Don’t Fear the French Police

Often, it surprises me how worried adults get about the idea of children reading or watching things they shouldn’t. Granted, there is cause for concern in the land of naughty programming, but from my own memories of being small, kids self-censor remarkably well. This is because, to the average six-year-old, adults are indescribably boring people interested in equally boring things. I remember sitting down to watch a movie my father had taped off air as a child and, not knowing how to fast forward, being incalculably uninterested in a volatile political debate between Kerry O’Brian and Bob Hawke (as my adult-memory suspects the participants were) which was tacked on at the start. My comprehension wasn’t that they were talking about Adult Things, and therefore I didn’t understand – rather, they were talking about Adult Things, and therefore I wasn’t interested.

Ultimately, the distinction hinges on curiosity. Kids don’t like the idea of not knowing things. Admittedly, it’s hard to conceive of an instance in which the six-year-old me might care about politics, but that’s the point of self-censorship: what kids don’t understand – or, more importantly, what kids don’t realise they don’t understand – they rationalise. Just like adults, really.

Thus, I used to think that avant gard meant the French police, and that song lyrics referencing coke meant fizzy-drink. I wasn’t quite sure why punks and urban gothics would want to ‘store’ coca-cola, but perhaps they thought they’d run out. (I was sixteen before I listened again, realised the proper word was ‘score’, and went: ohhhhhh.)

Human Cuckoos

Back in Ye Olde Shakespearean times, there was a fantastic word for what happened when one man shagged another man’s wife: cuckolding. Contrary to how it might sound, a ‘cuckold’ was the injured party, while the wife-snatcher was said to have ‘put horns on another man’s head’. Although I can’t vouch for the origins of this latter colloquialism, cuckold was aptly inspired by the French word for cuckoo – that is to say, a bird which lays its eggs in other birds’ nests.

So on that note, let’s talk about Pete Doherty – or, more specifically, his none-too-subtle appearance in this article on bad boys. More specifically still: the fact that, in keeping with popular mythology, they apparently do get all the girls.

Short term, anyway. According to new extensive research, males who exhibit dark characteristics such as narcissism, deceitfulness and thrill-seeking do better in the mating stakes; or, to quote researcher David Schmitt, “They are more likely to try and poach other people’s partners for a brief affair.”

The success of cuckoo bird species is, biologically speaking, ingenious: have all the fun of mating with another cuckoo, find some poor devoted wren or smaller bird, replace their eggs with your own and fly off into the sunset. In times past, one suspects this tactic might have worked well for cuckolds of the human type, too, thus ensuring these traits were passed on – but that was before contraception.

Which raises the question: if treacherous, deadbeat cuckolds remain a genetic mainstay despite our ability to block their genes from the pool, is it because we’re stupid? Or are they all just sneakier than we thought?

Going Native

Surfing online yesterday, I ended up reading about Generation Y and our relationship to digital technology. We are (said Wikipedia) Digital Natives, having grown up with video games, computers,  the internet and mobile phones, compared to Generation X (Digital Adaptives), the Baby Boomers (Digital Immigrants) and the war-era Builders, or Silent Generation (Digital Aliens). Strange and old-timey as the phrase ‘I remember when’ makes me feel, I do remember life before the internet, digital cameras, flatscreen TVs and mobile phones, however barely. There was a dot matrix printer and early Mac in my Year 1 classroom; a favourite passtime was removing the twin perforated strips from the printer paper and twisting them into a concertina-worm. In Year 4, good students were allowed to play Sim City 2000 at recess or lunch, begging coveted knowledge of the godmode password – which unlocked unlimited resources and special building options – from a privileged few. Apart from the pre-installed features on our old family Osborne computer, the first game I ever bought was Return to Zork. Up until that point, I’d thought the graphics on Jill of the Jungle and Cosmo were far out; but this reset the whole scale.

