(SPOILER ALERT - and a disclaimer. I've watched "X-Files: I Want to Believe" three times so far - the first time in a standard theater, and twice afterward on DVD. For some reason, I seem to rack up more complaints with each viewing. Maybe I should give it a rest, and revisit the film in a year or so to see how it has aged. Mind you this post comes from someone who considers The X-Files to be one the finest series to grace the Boob Tube, so my expectations may be overly high. Please take these words with a grain of saltpetre.)

Only if the screenplay makes it worthy of the investment in big screen running time and real estate. Case in point:"X-Files: Fight The Future" made excellent use of big-screen FX and integrated well with the Season 5 mytharc. "X-Files: I Want to Believe" was essentially a long-form MOTW episode, muddied by the fact there several monsters.

Which "monster" triggered more audience consternation? Was it the Russian "Frankenstein doctor," the dying gay assassin seeking a nubile female body upon which to graft his head (love the "Married in Massachusetts" throwaway quip), or the now-cliched pedophile priest who "castrated himself at 28"?

XF:IWTB might have worked better as a TV/cable movie/series reboot rather than a feature film. Granted, XF:FTF rode the series' popularity wave nicely (rather than "jumping the shark" - ouch) but oh, my, XF:IWTB could have been SO much better, even without aliens, the 2012 theme, or William.

As Garrison Keillor says in his Lake Wobegon tales: "It could have been worse." But not much.

Labels: movies, soapbox, x-files

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  Sadly, Haloscan, the commenting application Farkleberries has used for over eight years, will be shutting down operations in a few weeks. I received this notification in my inbox this morning:

Haloscan is being shut down on: Feb 11, 2010
The Haloscan hardware and software is physically failing and we have no choice but to discontinue the service. Two Options: Switch to Echo or Export your comments FREE.
Although we can't rescue Haloscan, we are trying our best to limit the negative impact on users. To do this, we have worked hard to provide 2 options for Haloscan sites.

For now, I'm exporting all comments for possible future use rather than switching to the replacement service, Echo, but I wanted readers to know that their past comments will likely disappear (at least for a time) from Farkleberries and my other Haloscan-supported sites as of 2/11/10. If you're a fellow Haloscan user, now's the time to export and backup.

Haloscan helpfully provides a link to the EchoWiki FAQ.

Labels: computers, news, soapbox

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  Greetings, Farkleberries fans: it's been a long time. While full time posting will not resume just yet, I've dipped my toes into the pool with Twitter's short and sweet 140-character limit.

Sometimes, less IS more.

http://twitter.com/reznicek111

Labels: soapbox, twitter

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  I have something a tad shameful to admit, and this blog seems the ideal place for a confession of this nature.

I have a laptop bag fetish.

Yes, while some women have a dozen pairs of strappy sandals in their closet, or get a momentary high from purchasing yet another cute little Coach bag - I love a nice boxy black laptop bag, with a comfy padded shoulder strap - with bonus points for leather and a RFI-protective cellphone pocket.

Some might say, "you only have one laptop, there's no need to own five different bags to schlep it around in."

My response to that argument is, "people who own a closet full of shoes still only have two feet." So there.

Labels: soapbox

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  No, dear readers, farkleberries has not ceased to exist - it has merely gone into a state of somewhat suspended animation. We hope to resume regular posting shortly.

In the meanwhile, I ask you for your interpretation of this dream:

I am standing in a stairwell with bright yellow walls behind a very short, hunched-over elderly person of indeterminate gender who speaks in an East European accent; I can't recall everything said, except for the fact this person mentions they are a Holocaust survivor. I never see this person's face. He/she is wearing a bright green crocheted wool beret that looks like a tree canopy, and a matching crocheted jacket with a tree trunk design, complete with white flowering buds and crocheted ants crawling up the brown wool trunk of the tree. I follow this person outside, into a slushy snow-covered supermarket parking lot (which looks suspiciously like da Jewels on Chicago Avenue in Evanston).

Suddenly, the tree-suited senior citizen is gone, and I see six foxes, evenly spaced several paces apart, skating (or cross-country skiing) in a straight line towards the north end of the supermarket lot. As they slide through the slushy snow, each fox turns sideways and glances at me.

Perhaps I should mention we've been watching Twin Peaks DVD's rather obsessively the past few weeks. The dream almost sounds like one of Agent Dale Cooper's apparitions..."brought to you by the letter....S!"

Labels: soapbox

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  Perhaps the most surprising thing about this news story from the UK is how unsurprising it seems today, in 2008:

A government database holding details of every phone call made, email sent and minute spent on the internet by the public could be created as part of a centralised fight against crime and terrorism, it emerged [May 20th]. News of the proposal prompted alarm about the country's growing surveillance culture and raised fears of "data profiling" of citizens. It follows on from plans for databases for ID cards and NHS electronic patient records.

Telecoms companies and internet service providers would be compelled to hand over their records to the Home Office under proposals that could find their way into the new data communications bill. The information would be stored for at least 12 months and police, security services and other agencies across Europe would be able to access the database with court permission. [Read full article in Guardian UK, and others, via Schneier on Security]

Which brings me to my main point. I've noticed an unsettling trend in the comment sections of blogs and websites reporting on intrusive government proposals like the one above.

