Yeah, I Want Things To Go My Ways. But As Of Late, Shit Been Going Sideways.

I finished the book "Everything Bad Is Good For You" by Steven Johnson on the plane yesterday.

The thesis of the book is this. Mass Culture (large C) is in incline, not decline. Cultural critics argue that it's decline because television, videogames and movies have become more violent and filled with sex and other blah blah blah (and they have). What this book argues is that it's actually in incline because complexity has increased and thus the work a person must do to enjoy entertainment has increased. It has even begun to make us smarter, a fact which goes unnoticed because of the Flynn Effect. Basically the shift has taken place because of three things.

The first is not only that culture is more complex by following more and longer storylines but the complexity is encased in the relationships between things. It's not just that you have to solve the mystery of what the things placed into a show or videogame are a la Chekov's gun but also how they relate to one another. You have to parse what information is important to the ultimate resolution and what is not. Specifically you have to do this in (and are trained to do this by) videogames but it applies to more passive forms of culture. Producers are now "allowed" to leave more ambiguity in their programming and require the audience make narrative leaps of filling in and making assumptions which they wouldn't have to in the past.

Because all of our media is now storeable and repeatable and you can see something later which will explain something earlier instead of only vice versa. In 1970, one of the Big Three television networks aired something once and then it was gone, a movie ran once in the theater and it was gone, etc. But with the advent of VCRs and the expansion of cable (and with it, the comensurate thirst for programming to fill their shelves and schedule), media has to hold up to and can require repeat viewings. This encourages the creators to embed clues and in-jokes into the programming which you only see or get upon repeat or obsessive viewings. We've moved away from a lowest-common-denominator you had to get the first time thru to a most-repeatable ethos where you will want to watch it over and over.

A contributing factor to that is we now have a greater community to discuss our ideas via the Internet. It's now a "lean forward" culture as Steve Jobs calls it where we the viewers experience rewards for digesting close readings. Where as the likelyhood of finding someone who had even seen Star Trek in the mid-70s was low, now there are massive web message boards devoted to Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica and Survivor and so on down the line. You aren't encouraged to sit back and zone out. You tune in and join up.

An example they cite is the in-joke of Art Vandalay on Seinfeld. You wouldn't need to know Art Vandalay is a name George uses to lie in awkward social situations to enjoy the episode itself you're watching. It's just a name which could be interchangeable with anything else you could make up on the spot. But for someone who has obsessively and repeatedly watched the show, it's a nod to George's long-arcing laziness. It adds depth to his character to know he's so often a liar that he's has created a character he can lean back on when he's forced to lie. If you haven't been following Seinfeld since day one (or The Simpsons or The Wire or college basketball) there's this massive online community you can tap into right there on the Internet.

I found the book fascinating. It held a couple of keys for me which tailed back incidentally to earlier things I'd been thinking of a la a television show's later explains earlier structure.

The first was that television producers create shows like Lost specifically to obscure and leave out plot points BECAUSE that's the way people want them. To me it seemed like lazy, drawn-out storytelling (and perhaps it is) but they're doing it that way to respond to their audience. So where I might watch Lost and think "This is dumb. He's obviously dead and in a limbo-like state." other people will watch Lost and think "I think he's dead and in a limbo-like state. What are the clues which confirm that?" The Lost audience wants drawn-out storytelling they can watch closely and analyze and interface with other people about over the Internet and in-person. I won't "get" what they think is great about it not because I'm skeptical but because I'm not skeptical enough. I look at it, think "That's answer." and move on. Lost fans see it and get sucked in.

The other key was what I did just there. I didn't use the tools of defining what something is and how it interrelates to other things on a popular television show or in a videogame. I used those tools to define something and how it interrelates to other things in my life. And I'm trying to get better at those things because Life is a one-pass event like a 1970s television show. Johnson brings up the idea of Nietzsche's eternal recurrence near the end of the book in regards to how media is put together in this version of the mass culture. They try to get it right the first time because people are going to watch it over and over if it rewards them for doing so.

A couple of months back I went to brunch with some friends and we were discussing religion. I told them how my morality is based upon having to explain your actions later. I don't always get them right which is why I'm a big proponent of grace. But I'd like to think I could go back and explain my reasoning and emotional state which lead to me doing what I did and didn't do.

I'm trying to get better at the skills "Everthing Bad Is Good For You" defines not to analyze media but because Life is a one-pass event like a 1970s television show. I worry about getting Life right because it too is storeable and figuratively repeatable. I want to make the right choice the first time around because that's the one which will remain in people's memories. If I know better what the right choice is, I'm more likely to make it and to be remembered as making it.

Untitled Pt.2

"Then six weeks ago, I received an invitation to her wedding. She's marrying some guy she met at a company conference or something like that. They had a by-the-numbers story book romance. He met her, he was nice to her and he really appreciated her. They moved in together, they got a dog and they decided to get married."

He raises his voice a few octaves and buttons his cuffs. "'I want you to be there,' she told me when I expressed reservations. 'You mean as much to me as anyone else I've ever known. Well, other than Brent.' Then she used the dirty trick it was perfectly fair of her to use. 'Please, do this for me. It wouldn't be the same if you weren't there'."