My mother’s first mobile phone was a brick, bigger than the average landline receiver and three times as heavy. Digital cameras didn’t start becoming commonplace until the mid-nineties; previously, you paid for film and took random shots of the family pet to use up the end of a roll before development. When it finally became clear that traditional cameras were being outmoded, there was a rash of media worry about the economic and social consequences – not from a technological perspective, but because Kodak and others were forced to lay off thousands of photo lab staff. I remember when laser printers were new and fax machines a strictly corporate affair. But ancient as all that reminiscing makes me feel, it’s nothing to the realisation that my own children won’t know a time before Tivo, Facebook, 3-D graphics, game consoles with internet access and iTunes. Hell – they won’t even know about VHS, walkmans, discmans and cassette tapes, unless someone tells them. Generation Z is already partway there.  

All of which shouldn’t surprise me, if I’d ever stopped to think about it. But most people tend to assume, however unconsciously, that certain types of knowledge remain static: that no matter what social, political or technological developments occur in their lifetimes, everyone will always know what came first, because they do: it’s just paying attention, isn’t it? But when technology becomes outdated or old customs are cast aside, they don’t stick around and explain themselves. Outside of history lessons or personal curiosity, the next generation just won’t realise – and to a certain extent, it’s wrong to expect they will. Not everyone cares about history, although perhaps they should; but even then, not all of it is relevant. Does Gen Z actually need to know about non-digital cameras in order to function? Are we really taking consoles for granted if we’ve never seen 8-bit graphics? More relevant than such minutiae, surely, is an awareness of social privilege, and the fact that we have no innate entitlement to the status quo.

But people will get bogged down in details. Often, older generations interpret this non-knowledge of younger people as deliberate impudence, and subsequently refuse to become complicit in the new technology. Others find it intimidating, or assume that the only obvious applications must be personally irrelevant or childish, pertinent only to younger people. There’s some truth to the saw about old dogs and new tricks, particularly given the vast removal of digital technology from anything in my father’s Builder generation, and individuals shouldn’t be forced beyond their comfort zones. But in many cases, it’s simply hard to perceive how a new tool can help when the use for which it’s intended is similarly foreign. When my parents first started to talk about getting the internet, I remember thinking, with typically childish conservatism, ‘What use could it possibly be?’ Because until you’d seen the concept up and running, it was almost impossible to comprehend. (After all, the creator of television intended it for educational purposes, and envisaged no scope as an entertainment outlet.)

There’s always going to be new developments, and it’s silly to expect that everyone keep up with the technocrati. Ultimately, we need to keep our own knowledge in perspective, because not all information is timeless. There’s something wonderful in the ability to witness change, and at the current rate of technological advancement, those of us in Gen Y are ideally placed to realise exactly how far we’ve come in how short a time. But until another half-century has come and gone, we might do well to impose a moratorium on tech-history anecdotes.

After all, ‘I remember when’ doesn’t sound nearly so authoritative without bifocals and false teeth.

Websites For Crazy People

Why is it that crazy cultist websites always look like they were made in MS Paint by a self-flagellating epileptic? Is there a bigger visual banner you can wave to announce your lunacy than one involving bright red moving text over a tiled picture background? Does being a conspiracy theorist preclude good taste? Or are they even crazier than we thought?

The first time I encountered the lizardman theory, it was written in bright purple on a blue background, haphazardly left-justified, intererspersed with underlapping photos of crystal caves and put together by a chick called Raven. Coupled with the utter absurdity of the argument, her frenzied layout stayed fixed in memory long after the site had ceased to exist – which perhaps was the point. The above link is equal parts garish and insane, and should not disappoint. (I’d pick a favourite quote, but it’s difficult to choose between Angela Lansbury being a lizard-person, a self-confessed starseed from the Pleiades system, and a warning not to let lizardmen live in your aura.) 

Jack Chick rates a mention, if only because his content is so palpably borrowed from the Land of Screaming Lobotomies. Unless you have a high pain threshold for ignorant religious polemics, I’d keep well clear, as this brand of nuts has a tendency to choke the consumer on their own bile. Note the cluster of videos and busy graphics near the top of the page, followed by columns of miniscule text – plain fare, compared to other examples, but still far from commonsensical.

Giant headshots of the Glorious Leader are another mad staple, as in the Raelian movement. This group believes, to paraphrase bluntly, that God is an alien who parted the Red Sea via space-based laser cannon. (Extra points for combining aspects of orthodox Judaism, intelligent design and Indian mysticism in the one go.) Hutaree, by contrast, features old-school, rapid-scrolling Bible quotes, apparently as a means of inciting people to join the U.S. military in preparation for the End Times. Spooky!

