Red vs. Blue
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on November 10, 2008 by admin in Popular Media
Monday, November 10th, 2008No, not THAT red vs. blue. The one that knows it’s funny.
Our quadrennial fascination with red vs blue (here’s an interesting NYTimes map, by the way) reminded me of the brilliant machinima web series Red vs. Blue that debuted back in 2003. After taking a look back at a few episodes (many clock in at around 2-3 minutes) I realized they hold up pretty well, in spite of the media used to create the series. I’m no machinima fan (please, if you know of other machinima this clever, let me know) but the almost existential humor the creators utilized was actually perfectly suited to the stiff, personality-less medium of the Halo game engine. There are episodes that still make me laugh out loud. I recommend starting at Episode 1, as the feel and characters evolve over time. Jumping into later episodes would probably feel like tuning into a fan-driven TV series at the end of its run. This really isn’t just nerd stuff; the Lincoln Center’s film society for instance, described Red vs. Blue as “truly as sophisticated as Samuel Beckett.” As a Beckett fan I might not go that far, but it is pretty damn clever. Although most episodes can be found on YouTube, they look and sound much better in the Windows Media or Quicktime formats found at the Red vs. Blue web site.
We Used To Call It America
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 13, 2008 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Monday, October 13th, 2008What’s red and blue, but black and white anyway?
I like to dream that some day we’ll have green and yellow and orange states. The mind-numbing simplicity of our blue and red ones is killing me. Am I a flag-burning weepy artist type who wants to hug a tree while I tax the hell out of myself so I can have decent health care and feed the lazy, or am I a wealthy, heroic, bomb-dropping entrepeneur whose family is proud they haven’t paid a penny in taxes since 1930? Am I a cool jock type who plays football and gets the chicks even though I treat them like crap, or am I a nerdy, philosophizing art-school dropout who’s single ’cause I still feel badly about that last girl? Am I popular, pretty, and stupid? Or am I an outcast, a little different-looking, and snobbishly intellectual? Am I red, or am I blue?
Well, frankly…neither. I’d probably live in the brown state (some muddle of all the basic color options), where we found a balance between having enough for ourselves because we were motivated, and taking care of others because we were actually kind in nature. Where inventiveness and a “maverick” spirit led to anti-gravity cars and an actually healthy way of living, rather than an obsession with archaic combustion engine technologies, holes in the ground spewing black oil, and a lifestyle of gluttony and excess that inspires bizarre medical practices like liposuction.
Or the spectrum state (rainbows were co-opted by special interests a long time ago), where people of different beliefs and lifestyles respected a simple common value: respect others’ beliefs, and when you disagree, discuss things reasonably.
Oh, wait. We used to call that America.