Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Fireworks by John Pnim

I was just reading the latest fiction on fray.com when I came across Fireworks by John Pnim. The author of this story writes with a disturbing intensity about the war in Iraq. The characters include: a paramedic student, a woman who has just attempted suicide (her husband was killed in combat two months earlier), and a nurse who has a husband still fighting in Iraq.

The nurse, who believes that the war is just, tries to comfort the suicidal woman by telling her that her husband died doing "good work, fighting for freedom." The woman is livid when the nurse says this because she hates the war and President Bush who she blames for the death of her husband. She spits on the nurse. The nurse sees the patient as "imbalanced" and the patient sees the nurse as naïve.

Meanwhile, the paramedic stands by, letting all of this all happen, paralyzed into silence by helplessness and a fear of adding to the conflict between the nurse and the patient. He thinks that the nurse is wrong, but he knows that no amount of convincing is going to sway either woman's viewpoint.

This story could really be an analogy for my relationship with my parents. Aside from short, awkward phone calls on holidays and birthdays, I haven't spoken to them in years. I think that just like the paramedic, our past has been so filled with conflict that it's easier for us to not talk than to talk because we are afraid of opening up those old wounds that just never heal.

The other day, I was at Starbucks with my friend Madison, drinking a white mocha latté when these two guys came into the coffee shop. One of them was tall with dark hair. His eyes and nose gave him a rooster-like appearance. The other was more handsome, well-built, rugged, and blonde. They ordered their drinks and sat down at the table right next to us. I guess that one of them recognized her from the bookstore and immediately, both of them started to flirt with her. I could tell that she was really enjoying the attention.

Since the conversation evolved mostly around Madison and the bookstore, my eyes and my mind started to wander a bit. I noticed two young parents with a tiny baby girl sitting in the corner. They were goo-goo-ing and goo-gah-ing over her. It made me think back to my own parents—I wonder if they were ever excited to have me around.

Sunday, November 7, 2004

Fireworks

I was just reading the latest fiction on fray.com when I came across Fireworks by John Pnim. The author of this story writes with a disturbing intensity about the war in Iraq. The characters include: a paramedic student, a woman who has just attempted suicide (her husband was killed in combat two months earlier), and a nurse who has a husband still fighting in Iraq.

The nurse, who believes that the war is just, tries to comfort the suicidal woman by telling her that her husband died doing "good work, fighting for freedom." The woman is livid when the nurse says this because she hates the war and President Bush who she blames for the death of her husband. She spits on the nurse. The nurse sees the patient as "imbalanced" and the patient sees the nurse as naïve.

Meanwhile, the paramedic stands by, letting all of this all happen, paralyzed into silence by helplessness and a fear of adding to the conflict between the nurse and the patient. He thinks that the nurse is wrong, but he knows that no amount of convincing is going to sway either woman's viewpoint.

This story could really be an analogy for my relationship with my parents. Aside from short, awkward phone calls on holidays and birthdays, I haven't spoken to them in years. I think that just like the paramedic, our past has been so filled with conflict that it's easier for us to not talk than to talk because we are afraid of opening up those old wounds that just never heal.

The other day, I was at Starbucks with my friend Madison, drinking a white mocha latté when these two guys came into the coffee shop. One of them was tall with dark hair. His eyes and nose gave him a rooster-like appearance. The other was more handsome, well-built, rugged, and blonde. They ordered their drinks and sat down at the table right next to us. I guess that one of them recognized her from the bookstore and immediately, both of them started to flirt with her. I could tell that she was really enjoying the attention.

Since the conversation evolved mostly around Madison and the bookstore, my eyes and my mind started to wander a bit. I noticed two young parents with a tiny baby girl sitting in the corner. They were goo-goo-ing and goo-gah-ing over her. It made me think back to my own parents—I wonder if they were ever excited to have me around.

Wednesday, November 3, 2004

99 Rooms

From Berlin, 99 Rooms has some stunning photo montage work and an unusually good sound track.

At eNarrative one year, video curator George Fifield made an interesting observation. "If you're video footage isn't quite right, there's lots of things you can do. But bad sound is just bad sound: you can't fix it."

10 days online and over a quarter million visits

99ROOMS.COM has already earned the Schumann Combo a fan-base. And if you like the PS2 survival-horror Silent Hill, 99ROOMS is where you need to go right now. The Schumann-guys have taken 99 + a few photos of a derilict factory, photoshopped graffiti to the walls and then dumped everything into Flash, adding spooky and hauting mouse-over effects. The result is a bit artwork and a bit point-and-click adventure and indeed, the entries in the guestbook are divided between "woah, guys, spooky" and "woah, guys, great art". If you look closely, however, 99ROOMS is simply this: great marketing. You click through 99 screens, propelled forward by haunting sounds, creaking machinery and the sometimes quirky, sometimes gruesome figures, creatures and strangely organis shapes on the wall. Propelled, also, by your own curiosity and your desire to know: what's in Room 99?

There's nothing in Room 99, it's basically a long hall. But *behind* Room 99 - and behind the 99ROOMS - are the Schumann Combo, the makers of this piece of Flash that has just taken an hour-sized bite out of your day.

Beyond this, there's nothing much: the designs and mouseovers are pretty repetitive and there's no narrative motive that might add and ounce of deeper meaning, some story-quality to the progression. If you've enjoyed the 99ROOMS, take a look at The Hospital. The Hospital uses a similar technique, heavily photoshopped photographs of a cumbling ex-infirmary. But the progressiosn is less directed, the visitor is allowed to click freely within a ground-plan and enter and re-enter rooms at will. And the interior design is more diverse, different musing, terrifying or humorous in tone, on the themes suggested by different utility rooms. There's no tension in The Hospital, but then there's also no disappointment about an ending that does not terminate this tension. And the lack of story-structure leaves the visitor room to people with rooms with stories and histories of her own.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Pardon Me

Very slowly, haltingly, a white highlighted block of text scans through a dictionary for the right word. It reaches the letter p, and soon enough, two letters appeared as a sentence on the top of the screen, "Pardon Me."