Conspiracy theories surrounding the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre are rife. This stunning example boasts a bold visual contrast between black and yellow backgrounds, red borders and almost two full pages of blank white space – classy! Toss in a reference to fake planes and an opening statement of defiance against the propagandising of media cartels, and you’ve got a recipe for obsolescence.

Finally, no list of internet weirdness would be complete without a reference to Atlantean reiki healers. The idea that there was a technologically advanced, spiritually enlightened, crystal-power-source-using society in the ancient Medieterranean is an oldie but a goodie, and one that shows no signs of dying out. Note the DaVinci picture insert at top right, suggesting a subtle Dan Brown influence.

Of course, if you want to read about past-life Atlantis from someone who clearly doesn’t realise that Traci Harding writes fantasy/fiction, there are other avenues of inquiry.

 

Note: This post began life as a comment on Sean Wilson’s blog.

Garfield Minus Garfield

I’m not quite sure what mindset leads an individual to digitally erase the protagonist from one of the world’s most renowned comic strips, but damned if I don’t want in.  

The resulting creation – Garfield Minus Garfield – is hilarious on several different levels: the absurdity of the idea, the knowledge of what (or who) is missing, and the fact that Jon Arbuckle is clearly weirder than a bucket of mixed frogs. It’s this last point which really startled me: the idea that, once you remove Garfield from the picture, Jon’s comedic value switches from clowning to pathos. Maybe the presence of a sentient, anthropomorphised cat distorts reality to the extent that Jon, by contrast, can only ever appear as a punchline – more akin to Odie than Garfield, who ends up the only ‘person’ we sympathise with.

But Jon hasn’t actually changed. Half the dialogue has been erased, but not half the conversation – because Garfield doesn’t talk. Instead, his internal commentary, often on Jon’s behaviour, has ceased to be the focal point of the strip, with the result that we now see Jon as he actually is: a bizarre, lonely man with a fetish for pairing socks. Which, in an odd way, should shame all those people – myself included – who laugh at normal Garfield strips. Jon Arbuckle clearly needs help, and what do we do? Mock him.

Thinking about it, there’s almost a Fight Club-esque relationship between Jon and Garfield. Like Tyler Durden, Garfield lives the life that Jon – our story’s Ed Norton – only dreams of. He sleeps in, finds contentment in simple pleasures, breaks the rules, has luck with the ladies, picks on Jon, gets along with the Arbuckle family, and generally has a good time. Sometimes, Garfield speaks for Jon. And, like Tyler Durden, when considered objectively, it seems more likely that Garfield doesn’t actually exist: that all we’ve been watching is the Jekyll/Hyde transformation of a deeply unhappy man. Liz the vet, Jon’s long-time almost-paramour, even looks like Helena Bonham-Carter.  

Of course, Jim Davis and Chuck Palahniuk might disagree. But who asked them?

GropeFest 2008

Lord only knows why, but I took an online careers test today. Caught in the whimsy of some fey mood, I Googled careers direction and clicked on the first matching result, a site called Groper. It was of small comfort, after a moment of linguistic disorientation, to realise this referred to a type of fish, given that:

a) there is no discernable link between fish and career development, unless you are Unhygenix the Gaul; and

b) the blue Groper mascot, Gus, was talking to me.

This last was cause for real concern, because it implies that someone, somewhere wants to discuss job options with a cartoon Achoerodus viridis. Still, the murky waters of Internet have thrown up far stranger specimens than good ol’ Gus, and after reading through six speech-bubbled statements, I found myself invited on a fishing trip. As there was no option for ”Sod off, Groper,”  I contented myself with clicking next, which, after more laborious dialouge, saw me redirected to…the About page. 

Scrolling down through the multiple types of ‘Career Interests Profiler’ on offer (ranging from the free Mini Report to the $179.95 Complete Report + Myers Briggs Personality Indicator + Course Reccomendations Report), I finally found a link to Start the Career Interests Profiler – or, as it might be phrased in more natural English, take the damn test.

