Thesis- The Clash used communication metaphors and incorporated innovative ways of disseminating information to the masses to become a “news giving group” rather than a “news making group”
-With Aural Ammunition-
“Its the best years of your life they want to steal…and they will”
This is how they get you to go go J-School. Anderson Cooper just rocks it. That good looking bastard.
If only real journalists looked this good
Ladies. You’re welcome.
I know blogs are supposed to be short and to the point, but as my last post alluded to, I am presenting a paper on Fallout 3 and the use of consumables in the game and Metaculture as explained by Greg Urban at BGSU’s Battleground States conference tomorrow. This is just a draft, a starting point, but I believe that the use of Nuka-Cola in the game redefines and moves the cultural significance inherit in the classic Coca-Cola bottle to a new end.
It's Explosive!
HEY LOOK AT WHAT I’M WRITING ABOUT!
In relation to Urban’s ideas on Metaculture, the creation of the Nuka-Cola brand in the game series Fallout is a new idea of an American product that not only parodies the real world but participates in a microcyclicity – where the absence of the former product works as a motivating factor to re-create it (Urban, 230). As Urban points out, “Newness itself depends on microcyclicity, as the old durable object loses its value. That value- if culture is to move through the world- must be carried over into a new object, one that does not look exactly like the old one,” (Urban, 231). The use of the image of Coca-Cola as “Nuka-Cola,” by both Interplay and later Bethesda in their Fallout games incorporates an old and relatively universal image into a new sphere. Used as a consumable, the image of the classic Coca-Cola bottle brings back an image of a world that once was in the context of a post-nuclear landscape, where survival outweighs the consumer image of the drink. The bottle is reintroduced and recreated as an artifact- one that replenishes HP for the player’s character, but also as an image of the world of the past.
ITS EXPLOSIVE!
holy fuck.
Usually, these two words are reserved for moments when I have realized that my world has either been a.) turned upside down, b.) irreversibly changed with the coming of the elder gods c.) that God and Morrissey are one in the same or d.) when Radiohead buries its sonic love deep inside me like I’m it’s own personal audio-slave.
We’re going to go with answer d this time around.
Creepy?Yes. Beautiful? Exactly.
Radiohead’s new album, King of Limbs, took me off guard. No, seriously, I forgot that Radiohead was releasing a new album digitally (like the rest of the world) a few days early, on Feb. 18. A close friend of mine told me of such news as I walked, pridefully, from a meeting earlier that day. Let me paraphrase:
Her: New Radiohead is out.
Me: O Rly?
Her: Ya Rly.
Me: -skeptical look-
“But Sean,” you might say as you look deeply into my eyes with love, “Its Radiohead, that’s almost like the Clash or Bad Religion to you, why you no go get album?!?!?!?”
It’s simple: I was an idiot, I have strayed from the path and in doing so I have seen the error of my ways.
I have come to the conclusion that those who are born in the summer should not be made to deal with winter ice storms. Its just not fair. I think that those wonderful people who, like myself, were born in the summer can agree- we gain our powers from horrendously warm days, empowered by the Sun’s rays.
Its one of the main reasons that I believe that seasonal depression exists. While there are ways to get around it I am often far too crippled to even deal with anyone (or anything) that would sap me out of such depression. Short days and unending snow/ice showers just make me want to take a flamethrower to anyone trying to make a snow angels with family and friends. Winter blows, its true, we all know it so why am I so….well…bummed (even this update is half-assed and slightly depressing)?
I think it goes back to the idea that my favorite memories have always happened in the summer. Its a nostalgic look back on what came before, yes, and I am probably looking too far into it but its just one of those things you notice. You were born in the summer, you have no school in the summer (unless you take summer classes…sicko), you find teenage love in the summer (often) and all the best things (besides football) happen in the summer (baseball, concerts, etc).
Maybe its because I am nearing 24, maybe its because I am in graduate school. Hell, maybe its because I am currently being snowed on by mother nature after a week of 50+ degree weather in Northwestern Ohio.
Yes, its that, Mother Nature gave me a week of beautiful weather, made me put away the winter clothing, and then hit me with a “wintery mix“- she is a foul mistress. Not a loving one at all.
Bring on summer you freaking bat.
Hi everyone, I know its been a while but I finally thought of something to write about. The main delay has been in relation to where I have mystically vanished to for the past year or so.
I have begun my journey as an academic. Yes, an academic- the kind that tries to attain that noble “Dr.” in front of their name and make a living in the Humanities. I am currently a graduate student in the Popular Culture Department of Bowling Green State University in…wait for it…Ohio.
So, you may ask, why would I one of the greatest journalist to ever grace the earth want to go back to school, probably for a good part of the next decade, just to attain a Humanities degree?
Would you believe me if I said it was for the money? Well, you’d be half right.
I’m not going to lie, I really want to teach (and I love doing it) and I really want to attain a PhD, tenure and retire as a well liked professor- but my student loans from Colby-Sawyer High School College were breathing down my neck like a nerd at the Playboy Mansion who just caught Legionnaires Disease (topical!). I wanted to go back to graduate school, I just never thought I would love it so much.
Which brings me to the point of this post- I am currently in the middle of writing my midterm for my Popular Culture Introductory Course. Yes, they have entrusted me with soft, fleshy and impregnable minds; and now I have to test them on their knowledge gathering ablities thusfar.
Oh, and on top of that I need to write a review for a Indian Middle Class book I am reading (and would recommend to anyone interested in the subject), figure out my proposal for my thesis (on The Clash and Communication Metaphors in their music, surprise surprise), and do all of my other duties as a young, hip, Graduate student.
Clearly I am insane, clearly my mother is worried about my financial future and hopes that I can work for a corporation in some way or another, and clearly I am having a helluva time actually acting like I am a twenty something for the first time in a long time (working two jobs, nonetheless two jobs with long hours seven days a week, is enough to want to play in traffic- and thank Touchdown Jesus that’s in the past).
So, hopefully I will be able to resurrect this blog in some substantial way. Stay tuned.
I have to say, this is some of the coolest art I have seen in a long time.
http://anniematronic.blogspot.com/
Annie Wu, A Baltimore-Based Graphic Designer definitely makes my list of awesone illustrations in a non-comic book role. Damn son. I’d love to see her do comics more often or even band posters.
I can’t say I found this on my own either. Thank god for Warren Ellis putting this up on his fantastic blog of awesome.
Pokestadium has a fun little trainer generator that lets you make your own pokemon trainer card complete with your favorite creatures and what you would look like in the PokeVerse.
Fedora? Check. Long Jacket? Check. Gengar and Nidoking? Doublecheck.
Heh. Fun times.
So, I know this is a few years old but man does Nerf Herder rock the Nerdcore in this video or what?
Ever since I’ve caught up with watching Big Bang Theory, I can’t get this out of my head. Thank you Nerf Herder for showing me how much of a geek I truly am!
Single/White/Geek
