Read/Reax

An internet phenomenon, or human nature?

I call it "Read/Reax," though I suppose it could also be "see/reax" or "listen/reax."

We've all done it, some more than others. How it works, is we consume some kind of information, and then produce a reaction to it. Read, and react.

The original form of this kind of expression was likely literary criticism. Aristotle wrote the Poetics, Plato attacked poetry altogether, and there is an overabundance of literature on Christian/Jewish/Islamic texts. For film, the most renown and influential criticism is probably from the small French magazine Cahiers du cinéma, highlighted by the film works of their writers Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut. As for music, there has been criticism of the classical kind for hundreds of years, though most prominently the Musical Times, but most of popular music "critique" probably comes from something derived of Rolling Stone magazine.

Back in the "old days" (like, 10 years ago) we used to just call that a review, and it might have come in the form of a book review, or film review, or album review. A critic listens to an album, watches a movie, or reads a book, and reacts. You'd read these reviews in magazines, or in newspapers. Maybe you'd even hear a "review" on the radio, or watch a goofy looking dude on your local news station give a "review" of a movie he just watched before you did.

The difference is that criticism, especially literary criticism in the classical sense, was an academic and cerebral affair with analysis. Today, we're more or less just talking about an immediate response.

I believe there is still room in this world for professional critics, especially good writers with scholarly insight. Simultaneously, it thrills me that everyone is given a voice of expression if they want one. After all, the internet has brought us closer to democracy, right? We all get a voice if we want one, we all get a vote if we want one, and that vote is equal.

Internet reactionism appears, to me, to have flourished as the 'i-generation' has finally come into its own. I've noticed two trends from this new 'i-generation':

- One is that we've begun to consume news differently. While literary, film and music 'reactionism' are probably still the most common and popular types of 'consumption-reaction,' we aren't limited to these topics anymore. News is now consumed not as knowledge, but as something closer to entertainment, and we respond to it not as a valued piece of information, but as a product to react to.

- Second is that, if news is to be considered more of a product than as valued information, then ANYone can react to it. We're moving away from the days of "water-cooler talk," and instead, reactionism is in print, because ANYone can put it to print, right here, on the internet. So now, someone can take a column, or a quote, or an article, or a really cool video, and, just, react. No insight, no "critique," just unsolicited, blindingly-entitled, opinion.

Read/Reax: Evolution or Degradation.

You Are My Daughter (Part 2)

Part 1

In High School 'Livejournal,' the awkward socially inept pre-pubescent cousin of blogging, was a huge part of my social circle. Not in the sense that we all became friends through the internet, we were a very close knit group of friends in real life, thank you - everyone just seemed to have one, and the concept became a part of our vocabulary. This was back when the internet felt just a little less public (which is an absolutely ludicrous premise in restrospect) and there was some degree of comfort that you had a pretty good idea of exactly who your audience was based on your 'friend's list.' Obviously, that turned out never to be the case. I often feel the need to write, but can't write without an audience, which has in the past led me to putting a few things out into cyberspace that maybe I ought to have thought better of first, or at least changed a few names. Livejournal certainly began that trend.

In my senior year of High School I transferred from JDS to Wootton and became friends with an entirely new group of people, including a girl named Marian. I met her for the first time outside on the front steps in the midst of a crowd just before a pep rally. She stood out, despite standing a foot or so below everyone else. She was tiny, vibrant, and exuding energy like a pixie, wood nymph, or sprite. I may well be romanticizing a memory, but she had a certain light in her eyes, a hopeful gleam that stood out in spite of a number of personal issues she dealt with. We became really close, and she was a good friend, and her boyfriend at the time went on to become and stay one of my best friends to this day.

At a certain point we started to lose touch, and I've been thinking about her quite a bit lately since I decided to write this story, but I haven't spoken with her in several years now and I'm not even sure how I'd get in touch with her if I wanted. She got more heavily into drugs, issues started to weigh on her more and more and that very pure youthful exuberance she had first got lost behind a cloudy haze and then seemed to slowly drain out of her until her face was a hollow looking husk of what it had once been. The last time I saw her she looked so old. I think she's out on a farm somewhere in the Mid West, if I remember correctly, and I hope she's happy. I very suddenly miss her and a lot of other people from that brief period of my life.