Continuing the piscine theme, the first section was called – ta-dah – The Reef. As in, the place where fish swim. What followed was a check-box list of career-specific options for me to approve or dislike; and by ‘specific’, I mean ‘study the effects of environmental pollution’ and ‘diagnose and treat a neck and back injury’. Neck and back injury? That’s just bein’ fancy.

Having finally decided that ‘navigate and supervise the operation of a ship’ was unrepresentative of my career ambitions, I left the Inner Reef for the Outer. Here, I was asked to rate my interest in various industries. Would I like to work in engineering? Child care? Jewellery design? As I ticked ‘no’ to Emergency Services, Gus blobbed merrily in the top corner, evincing Groperish concern for my wellbeing, if not my answers. ‘Are you wearing your life jacket?’, his speech-bubbled asked.

Lordy.

Next up was The Rip (‘Watch out for the fast current!’), where I rated the importance of things like teamwork, reliable income and creativity to my job. It was a refreshing sojourn into relevance, but shortlived: The Deep Sea was next. Grinning, Gus bobbed above the questions. ‘Sharks frequent this area!’, he cheerily informed. With leaden eyes, I turned to a third set of career-specific questions. Did I want to be a police officer, plummer or financial analyst, Gus queried?

My inner monologue was not kind.

Finally, I reached The Island, where – contrary to popular belief – Ewan McGreggor and Scarlett Johansson were not waiting to feed me intravenous nutrients, although I certainly could’ve done with some. Instead, I was asked to choose from five activities or short courses I would like to enroll in over the next 12 months. Options included Cake Decorating, Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Spirituality, although – alas! – not all three at once. I made my selection, tried not to think about the potentially curve-wrecking consequences of Spanish or pilates, and submitted.

Bizarrely, the fish-theme extended to the mini report. According to the six career profiles, I would be termed an Octopus (hands-on), Rainbow Trout (creative), Seal (analytical), Dolphin (social), Marlin (ambitious) or Sea Turtle (organised). Perhaps even stranger than these categories was the fact that their descriptions all hinged on character traits, something the test hadn’t even pretended to cover. Presumably, then, my personality was being retro-guessed from my job preference – pretty dicey stuff, given the early reference to Myers Briggs, but as a woman taking careers advice from a coastal Australian fish, I was clearly in no position to throw stones.

My hard efforts were rewarded with the label of Rainbow Trout. (Curiously, ticking ‘extremely uninterested’ for each question results in being called an Octopus, although it’s not clear on what grounds.) Thus satisfied, I dismissed Gus from my browser, opened and ignored the three emails Groper had sent me since logging on, and slipped back into reality, now firm in the belief that, when it comes to online tests, it’s best to employ a catch-and-release policy.

Still, the test wasn’t a total write-off. As a Rainbow Trout, I’m ideally suited for life as an original, autonomous, documentary-making florist, which sounds a whole lot better than admin assistant.

 I wonder how that looks on a resume?

A Double Jenova, Thanks

Hold on to your mittens, kittens. Not since the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster have geekery and alcohol crossed paths in such a pas de deux of awesome as they will the next time I play bartender.

Behold my revelation: Final Fantasy themed cocktails.

Breathtaking, isn’t it? Imagine: dark, brooding Leonhearts; tropical Zidanes; a whiskey-based Tifa that kicks like a mule. Aeris would be strong, but girly – champagne and hibiscus, with a dash of vanilla-infused vodka. Set alight, a mix of brandy and bourbon poured over ice might be a Sephiroth or One-Winged Angel, while Jenova could kill you outright: vodka, absinthe and tequila shaken with citrus and served straight-up. Lulu would be dark, but subtle: kahlua, chocolate liqueur and frangelico with cream and shaved chocolate. Cloud would refresh: apple-infused vodka with soda, lime and vermouth. Auron needs must involve rum, kahlua and coke, but an Eidolon would be kinder: midori, brandy and lemonade with a lemon twist.

Merciful Squaresoft. I’ve gone and made myself thirsty.      

As In The Ancient Scrolls

And just like that, it starts.

I’ve got plans for this blog. Plans, even, with a capital Pee. Twisted, Machiavellian Plans, forged in the smouldering heart of a demon star, destined to tear apart the very fabric of worlds.

I’ve already said too much.