Loud Loft

Was “Teenage Wasteland” . . . Now “Vast Adult Wasteland”

So I was at this odd little conference called “Return of the Tentmaker” a while ago. As part of the first speakers presentation we were asked to create a document that represented the significant events of our life . . . up to that point.

It could be a list of things, a narrative . . . or even an actual map. I came up with something that was a cross between a map from The Lord of The Rings and one of those Family Circus comics in which little Billy goes from point A to point B but takes the most circuitous route possible.

There was the adolescent era, the college age, the work and marriage period, the dark times of separation and divorce and the blessed period of reconciliation and various other spots on the map represented by mountains, valleys, rivers and whatnot.

In the middle, occupying the majority of the page was an area called “Vast Adult Wasteland”. This, of course, is a play on two phrases. The first is “Teenage Wasteland”, a line from The Who song “Baba O’Riley” and the second, “Vast Wasteland” is from a speech given to the National Association of Broadcasters in 1961 by Newton Minnow, the then Chairman of the FCC.

The former references waste in general (not necessarily getting “wasted” per se) and the later refers to what one would observe if they were to sit in front of their TV all day with their eyes glued to the screen.

I’ve seen The Who three or four times now and they play the song at every concert. The crowd always drowns out the line “Don’t cry, don’t raise your eye, it’s only teenage wasteland” (sung by Pete Townsend). It’s a seminal moment in classic rock & roll musicology - an admission that things may pretty much suck but somehow, against all odds, and without looking back - life is about moving forward.

As for the wasteland that Mr Minnow refers to (the boat in Gilligan’s Island was named in his honor - you must remember, this speech was given in 1961 - a very long time before the glut of channels with a constant stream of programming around the clock and he actually refers to TV stations actually signing off the air at the end of their broadcast day . . . how quaint) he recognizes the potential lost, the resources squandered, the opportunity missed when “crap is king” (another line from another song about TV) becomes the mantra for our life.

I spent a bit too much time in this Vast Adult Wasteland. I set aside potential, I spent resources unwisely and I watched opportunity leave the station . . .

I’ve decided no more. I’ve decided that my potential is precious, my resources not my own to toss down a rat hole and that opportunity not taken is horribly irresponsible.

I’m not entirely sure how this turns out - but I don’t think it’s too terribly important that I know in advance. I’m pretty sure Sally didn’t know either as she took his hand . . .

Ira Glass on Storytelling

Ok - in my nearly 30 years of trying to tell a story with images and sound, I've never heard such a concise wrap up of the trials and tribulations of doing so.

It's in four parts - but they aren't long. Here's the links

Part #1 Telling a story vs. writing a story
Part #2 Finding the story is as hard as crafting the story
Part #3 You have great taste, so you know your early stuff stinks. Don’t quit.
Part #4 Be yourself. Take it from a guy who obviously practices what he preaches.

There . . . 19 minutes of your life invested and you will understand more about this art form than after four years of higher education. Such a deal!

Disclaimer - I stole some of this from another blog site, The TV Weasel by Frank Capria. Check it out.

BTW Ira Glass does the radio show/podcast "This American Life" from PBS

God, politics and selling soap

So there’s been a thread over on Table & Fire titled “Apparently God Votes Republican”. It’s taken a few different directions over the last week or so but is centered on the question of “does God care who we vote for” and if so “what are His hot button issues” and do His priorities line up with the various political parties?

To me discussing God and Politics (and especially political parties) is like attempting to describe a pig using the terminology that you would use to describe a racehorse . . . you flatter the pig, insult the horse and confuse whomever your talking to.

If that type of discussion entertains you - here’s the link

Fox News recently celebrated being on the air for 10 years. Congratulations on creating a very effective means of “selling soap”. For some reason - lots of folks forget that the primary agenda of all mass communications - aint’ mass communications. It’s delivering an audience to an advertiser . . . and delivering value to share holders if it’s traded on the stock marker - or value to the principal owners/investors if it’s not.

People debate whether the media (and the news media in particular) are biased. Of course they are - all communication contains the beliefs, biases and prejudice of the person “telling” the story. To think otherwise is . . . well, unwise. An other point that is often debated is whether the media has an agenda AKA an “axe to grind”. Of course they do - but it’s not the axe you think.

The companies that spend all that money for staff, infrastructure, facilities and what not don’t do it to advance any other agenda than making money. They make money by aggregating an audience and selling access to that audience to yet another company that has a product or service that they want to tell people about.

Rupert saw an audience that he felt was under served, created a vehicle that would consistently deliver that audience . . . and has made a boatload of money. To think he has an agenda other than that is naive.

Never forget two things. The answer to the question “what is news?” is - “it is whatever the editor/publisher/writer prints, distributes or publishes” and the absolute bottom line that drives all media isn’t ideology . . . it’s selling soap.

Why we can’t see God

So I’m at this conference this week in Palm Springs (yeah, boo hoo for me).The first afternoon is the guy who “wrote the book” (no, seriously, he wrote the book) on image display devices . . . that would be TV’s and video projectors to you.

I’ve heard this guy speak a number of times in the past and he’s actually quite fascinating, very entertaining and I am able to continue my life long goal of being the dumbest guy in the room whenever I go to one of his presentations. . .

The first time I heard him speak he talked about the physical properties of the human eye, how there are three different types of “cones” in the eye and how they respond to color but the “rods” in the eye don’t care about color but are all about how much light they are getting (rods are what your eye is using in the dark to stumble around the room when the light is out - the cones are taking a break because all they care about is amount and type of color in the room). If you’re they guy when it comes to writing the book about image display devices it helps to understand what makes the eye tick . . . ok, the eye doesn’t tick - whatever.

This time he’s talking about how the eye tracks movement and follows motion. Of course he goes into how all the different types of TV’s that you can buy actually display movement and how the eye responds to these varying formats.

During the presentation a guy in the audience (not me - remember, I’m the dumbest guy in the room) asks the question “Does the eye process image movement and perform image tracking determined by the movement of the eye itself or by the movement of the object it’s viewing”?

In his answer the speaker told of an experiment that had been done. Remember those little slide viewers? The kind that is a little plastic box with a plastic screen, a battery operated light and a little slot on the top for the slide to drop into? Got that image? Now imagine one smaller than the rubber eraser on the end of a pencil. Now imagine it glued to an eyeball . . .

We know have an image that can be viewed (when we turn the little light on) that tracks in perfect synchronization with a human eye. Besides the obvious situation of having something glued to your eye - this relationship between image and eye does not normally occur in nature. Our eye’s are constantly moving even when we try to keep them still. In most cases our environment around us is constantly moving even when it seems still (there are some exceptions but they are relatively rare in our day to day life).

So, what happens when the researchers turned on the little slide projector? What did the subject see?

For a brief instant - the subject saw the image . . . and then it disappeared.

It seems that - even though everyone (including the subject) can clearly see that the object is clearly in his line of sight - the image is not there . . .

We are wired in such a way that when an object is moving in perfect sync with us - our brain can not process it’s image. Only when that object chooses to “step out of sync” can it be seen. We can’t step out of sync with it - no matter how hard we try, it’s always there . . .

I love when we find truth and we aren’t even looking for it.

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