: One of the most popular game ever is Dungeons and Dragons specifically, and RPGs in general. RPGs don’t have any graphics. Players might use drawings and models, but these are static. The experience is not diminished by the absence of realistic representation. If anything the addition of animated images would distract from the experience. It’s all about what’s going on in the player’s heads, not what’s going on in front of their eyes.
Anyways, I’m a sucker for this retro stuff, and I’m sure I’m not alone. A whole slew of twentysomethings are probably going to remember the NES and Atari 2600 in much the same way that our parents remember the Beatles. That will be sort of trip- think of the future equivalent of VH1 specials.
Anyway, here’s another video. It’s newer, yes, but still cool. A very talented dude plays Zelda music. I quite dig his light-up hat and use of kitchen implements.
I Just Can’t Finish 1421
In Books, History on April 26, 2009 at 10:33 amI rarely put down books. Even if something is not going very well, I want to see if the author can redeem themselves with a good ending. Occasionally this happens. Today, though, I tossed aside 1421: The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies.
Menzies’ thesis is that Imperial China’s treasure fleet sailed not only throughout the eastern Pacific and Indian oceans, but also went to the Americas, mapped the coast of Antarctica, sailed around western Africa, established colonies all over the world, and left maps that were put to use by later European explorers. I’d heard of the book before, and was suspicious of it from the outset, but it had been recommended to me enough times that I finally picked up my roommate’s copy. As bad as I feel, I can’t finish it.
My first red flag was that Menzies, early on in the book, talks about how the Yongle Emperor received a collection of heads of state at his new capital in Beijing. He notes the absence of the Europeans, though, because he said that the Europeans were “too primitive.”
Now hold on a second. If the Emperor was willing to entertain guests from, say, Mongolia, a place full of nomads who lived in Yurts, then surely he’d also accept the company of someone from, say, France. Menzies doesn’t for a moment entertain the idea that the Chinese were either ignorant of Europe or unable to establish connections with it. He just takes it for granted that the Europeans were too savage to be invited to Beijing. Sloppy.
His map of the world also shows the Chinese fleet going everywhere except Europe. I find this highly suspicious. The treasure fleet was an entity that was all about extracting tribute from foreign lands, hence the name. If the Chinese were willing to accept tribute from, say Africa (where they famously brought home a giraffe), then they’d probably also want to do the same thing with Europe, which had much more in the way of stuff. So why didn’t they show up in Europe and demand tribute and recognition? Oh yeah- because they probably didn’t know what Europe was or how to get there.
I also found the bits about Chinese foreign colonies to be highly dubious. Wouldn’t we have heard of these before? Shouldn’t someone have fond some pictographs on a rock or something? Really. You’d think that would be a pretty big deal, and someone else would have found something.
Reading the book, though, I felt sort of sorry for Menzies. He obviously has a love for history and things nautical, and seems very much to want to say something interesting. Personally, I find the whole history of the treasure fleet fascinating, and would love to read a more credible history about it.
That story is good enough without making it world-spanning. The Chinese built huge ships, sailed around the Pacific and Indian oceans, and almost bankrupted their empire doing it because the voyages could not pay for themselves. Then, in a fit of reactionary fury, the government banned sailing and went isolationist. That’s an incredible bit of history right there, and I’d love to know the details of it. Menzies, though, reminds me of one of my favorite Douglas Adams quotes: “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it, too?”
I want to learn more about the garden, but Menzies is just looking for fairies.