lonelygirl15

Ah, the storied history of lonelygirl15:

The show focuses on the life of a fictional teenage girl named Bree, whose YouTube username is the eponymous "lonelygirl15", but the show does not reveal its fictional nature to its audience.... Lonelygirl15 first came to international attention ostensibly as a "real" video blogger who achieved massive popularity on YouTube. The show was eventually proved as a hoax by suspicious viewers as featuring a fictitious character played by American-New Zealand actress Jessica Rose.

And then?

After the fictional status of the show was revealed in September 2006, the show gradually evolved into a multi-character show including both character videoblogs and action sequences, with a complex story universe involving "trait positive girls" who are sought by an evil organization called "The Order".

Based on the episodes I've seen, it's nothing more than B-grade filmmaking -- shopworn ideas, overwrought writing, amateurish acting -- without any of the guilty pleasures of a real B-movie. Horror movie (the serial killer John Wakefield) meets thriller (the facile "resistance" opposing a "super-secret cult") meets mindless confessional ("Fun Things to Do in Hiding"). All wrapped in a fractured, hackneyed storyline.

Take "Here's the Deal":



"The Order said they'd kill my mom and my sister." "Danielle, call me, email me, please." "I did what I had to do. I didn't have a choice." The throwaway plot. The tortured monologue. The sarcastic ending. And the videoblog device of having Sarah and the other characters speaking to the camera -- boy, does that wears thin.

As one commenter asked about another video in the series, "What's the purpose of this?" A second commenter opined -- it's nothing more than an excuse to show cleavage. (This in a cesspool of juvenile and/or obscene comments, which speaks to the caliber of the audience.) One can't help shake the feeling that the "creative force" behind lonelygirl15 is a bunch of creepy older guys (a sordid lot of wastrels and flesh peddlers...) pandering to a witless public .

Call it what you will: teen soap opera, sub-CW, a misguided film-school project. I'm left wondering (as I often am on matters Internet related): "Don't viewers have anything better to do with their time?" As for lonelygirl15: Why bother piling on complexity when you don't care about the characters? (Answer: Because it's easier to add another twist or subplot than it is to develop an engaging premise and cast.) One can't help but feel that, with the passing of Bree, they should've let lonelygirl15 RIP.

In many ways, lonelygirl15 is the antithesis of "Making Do," discussed in my prior post. Yes, lonelygirl15 and "Making Do" are both confessional in nature. However, "Making Do" and the other Maricopa videos are impassioned, heartfelt, genuine. Alive with originality and personality. Imbued with an honest, pulsing human core.

As for lonelygirl15.... Contrived. Uninspired. Talentless, titillating tripe. Not "so bad as to be amusing" as "just bad." Not so much Gossip Girl as Twin Peaks without the genius.

A Life in the Desert

For the past few years, Linda Hicks and Rachel Woodburn have been team teaching a Digital Storytelling class at Scottsdale community college...

The fruits of their -- and, of course, their students' -- labor can be found in the digital stories housed at the Maricopa Center for Learning & Instruction. Although I didn't have high expectations glancing over the thumbnails for each piece, when I started viewing the videos, my attitude changed. Again and again, I was impressed.

The pieces cover the waterfront, ranging from tone poems to family sagas. More than snapshots. Statements. A varied collection. Whether fragmented or full bodied, quirky or conventional, each personal and distinct. "Magnetic Attraction" about a woman who drew apart from her beau and then, years later, was reunited.
Or "Going to Clifton," a wordless reflection on a place, and people, important to the author.

Or "Making Do." A video that particularly spoke to me with its tale of a man seemingly rootless, unmoored (each day "unfolds as it unfolds under blasted, infernal heat"). Facing a blank slate, wide-open days, but the prospect more burdensome than beckoning ("I punch the clock and write the book"). Hewing to a self-imposed ritual. Creating a sense of order. Creating meaning.

Rick Stewart, the narrator, recounts his morning routine:

• Walking his ex-wife's dog
• Making tea
• Taking journal notes
• Doing yoga
• Going for a swim
• Preparing a pot of oatmeal, then his daughter's lunch

On the surface, nothing special. A chronology. A list of simple pleasures. But the presentation, and the language, make it something more.