"So I'm going. I'm going to sit near the back on the bride's side and stare across the room at Louisa. She won't be up there making sure I'm watching and it would be the same if I weren't there. But I'm still going."

"The tense moment will come when the priest asks whether there is anyone who knows why these two people shouldn't be married. In my younger and more reckless days, I might've stood up and screamed, 'I do. Because I love you Louisa.' Today I will stay in my seat and the moment will pass without so much as a burning in my legs. She'll run down the aisle and they'll cut the cake. I'll give her a hug and we'll promise to do a better job staying in touch. Two months from now she'll be the furthest thing from my mind. I have enough other women I keep close but not too close to take up my time. In that way, she's been an odd precedent."

He ties his tie while looking at the ceiling.

"I don't want to sound like I regret the way this ended up. Louisa was not the 'one great love of my life' and I did not miss the boat by never telling her how I felt. In reality, we just liked being the center and focus of someone else's attention. The invigorating rush of a crush eventually gave way to how little was behind it all."

"I'm steeling myself for one moment though. At some point in the night, I'll look at Louisa or she'll look at me. We will be talking to seperate groups of people and our eyes will meet across the room one last time. She'll wink at me and I'll wink back. It will be a hold over from when we cared about the other person seeing. Back then, it meant 'I know that you know.' Now it will mean the exact same thing but in a different way."

"It was crazy to be so unhappy for so long. Our relationship could never last. We had to move on with our lives and be happy."

He pulls his suit jacket on. "Does this look good?" He stands there arms spread, his shirt already wrinkling from the sweat.

Untitled Pt.1

"I once heard, 'A relationship can never last between two people who are the same kind of crazy.' At first, I thought it was the sort of thing which sounds wise because of its odd sentence construction. A lot of advice is repeated because it sounds antiquated and it's a common assumption anything which lasts long enough must be The Truth. So I was skeptical and thought my results would inevitably vary."

"That was before I met Louisa. She was exactly the same kind of crazy as me. By that, I don't mean she loved Japanese animation, Ernest Hemingway novels and Left Coast punk. Quite the contrary."

"I mean she took the world in the same way I did. She could see the differing nature of any moment. Most people see the world in only one way. It's easier to think if you live your life by one hard and fast code of ethics that apply to every situation and every time. In fact, it's so easy most people don't even think they are as they're doing it."

He imitates a voice. "'That's just me,' they'll claim. 'That's how I am.'"

"Louisa saw every new moment as unique. She once told me her only presumption upon entering an unknown situation was she knew absolutely nothing. I remember making a wise crack about how wonderfully Zen that was and how I wish I could be so free-minded and unfrightened by the world."

"She was right though. By going in with an empty slate, her first instinct was to listen."

"Now, years later, I think that's why so many people gravitated to her. She was constantly sticking out her neck and taking risks for what she believed in. And what she believed in was she could actually make things better if only people would tell her what was wrong. She was the most selfless person I'd ever met."

"That was what attracted me to her as a friend. It was a different thing entirely which made me want to be something more. I honestly thought she treated me differently, treated me better. As nice as she was to everyone she met, I thought I caught a certain sparkle when she noticed I was in the room. It was something special to me. Her eyes would beam, her smile would light up and she would stop."

"It became a little game between us. Who could dance around the issue better? Who could let on in a more deniable way? I stretched on for weeks and then weeks became months. The game grew more complex. Soon it became 'Who could flirt more while the other watched?' 'Who could brag more and who could bear more while talking about meeting a nice new...?' Who could get the other to say, 'You'll find a nice ... who really appreciates you,' when the nice new ... left?"

"We became co-dependents in romantic failure and co-conspirators in never being happy. That was the crazy we shared. We chose to always be the bridesmaid instead of ruining our tacit 'If all else fails and we're both 30...' agreement."

"Slowly we drifted apart. Other things and other people started to clutter up our lives. Where once we flirted to make sure the other was still paying attention, now we flirted and didn't care. I could have entire relationships and only mention it off-handedly once it ended. We no longer mattered. All of the years melted, swept away as though there had been a gust of wind. The last time I really talked to Louisa was almost three years ago. She was just out of undergrad and she was freaking out about actually being out in the world. There was so much she just couldn't deal with and she called to lean on my shoulder."

He begins buttoning his shirt, the very bottom button first.

"It was fair of her to call me since I'd been something like a confidant for years. I would listen, make some noises which implied I understood and then make broad, wisened-sounding statements. This time I was bound for failure because what each of us had done was never actual support. We were experts on each other's idiosyncrasies. But we'd never let each other in far enough to truly know us."

"The last time we talked I listened and made affirming grunts in her little pauses. Then when it came time to make my usual non-commital advice, I realized I had nothing. I couldn't even find something someone else would say. There is no old saying which expresses 'I don't even know you anymore and can't relate to your problems.' In real time, I mumbled a bit about how everything would be okay and how she would find her way eventually. It was the first time in our relationship that someone's bullshit openly stunk."

He steps into his dress slacks one leg at a time and makes a grimmace as he buckles his belt to his usual loop. "Not as skinny as I once was."

"We made plans to see a movie in the upcoming weeks and neither of us called back with firm plans. We could've repeated it a few times more, each time behind an 'Oh, hey...' facade. But we both knew it was time to quit."