But sometime after she and my friend broke up and before she and I fully lost touch we made out a few times. And online, she had been flirting with my friend Denny a bit. So one night me, Denny, and our friend Drew were hanging out at Tower (oh how we miss you Tower, go to spot of Rockville Pike for twenty-something layabouts) - I think Den had just come home from school on break and none of us had seen each other in awhile. Neither Den or I had seen Marian for a bit so we decided to go visit her. Drew wasn't particularly thrilled with the decision because he just wanted to have a night with three of us, but he went along. On the long drive into the depths of deep potomac, where fellow Gent Scotty Maxwell makes his home, I think he wondered exactly what he had gotten himself into.

Drew wasn't known for his comfort and dexterity in new social situations, so Denny and I looked at each other in unspoken agreement. We pretty much knew one of us was hooking up with Marian that night, and so the other one would look after Drew.

We got to her parents' house (we had just started college and she was still in High School) and walked down to the basement to see a group of kids sitting around a hookah and drinking beer. This may not seem particularly strange, but in high school my group of friends once played a basement show at a house when someone shouted that they had found a whole fridge full of beer. There was a pause and then we asked if they had any lemonade. We never hung around drinking or smoking and seeing a group of kids bumming around drinking beer while her parents were totally home and apparently cool with was just weird. I remember Drew sitting down, taking a puff full of Hookah, and exhaling the smoke while saying 'Dude, I'm so Straight Edge' and at the same time giving me a look plaintively begging for us to leave.

There was me, Denny, Drew, Marian, a few others, and the brother/sister due of Ahmed and Yas. Ahmed was two years younger than me, and his sister was two years younger than him which made her a High School freshman who looked 12 years old. For a bunch of newly minted college kids this was getting a little weird. Ahmed was a total pothead who also hooked up with a LOT of girls in very impersonal ways - most of whom he met through Yas. The most famous anecdote is that a friend of hers was sleeping over, snuck into Ahmed's room to hook up with him, and he ended up having anal sex without even kissing her. How that happens, I really have no idea.

The basement layout was a set of stairs that led down into an open room where all the beer and Hookah was in plain view. To the side was an alcove that couldn't be seen from the steps where Mario Kart 64 was on. Denny and Marion start playing when suddenly Marian very loudly announces - "Denny, we're gonna race now. And if you win, I'm going to give you head. And if I win, I'm going to give you head."

Den and I look at each other. It's now officially my night to watch Drew.

I can't remember who won the game (Den is telling me now via AIM that he did) but I do remember her dragging him across the room to a closet or somesuch while everyone around the Hookah table cat-called at how good she was at giving head. The door closed and Drew and I settled in for a long night of Mario Kart.

Soon after, Ahmed started to stumble around drunk and almost hit the door where Marion and Den were getting to it. Yas called out "Don't interupt them!"
And in a violent rage I had NEVER seem him have until this moment Ahmed screamed back "Why is it anytime she's getting some you try not to bother her, but you go out of your way to interupt me!"

and which point the seeming twelve year old screamed back in a sad, lost little whine "because they're always my FRIENDS!"

Drew involuntarilly responded by making a high pitched gurgle of disbelief that dogs in PG County could have heard.

It was then that Marian's mom came downstairs looking for her. She was seemingly nonplussed by the the beer and the smoke. But she kept asking for Marian. At first - silence. Awkward, awkward silence. Then Ahmed, in full view of her, put his head to the ground and said in a fake high pitch girl's voice "What is it mom?"
More silence.

Then she said "Where's Schlafstein?"

Now remember, Drew and I are playing Mario Kart in the alcove and can't be seen. I have NO idea what she wants from me, and her daughter is currently giving my good friend a blow job in a closet. Nothing good can come of this.
I slowly peek my head around the wall.

"Where's Marian? What's going on here?" She asked.

"I don't know." I lied.

"Come on, I know you're the responsible one. I read your Livejournal."

Before I had time to process that particularly horrifying revelation, Denny walked out of the door DIRECTLY behind her, followed by Marian who either had her shirt on backwards or was still putting it on.

Her mom took one look at her and said -
"You are my daughter."
She laughed, and went upstairs.

Denny looked at me, looked at Drew, and said "So, we're leaving."

Marian said "You can stay,"

"No, we're gonna go."