An appraisal. Thankful yet melancholic. Infused with Zen acceptance. The words evocative: "I make the sun rise," "ends in a muttered chant," "before the desolate desert heat unfurls," "luxuriate in the womb of water," "let the Sonoran sun bake my bones dry." Not just a recitation of common moments but moments that are grounding, enriching, refreshingly predictable. Ordinary yet magical.

And a host of details: Itchy the dog, Irish and green tea ("with fresh ginger and honey"), "Tweedle-deedles," Steel Cut Oatmeal, Aunt Effie. Ending with Stewart's daughter -- the apparent (and understandable) centerpiece of his life. (Appropriately, like a photo or keepsake, the video is dedicated to her.)

Although brief, the video achieves what all good writing does -- connecting you with the circumstances, and humanity, of someone else. That shared sensibility. That bond with the author. I felt a kinship with Rick Stewart and that made me feel good.

"The rest is just ordinary day"... but what comes before?

We Feel Terrible

After viewing Jonathan Harris's TED talk in which he describes "We Feel Fine" and some of his other projects, I felt spent and offended. "But his work is so compassionate, so optimistic," you might say. "How could you respond with anything less than delight?"

First, this is not the same Jonathan Harris who played Dr. Zachary Smith in Lost in Space. This Jonathan Harris was born in 1979 and graduated with a degree in computer science from Princeton University.

Second, the mission of "We Feel Fine":

We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion on a global scale.

Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.

The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day. Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions like: do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans? Do women feel fat more often than men? Does rainy weather affect how we feel? What are the most representative feelings of female New Yorkers in their 20s? What do people feel right now in Baghdad? What were people feeling on Valentine's Day? Which are the happiest cities in the world? The saddest? And so on.

The interface to this data is a self-organizing particle system, where each particle represents a single feeling posted by a single individual. The particles' properties – color, size, shape, opacity – indicate the nature of the feeling inside, and any particle can be clicked to reveal the full sentence or photograph it contains. The particles careen wildly around the screen until asked to self-organize along any number of axes, expressing various pictures of human emotion. We Feel Fine paints these pictures in six formal movements titled: Madness, Murmurs, Montage, Mobs, Metrics, and Mounds.

At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what's on our blogs, what's in our hearts, what's in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.

So we get colorful representations of a phenomenal amount of data. But are the findings truly useful? Here's what the FAQs section of the site has to say in response to "What are some of your more interesting insights?"

There's a bunch. For example, on election day, there was a spiking in the feeling "proud" and "excited". On Valentine's day, people feel "loved" and "lonely" more than on other days. As people get older, they tend to express less anger and disgust. Women express their emotions far more frequently than men, and have a broader vocabulary for expressing their emotions than men do.

But what is even more interesting are the individual stories behind the findings. You can find some of them in the book preview.

(I guess we need to buy the book.) Where I come from, someone would be laughed out of the room for self-evident "insights" like those.

The same questionable value plagues Mr. Harris's other projects:

• The "balloon project" in Bhutan, where folks leading lives of grinding poverty get to make a "crazy face" for Mr. Harris. Their personal balloons then go on exhibit (another photo op for Mr. Harris). This is supposed to underscore our universal humanity? I'm baffled as to how this helps, or humanizes, anyone. Mr. Harris is clearly good natured and well meaning, but -- at the end of the day -- the project seems like a senseless, empty (and, ultimately, gratuitous and self-indulgent) gesture.
• "The Whale Hunt," where Mr. Harris lives with an Inuit family and "documents the annual spring whale hunt." Along the way, he takes photos every five minutes (more often if his adrenaline is running high). The outcome of this exercise? A mind-numbing 3,214 photos, including large swaths where Mr. Harris is sleeping. (Which, for me, recalls experimental filmmakers like Andy Warhol, Michael Snow, or Straub-Huillet, where nothing happens. Sure, this creates a "space" for silence and reflection; sad to say, I get quite enough silence and reflection when I'm lying awake in bed at 2:00 in the morning.) I swear, this is something that Sacha Baron Cohen would parody.

