A perfect storm of questions hit me this weekend. It occurred to me that there’s not enough time or brain space to appreciate all the aesthetics that are out there for you to experience, so what’s worth following and what’s not? I’m not going to answer that question in the next paragraphs, I don’t have an answer. But here’s some topics I’m mulling over:
There are “Experts” in Everything
This question hit me while listening to Freakonomics podcast about how wine snobs may not have any idea what they’re talking about. And then my mind bounced right to the XKCD cartoon above — that if you follow anything intensely enough, you’ll eventually develop a more developed opinion of it. So… what’s worth knowing, what’s worth discarding, what’s worth devoting time to?
The Lowest Common Denomenator Theory
I touched on this a little on A Dead Kid post a while ago, suggesting that the more obscure your passions, the less connected you are to the rest of the world. I feel that a healthy understanding of popular culture, though potentially mind-numbing, is really important. I don’t want to be lost in dinner discussions about The Bachelor, or silent (verging on looking snobby) when the bar topic du jour is about Katy Perry’s relationship status. Crap culture is the new Weather — everyone experiences it, you can’t avoid it, and everyone has an opinion about it so it’s a perfectly fine topic to bring up when you have absolutely nothing else to talk about. Would you want to talk to someone who responded to your weather comment with, “Oh, yeah, I’m not really into the weather.”
What’s Worth Your Time?
How long does it take to watch a movie? Eat a meal? Read a book? I ask, because, in the last 10 years a new time-sucking phenomenon has appeared — the serial TV drama. Chuck Klosterman and Bill Simmons chatted a bit about this on Monday. Long-form TV drama is everywhere, and they take forever to get through. There was a time when someone would ask, “Have you ever seen <movie>?”, and you would say “no”, and they would be like “I can’t BELIEVE you haven’t seen <movie>.” You would then rent that movie (or borrow that CD or go to that restaurant) and experience it — that would take about 2 hours… even a book, which I would consider a real commitment, takes anywhere from a week to a month to complete. Serial cable TV shows are the extreme of commitment. They last for months; often years if they’re doing well. They are recommended by others who have no real idea how they will eventually end.
People don’t recommend albums based on the first two tracks of an LP, restaurants based on appetizers, or books based on prologues, but they do this sort of thing all the time for serial dramas. Every serial show is an insane commitment with no guaranteed satisfactory conclusion (hi Twin Peaks, Lost). Everyone is probably guilty of recommending a show that you, yourself won’t know how good or bad it will wind up being. I know I am. I told my friend a decade ago to get into Desperate Housewives. There are still people watching Grey’s Anatomy because, I can only imagine, that they’ve put too many hours into McDreamy to give up on it now. Anyway. I digress. I just dread dedicating that much time to one thing and watching it just… suck.
Sensory Appreciation
My uncle once said he wouldn’t buy a good sound system because he doesn’t have the ear that could recognize the difference between an good sound system and an excellent one. I could imagine the same goes for tastebuds, and any other sensory experience as well. This is logical. But it make me wonder who gets to appreciate the most things, and perhaps then determine what’s “the best” themselves — those fortunate enough to experience the most? Does a variety of experience from somone with no real taste trump the limited experience of someone who has incredible taste?
Art vs Necessity
Last section, I promise. This is the old form/function argument. I’ve read that if an art serves any real function, it ceases to be art. My questions is then, what happens when a basic necessity is elevated to something greater? When it comes to things like architecture, fashion, or cuisine — shelter, clothing, and food if we’re going Maslov here — are post-modern buildings, high fashion, or molecular gastronomy the epitome of art because they’ve transcended their functions, or are they invalid because they are objects that fail to meet the requirement of their initial reason to exist? Are foodies and fashionista’s kidding themselves, or are they following the most logical path?
Posted by BDazzle 
The Digital Switcheroo
May 22, 2009Photo Courtesy of CNL822 on Flickr
Watching baseball last week with all the jitters, smears, and pauses of digital broadcasting, I realized I haven’t officially bitched about the digital switchover. All this info (well, except for the Kanye part) I think is pretty valuable:
Now that people are using digital receivers, we’re realizing that digital TV reception is as bad or worse than analog TV. Those that haven’t gone digital yet (or in some cases can’t even afford to), hear the Networks pitching the switcheroo and it’s like they’re doing you a favor. It’s important to know that TV Networks/the government/Big Businss are NOT just doing it for your benefit.
I’m not one for conspiracy theories, hell, any rant that mentions “the government” usually makes me tune out. But this is true, apparently: The initial digital switch plan (I shit you not) was a delayed reaction to Post-9/11 communication issues. According to Bloomburg…
Broadcast networks volunteered to give their analog frequencies over to emergency police and fire communications. Though, “volunteered” is a stretch. Television networks were well aware that this act, which appears fairly selfless and sensible, had an overwhelming business-minded upside.
Giving up these frequencies and moving to a digital signal would mean that every American that does not subscribe to a cable subscription (~20% of the population, skewed towards the less affluent) must buy a brand new TV, update their televisions on their own dime (that’s 285 million sets as of ’05), or get cable. It was a sweetheart deal all around, exemplified by the nifty bullet points below:
That last bullet is the kicker, because, if you installed the digital converter box you quickly realize that reception can, and does, still suck. What’s worse, broadcast channels that used to come in a little fuzzy on an analog television will not even register through the digital box. No longer do you have the option of watching a fuzzy screen — it’s all or nothing now.
Digital TV is a snob — if it’s not crystal clear, you’re not allowed to watch it. You cannot even manually tell your digital converter to include a channel that is not registering — this is what is happening to CBS (WBBM) on my TV and a friends in Chicago. I wonder if they’re losing ratings because the digital boxes they forced on their viewers refuse to recognize it as a channel.
The funniest part is those antannae… you know the ones you were supposed to be able to throw away… those rabbit ears they made fun of in the “swtch to digital” PSAs earlier this year? Yeah… you have to buy a new one.