And so we left. Drew made us promise never to make him go anywhere like that again.

That was when I first realized that you never know just who might be reading these - from potential employers, to your ex-girlfriend, or your friend's mom.

But it's okay, because I'm the responsible one.

Etsy: Support Local by Using Global

Sunday the 31st was my sister's birthday, and despite knowing for two weeks what I was going to get her, I didn't place the actual order until Thursday morning. Of course, standard shipping methods mean that her gift didn't get here until Tuesday, and I was forced once again to give a family member a computer print-out of their present, promising that it would be here soon.

On the off-chance that her gift might have arrived early, I signed into my Amazon.com account early Monday morning and pulled up the tracking info on the package - nope, still in transit from Delaware. Knowing this, however, sent me on a momentary, "How crazy is technology these days?" train of thought. I mean, I can barely imagine life before Amazon, but just a few short years ago, if I had wanted to get anyone a gift without driving to a store, I would have had to pick up a catalog and actually call in an order. On the phone. Which was attached to the wall. *Shudder*

But now we have the Internet! Global phenomenon! I can order a poster from Germany with just a few clicks of a button! (I accidentally did that once. I did not realize that the poster I was getting for my friend's birthday was coming from Europe, but once it arrived in German packaging, the $7.00 shipping charge did make a lot more sense.)

Should I though? I'd like to use this post to introduce the unfamiliar to a

website simply called Etsy. It's an "online marketplace" specifically for handmade items. Once upon a time those in the crafts business had to rely on booths at annual craft fairs and word of mouth to sell their wares. It was not the easiest way to make a profit. With the birth of Etsy in 2005, however, crafty folk could now join a global community of other crafters and get the word out about their oftentimes extremely unique products. Suddenly a localized hobby can have the potential to be a professional endeavor for crafters across the world.

I learned about Etsy in July when a family friend started selling her baked goods in her own online storefront. Marianne has always loved baking and dreams one day of opening a bakery. As

thehomebaker on Etsy, she has already started marketing her delicious cookies, breads, and other treats nationally, even though it will be another year or two until she is able to afford an actual site for her store.

When a family friend couldn't find infant-sized ruby slippers for a Wicked-themed outfit she was giving her niece for Christmas, she turned to Etsy, and had the most adorable shoes made to order. Unfortunately, those shoes got lost in the mail, so she talked to the creator, who rushed to make and send a replacement order just days before the holidays.

The Internet has made it very easy to make shopping a completely impersonal and commercial act. Find, click, buy. The most human contact you get from the exchange is signing for the package when the deliveryman comes. Etsy maintains the ease of buying and selling from home, but allows consumers to still interact with small business owners. You can support a local business that's down the street, or 2000 miles away, and find some really nifty stuff in the process.

Know of other online communities where local shops/artists/inventors/crafters can peddle their wares? These Gentlemen would love to hear about them! Please post them in the comments section so we can all support small businesses!

Interested in more information about the crafting community? Here's a great (albeit old) piece from the Baltimore CityPaper about the growing world of craftiness, focusing on a really awesome Etsy collective called the Charm City Craft Mafia: Craft Work: Local Crafters Prepare for the Holiday Buying Season

LOL! The internets...

Or is it "interwebz" now? I can never remember. Sometimes slang is stupid.

Either way, the internet has an interesting relationship to the real world/life (or "RL" to gamers and internet personalities). Psychologically and sociologically speaking, the concept of the human race collectively and continuously molding and shaping a digital near-universe of our own to use as we wish provides endless debate and discussion over the implications of this behavior. And, comically, despite philosophical differences across many groups, we managed to progressively model the rules of this universe after our own - creating laws to ensure that "territory" is doled out appropriately per country, tying the intangible to physical constructs such as server CPU's, and supporting movements to cut back on inconveniences, such as pop-up ads and spam. Create and control: it's kind of what we do. I would hypothesize that, if you could map out every possible avenue the web can take you, the result would almost perfectly superimpose over a map of the planet Earth. Should we be so surprised when this digital universe that we created has started encroaching on our own?