I'm not trying to bash Mr. Harris or Web 2.0 storytelling. And, heaven knows, you don't need another tirade from me. Where some might argue that Mr. Harris is displaying a profound generosity of spirit, to me (with my beer-soaked, blue-collar background) he's just a rich kid slumming it. It's not anthropology so much as Mr. Harris mixing with the "great unwashed" -- unlike his dirt-poor hosts, he can abandon that environment at any moment and return to someplace comfortable.

It's what I call "the luxury of privilege." Mr. Harris's efforts seem like no more than grad school noodlings, a "why bother?" vanity project. All processed through a self-congratulatory filter. That's what makes me grit my teeth.

I had the same disquieting feeling when I heard an NPR interview with Bonnie Jo Campbell discussing her short-story collection American Salvage, a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award (Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin won).

American Salvage is rich with local color and peopled with rural characters who love and hate extravagantly. They know how to fix cars and washing machines, how to shoot and clean game, and how to cook up methamphetamine, but they have not figured out how to prosper in the twenty-first century. Through the complex inner lives of working-class characters, Campbell illustrates the desperation of post-industrial America, where wildlife, jobs, and whole ways of life go extinct and the people have no choice but to live off what is left behind.

Ms. Campbell received her B.A. from the University of Chicago.

The beauty of the web is that it, theoretically, gives folks from all socioeconomic strata a voice (though, as we know, lacking access to PCs, the underclass is still at a disadvantage). It, theoretically, counterbalances the traditional notion that all experience is interpreted by the highly educated and the well-to-do (i.e., the "ruling class").

When I see something like "We Feel Fine," I can't help but ask: "What's the point? What does this tell me about the human condition? What does it teach us?" If it's no more than a gimmick, then I'm mystified. If it's as trite as "we're all alike," then the message seems hypocritical and the purveyor dishonest.

The Solitary Spinner

Stories now are open-ended, branching, hyperlinked, cross-media, participatory, exploratory, and unpredictable. And they are told in new ways: Web 2.0 storytelling picks up on these new types of stories and runs with them... - Bryan Alexander and Alan Levine

Runs with them... right into the ditch. From what I've seen, many of these collaborative endeavors don't work. There's a problem with both quality and quantity (like going to a vast, steaming buffet -- the food's dismal but there's plenty of it).

The round-robin approach to storytelling is like a game -- something you'd find in an improv class or in an elementary schoolroom ("I whisper something in your ear, then you whisper it to the next person..."). I can't (and maybe shouldn't) take it seriously. It's an amusement, a distraction -- often uneven, meandering, clumsy, inane. It's not art.

I realize that, with the web, authorship is being redefined, that there's a blurring between expert and amateur. But, for me, the difference is stark. It's the difference between the published professional and the aspiring acolyte. For the latter, I think of fan fiction and, in an earlier incarnation, fanzines. (When I was growing up, I knew people who churned out fanzines in their spare time -- one guy would laboriously typeset each issue.)

Like fanzines, much on the web appeals to a minute audience. It's easy to access but largely irrelevant (the "long tail" at work). It may be meaningful and pleasurable... to you. But to somebody else (i.e., me, who's studied fiction writing), it's stultifying. It goes against the principles -- the rigor, the commitment, the talent -- that buttress a quality piece of work.

Art is perception -- seeing, citing, shaping. I don't see that in much of what I read on the web. What I do see, to misquote Hannah Arendt, is "the banality of drivel" -- literary evils perpetrated by oh-so-ordinary people.

Millennia ago, when I was in college, I was struck by two things:

• A professor who told me, "Life is about editing." Because we all have limited time, we have to spend it carefully, decisively. With so much else -- responsibilities, errands, demands -- clamoring for my attention, I don't have extra time for material that isn't astute, insightful, and well crafted. (I still can't figure out how guys get away with spending the better part of a day watching sports.) As for anything open-ended or sprawling -- uh uh. I take my entertainment finite and confined. With everything that's going on, I have a hard enough time getting through a magazine article let alone a sprawling, multi-part web extravaganza. (I struggle to sit through a two-hour movie.)
  
• Writing classes in which we had to review dreadful attempts at storytelling. I'm no Dostoevsky, and I'm not trying to sound elitist or insensitive, but sitting through some of those classes is the closest I'll come to waterboarding. That sense of asphyxiation as the class plods through a tortuous line-by-line accounting, debating the finer points of something that has none. Reading amateur fiction on the web triggers a flashback -- hurling me back to those times, writhing, trapped, assailed by a droning dissertation of the absurd.

I also don't understand the anonymous nature of some of these web contributions. Personally, I spend enough of my life living anonymously. If you "own" and stand behind your work, if you're proud of what you're doing, you want credit, a byline. That may betray an antiquated mindset, an old school mentality, but it speaks to one's investment in what you've nourished and birthed.

Certainly, there's legitimate and respectable art produced through collaboration -- filmmaking, theater, a performance piece. By the same token, I have no quarrel with a multimedia presentation or a video essay. All of these can be poetic, provocative, revealing. But when it comes to writing...

To paraphrase Neil Gaiman: "We write and die alone." Writing is not a communal activity, a group project, a mass undertaking. The more, the messier. As the frequently evoked adage goes: "A camel is a horse designed by committee."

When you spin a web, you should do it on your own.

Beatnik Babble Broadcast

Andrea Hiller's Beatnik Babble Broadcast is one of the better blogs I've read. As mentioned in my Oct. 14 post, I look for several things in a blog. To be worthy of a repeat visit, a blog should be intelligent, authentic, unique, well linked, and frequently updated.

To a large extent, Beatnik satisfies all of my criteria. For example, the blog's consistently clever a la SNL's "Weekend Update." In the Nov. 17 post, we read:

Palin says she has no intention of running for president in 2012 (even though we all know the world is ending anyway)...

Or this intro to her Oct. 14 post:

"GET TO THE CHOPPER! NOW!" That's the Arnold Schwarzenegger I remember. But these days he's the almighty governor of California.

Andrea mixes up a colorful and energetic stew. Throughout, her commentary is spiced up with appropriate photos and charts (and plenty of spot-on video). And, to her credit, the site's not only witty but informative. Even though I follow the news/"current events," I learned stuff (like the sneaky things cereal companies are doing in the Oct. 21 post).

Granted, plenty of bloggers comment on the news. But Andrea's (not always light-hearted -- see her Nov. 27 post on Michael Brewer) voice sets her apart. Her posts truly seem improvised... which can have both a positive and a negative side (if the writing seems dashed off/sloppy). On the negative side, there's the occasional typo. For example, the Nov. 16 post has a spate of misspellings:

People who text are less competent on the road that drunk drivers. Doesn’t that make you feel like your in danger basically any time your in a car?

Which may seem trifling in light of how strong the rest of the post is, with revelations like

Not only are text-drivers worse that call-drivers… they are also worse than drunk drivers! What?! Yes, it’s true. People who text are less competent on the road that drunk drivers.

Or asides such as

No wonder Obama and Illinois are trying to get texters off the road. They should put up signs like the “click it or ticket” ones but they would read texting = firery [sic] explosion and subsequent death (I tried really hard to make a rhyme work, but I couldn’t, so if you think of a good one, please share).

Another faux pas for Andrea to avoid -- for her Nov. 27 post on the White House crashers, we have the couple's genders reversed (Tareq is the husband, Michaele the wife):

It's true, Tareq looks like she could probably sneak past anything without being seen, but hey, that's what models do I guess. Michaele on the other hand, has a little more umph to his belly but perhaps he hid under her dress.

Or stating, in her Oct. 12 post, that "self-help author James Ray" is the "writer of the book The Secret" (he was featured in the movie version; Rhonda Byrne is credited with writing the book).

Ditto for her Nov. 10 post in which "As you can see in this video..." refers to a jpg (as does her Oct. 19 post on the Balloon Boy hoax). Or her Oct. 26 post -- "If you have a car in Chicago, you better be weary" (er, wary).