The internet's levees are breaking. I'm not talking about digital crossovers or wormholes through the internet or cyber-bio-virus-whatever (although, when teleportation for living entities is invented I'm certain the internet will be involved). Look at the progression web-based media has made - from amateur videos on youtube to full-blown independent web series. The writer's strike of '07 happened, giving birth to Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog - a 40-something minute musical independently created and (originally) marketed on the internet to circumvent bureaucracy and red-tape. Now, with the boom in marketable web-series and the "rise of Hulu," control is slipping from the grasp of high powered CEO's. Sure, they may try - Felicia Day's The Guild contracted with Microsoft for its second season, after all (though this only affected their distribution and, actually, upped their production value, so good for them!). However, high-

falutin' concepts like Nielsen ratings are starting to fall to the way-side. With the continuation of television shows with unsupportable ratings, like Fox's Dollhouse, both Hulu and DVR are proven to now have a considerable hold over the decisions agencies and corporations make. Yes, there are other factors to consider for this example as well - the continuation of Dollhouse could actually be an unofficial apology to Whedon's devout Firefly fan base (a fantastic show cancelled before it was even given a chance to stand). But, that still supports that a rating system several decades old is slowly rendered obsolete and company heads now have to contend further with their audiences - both online and not. Nielsen ratings used to be set in stone and the internet has turned them soft.

Of course, this post is completely devoid of discussions on social networking sites, the death of the newspaper, online retail, and blogging as one of the final free forms of artistic expression. How else will the internet inadvertently blend over into the real world? Feel free, Gentle Readers, to post below.

(Property of Promago.de)

P.S./weird thought of the day - Imagine a world where your Facebook profile develops consciousness and begins to believe that it could live your life, from the internet, better than you can. And, it wishes to render your living self obsolete in both the living and digital universe. You know, for efficiency's sake. Thoughts?

You Are My Daughter - Pt. 1

At our last meeting, Oz brought up something a little bit intimidating, although not totally unexpected - that during a recent job interview at a law firm, midway through the conversation they brought up "oh, by the way, we read your blog."

Well that's worth thinking about.

They happened to like the blog (why wouldn't they?), and they ended up making fun of John for being a Whedonite (a devoted follower of all things Joss Whedon). And given that our blog is full of intelligent and witty people writing mini-essays on a variety of contemporary subjects with the specific intention of being 'gentlemanly,' I suppose there's not much for us to be worried about. We stand by our words, we stand by our quality, and we stand by each other. It does, however, go to show the stakes of putting your name to your words in public - we potentially have a lot to lose.

I started thinking about that a lot, as I think it's fair to say that in my 'slice of life' stories I've exposed a great deal more about myself and my personal life than most of the other gents. Not to say that's either good or bad, or to say they haven't at all, but if it hasn't been about a comic book then chances are my posts are some kind of story or analysis about a specific area of my life - from the ranch, to my family, relationships, fears - I'm putting an awful lot out there, and sometimes that's easy to forget.

And to forget the consequences.

It's actually why you'll almost never read anything from me about Theater, and especially the DC Scene. Though certainly my foremost love and passion (that's right, the funnybooks are in fact second), that's also my career. My colleagues, my friends, my working environment, and I don't feel comfortable analyzing much of that here, especially in case it might come back to bite me in the ass when I'm lining up a gig.

But analyzing and presenting myself? I seem to do that all the time. And I wonder exactly how I'm presenting myself. If you just read this blog, how do I seem to you? What impression do you get? What do I give off to a potential employer, or admissions dean, or future lover who can easily find this site by a simple google search? Do I look smart and sensitive and come across as a creative and witty genius with words as my most advanced arsenal? Or am I just shooting myself in the foot? How does the me in person compare to the me on your screen? Sometimes I actually feel much more like 'myself' here than when I'm awkwardly hovering about not knowing what to do. (I wasn't aware that I 'hover' until this week but on thinking about it, it's not untrue - another in the list of habits and characeristics to undo about myself).

There's certainly no way to hide at this point. We've all exposed ourselves by doing this, and someone like me and John even more than others (there are NO other Jason Schlafsteins or John Ozkirbases out there - so as opposed to weeding through the multitudes of results for a 'John Smith' or even apparently a David Pratt, we're pretty damn easy to find).

All of which reminded me of the first time I became aware that writing for the internet really is writing for the public. The first time someone read my stuff that probably, really never should have.

Because you always remember your first time.

To Be Continued...