This is not to seem trivial or picky. Mistakes happen... and matter. It would be to Andrea's benefit to double-check each post before clicking "Publish." You don't want errors like these to distract from such intelligent, assured, and entertaining content.

Rebels with a Cause

In my Oct. 14 post, I listed my tips for a memorable blog. The blogs I admire are

• intelligent
• authentic
• unique
• well linked
• frequently updated

I used these criteria in evaluating Rebels with a Cause -- "a little blog dedicated to the big ideas of Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller" -- authored by Caitlin (Caity) Barillas. (Like Professor Schiff, I'm still waiting to see how Sam Fuller figures into the equation. BTW -- Sony just released the Samuel Fuller Collection, containing seven of the director's "lesser known" films.)

Intelligent

Throughout the blog, I was impressed by the writing. Caity's approach is thorough, her points well reasoned. As important, Caity has a way with words. In every post, you'll find an inspired turn of phrase (for example, in the Oct. 22 post on The Lusty Men, Caity states that "there are moments of genius nestled into places where I least expect it").

Authentic

Caity is clearly passionate about/emotionally invested in the subject. In her discussion of In a Lonely Place (Oct. 1 post), Caity remarks

There is one moment that is and will forever be one of my favorite moments in film. When Dixon is sitting at the table in the restaurant after he proposed to Laurel and she walks over to the table, he knows something is wrong. His vulnerability in this moment, that one look, stopped me. It actually hurt to watch and I felt something I’ve never felt in the movies before. It’s unexplainable after that, but I would say it’s one of the most breathtaking scenes I’ve ever seen.

Unique

For me, this is where Rebels stumbles. Each post comes across as an essay for a class -- as something obligatory or required rather than organic. I asked myself if these posts would be better suited for assignments, intended for a course instead of the (much) broader blogosphere.

Also, although I value Caity's experience with and reaction to some important (and not so important) films, there's already a treasure trove of material written about these directors and their works. If I was a casual surfer, I'd have a host of questions:

• Why would I go to Caity's site when I can spend countless hours seeing what film scholars have to say?
• What fresh edge or insights does she have to offer?
• Is she providing a perspective or school of thought unavailable anywhere else?
  

It's the perennial challenge of tackling a well-trod topic -- what new/remarkable info can I bring to the table?

Well Linked

To her credit, Caity includes visuals and videos that complement her content (though I agree with Professor Schiff that uninterrupted blocks of text can get intimidating). I see little evidence, however, that the blog is more than a personal exploration of a director's oeuvre.

Without links, Rebels is in danger of seeming insulated (and uninformed). How is Caity's "take" on the subject reflective of a wider universe, part of a larger critical discussion?

• Did she survey the literature on Ray and Fuller?
• Is she familiar with varied interpretations of their work (how have other critics weighed in, what areas have been traditionally -- or are currently being -- debated, etc.)?
• Are there other themes or issues to consider?
  

In short, did Caity do her homework? This is key to the relevance and credibility of the blog.

Frequently Updated

It seems that, like many of us, Caity came out of the gate strong (with several posts on one day), then settled into a once-a-week schedule (I noticed that there's a two-week gap between the most recent -- Oct. 23 and Nov. 5 -- posts). Speaking frankly, the frequency makes me wonder how committed Caity is to the topic and if she has the diligence/material to sustain her blog.

*****

In closing, Rebels with a Cause shows that Caity definitely has the chops for writing but, after she exhausts the Ray/Fuller axis, may want to pursue a different, less scrutinized subject.

Trip Advisor Is a Trip

"I'm a good worker and a hard worker, but I'm a world-class vacationer." - Woody Harrelson

I'm no world traveler (haven't been on a plane in years) and wouldn't qualify as a world-class vacationer (the PDGF -- Party Down Get Funky -- gene skipped a generation). However, being unemployed and penniless, I am bargain-conscious, which can help when you're planning a vacation.

Not that I'm planning a vacation (we're staying home for the holidays). But if I was, I'd consult TripAdvisor.com.
As the site trumpets, when you join TripAdvisor, you can

Enjoy all the benefits...

• Plan Your Trip. Save hotels, attractions, reviews and more. Customize and organize your trip, then print it and take it with you.
  
• Tell your stories. Share your vacation reviews and local insights on our new Inside Pages.
  
• Join our community of nearly 5 million members. Connect with other travelers in our forums or by asking questions one-on-one.
  
• Stay in the loop: get weekly deals, reviews and news on any destination you choose from our TripWatch newsletter (optional).

All you have to do is register. Which I did (using my now-infamous pseudonym). After registering (a quick, painless process), I received this greeting:

Thank You for Joining

Interested in great travel deals? We recommend...

Airfarewatchdog – Cheap flights from Chicago, IL/O'Hare Change city Change city Save city

From:

TripAdvisor Deals – Weekly specials, late-breaking offers, & last-minute sales

Cruise Critic – The latest cruise deals & news

Smarter Travel – Tips, news, savings, & more from expert travel editors

Family Vacation Critic – Advice, bargains and reviews for family trips

Perhaps foolishly, I passed on these options (as well as "Connect with Facebook") and went "Back to TripAdvisor."

From the homepage, you can Plan the Perfect Trip -- select a destination and find flights, hotels, restaurants, attractions. You can also use/peruse a forum pertaining to your destination. Staying close to home, I chose Madison, Wisconsin.










For whatever reason, the Madison forum isn't very active. There was only one question posed:

Our son wants to check out the University of Wisconsin. So we're hoping sometime in the next few weeks to drive up early on a Saturday and stay until Sunday afternoon. Any suggestions for a reasonable hotel/motel? Preferably with an indoor pool. Would also love restaurant suggestions. Thanks.

... and only two responses (both of which, to be fair, seemed generous and helpful). Unfortunately, this sole "conversation" took place in 2004.

There are Spotlight Destinations. Or you can Browse by Destination. Or, if you're unsure, you can click on Inspire Me. I chose Best Romantic Vacations - Europe ("no other city says romance like Paris"). The top four locales (after Paris) are Venice, the Riviera, Budapest, and the Greek island of Corfu. What surprised me is that Budapest ("Buda and Pest, the two distinct halves of the Hungarian capital, cling tightly together on either side of the river Danube") was the only destination that went beyond the tried and true.









At least in these lists, you have to be content with the "usual suspects." If you're looking for something off the beaten path (like "Skiing in Morocco"), Lonely Planet may be a better bet.

For the heck of it, I tried the site's Search feature, typing in one of my favorite restaurants: Rosangela Pizzeria in Evergreen Park (okay, so my tastes are a bit pedestrian). It got a four (out of five) star rating... but only one review: "This place is great atmoshpere [sic] and better food. Mr. Rizzi is a great host." This is authentic as far as a South Sider speaks but I don't know whether it'd convince a tourist to drop by. If Rosangela's doesn't do it for you, a sidebar lists other decent restaurants in the area. (If you're talking about true Italian cuisine, the restaurant reviews for Tuscany are a little more elaborate and eloquent.)

The site contains a wealth of Traveler Reviews. Unfortunately, these tend to be uniformly positive if not effusive. (Maybe if you search hard enough for a dive...). At least you know what -- and where -- the quality establishments are so you don't end up somewhere that's like an outtake from Hostel or Turistas. (FYI - According to Rotten Tomatoes,"Hostel is a wildly entertaining corpse-filled journey." Turistas doesn't fare as well -- "wooden acting" and a "stale and predictable plot." Yes, hard to believe in a horror movie...)









In short, TripAdvisor offers oodles of information -- photos, maps, deals. It's colorful and comprehensive, with links to a plethora of relevant sources. I'd definitely recommend it as a resource (if I could afford to take a trip). However, it may not be the ideal site for someone who wants more of a man-on-the-street critique. Which brings us to my chief contention -- the site seems more conventional/promotional than distinctive/quirky. It lacks personality. It doesn't have that individual, out-of-the-ordinary twist (like a good horror movie).

I give TripAdvisor four out of five stars (it could be less staid, more eclectic). But take my review with a grain of salt... or a whole rim of grains if you're in that Spotlight Destination -- sun blazing, mariachis playing, margarita in hand.