I see fewer expressions of outrage at the idea that our private communications could be intercepted, monitored, shared and stored by government agencies - and more "what, are you paranoid?" joking, more "what's the big deal, everyone's doing it, get used to it" dismissals. Why should this be the case? Do we actually value our electronic privacy less today than we once did?

What I suspect is happening is a gradual downward shift of privacy expectations in this less-than-a-decade since 9/11, and public acclimation to pervasive surveillance. Being watched is no longer the exception: it's the norm.

Corporations routinely buy and sell our private personal and financial information amongst themselves, public spaces and private establishments surveil and record activity as a matter of course. Any time we enter a store, a bank, a sports arena, or an airport we expect to have our actions and movements electronically observed and recorded. When we dial a customer service number, the canned preamble more often than not warns us "this call may be recorded."

A friend whom I normally held to be an advocate of individual privacy rights recently offered the apologist's trope, that those who are guilty of nothing have nothing to fear by being watched. I found this surprising and a bit disturbing - after all, if our calls and emails are recorded, then yesterday's innocent act could become tomorrow's documented transgression. It also occurred to me that these days even I rarely notice the increasing number of dark, shiny watchful hemispheres on the ceilings and walls of nearly every store and public place I go. They're just there, like light bulbs and fire sprinklers.

Outside of our homes, we have virtually no expectation of privacy of action to speak of, but this broad proposal is different: it hits us where we communicate, emote, express, think. It's not just surveillance of behavior; it's the closest thing we have today to surveillance of thought.

You know, I think those commenters are right. We're starting to care less and less that we're being watched because we're all being watched.

Labels: security, soapbox, UK

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  For several years, without success, I've been trying to locate a copy of a beautiful wall poster that has hung for nearly thirty years on a family member's staircase wall. It's a Celestial Chart (catalog #1024-A) drawn by David W. Teske, printed in the early 1970's by a small Corte Madera, CA, publishing company named Pomegranate. The phone number and address listed in fine print at the poster's border are dead ends, but from following a few Google tracks, I suspect this company may have become Pomegranate Communications of Petaluma, CA. Unfortunately, they no longer carry this item.

The poster is about 4'x5' in size, printed in white and blue on heavy black background matte paper, has an intriguing characteristic: all the text is in regular typeface, except for the label "Pleiades," which is set in italics.

Anyone know where I could find a copy?

Labels: science, soapbox

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1. Earworms; especially those hatched from old Steely Dan or Duran Duran songs.
2. The Yebeg Tibs Watt I had for dinner.
3. Is Black Sigatoka fungus the reason we have no bananas in the house?
4. Our dog Sammy's flatulence after consuming an entire roast beef Nylabone™ (no relation to #2). "Organic!" plus "wholesome!" does not equal "odorless!"
5. Toasti Toes™ (see picture). It's like a David Lynch film: you know Super Mario the lumberjack and his axe are somehow responsible for those dismembered toes appearing in a toaster. "With Adhesive!" All the better to stick to your ribs, dearie! And why the hell is that rabbit skiing?
6. "Kenmore's on fire again!" Why do all the fire engines take a short cut down our peaceful street at night?
7. The concept of a Vice President named Huckabee.
8. Our upstairs neighbor moving furniture at 2:00am, because stylish interior design waits for no man (or woman).
9. The effect of Daylight Savings Time versus Earth's rotation slowing down.
   
10. Eliot Spitzer Admits Involvement in Prostitution Ring: was he bolstering NY's budget by running one? Then yes. Patronizing one? Meh; not so much.

Labels: humor, politics, soapbox

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  A: That's the #1 question I get about the blog. Actually, when I started the blog I tried other names, but for some reason all were taken on the Blogspot domain (clearly, I wasn't being very original). "Farkleberries" was the 6th or 7th naming attempt, and to my joy I found a unique name!

Well, it could have been called "trilled postalveolar fricative."

That's the linguistic name for the uniquely Czech consonant, Ř, which the first initial of my last name if I care to spell it correctly.

I think that would have been a lot worse.

By the way, the serpent-eating-its-tail logo on the right side of this page is an ancient Mesoamerican symbol called the "seven-segmented ouroboros." That name would be almost as unique...

Labels: soapbox

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  That's five whole years, not counting its earlier 2001-3 incarnation as Unzen Koans (now sadly deleted even from the Wayback Machine, alas). Actually, a number of pages (sans images) still exist at Archive.org.

Perhaps the posts haven't been spilling from these pages as quickly as they once have, but if you believe the adage that each picture tells a thousand words, farkleberries has been as wordy as ever - if not more so. Lately I've let my trusty little digital camera describe the scenes and sights around me. This red C7 bulb, all fiery glow to warm a winter's night, is part of my latest photo series on Flickr.

Coincidentally, as of tomorrow (Jan 11th) my thirties will leave the building. I am oddly relieved.

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been. ~Madeleine L'Engle

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it. ~Arthur Schopenhauer

As fellow Capricorn Elvis always says, thanggyaverramuch....

Labels: photo, soapbox, xmas

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  Perhaps you have been wondering about the scarcity of new posts here on Farkleberries for the past little while, and maybe your RSS feed hasn't been delivering very many fresh nuggets from this little corner of the Internet. There have been many major changes and business afoot (regarding work, school, and family) at Chez Farkleberries this summer that have occupied my attention - not the least of which is that I've just started law school, while continuing to work full time and commute back and forth across Chicago on a daily basis.

As a newly-minted 1L, life is freshly busy, crazy, exhausting and exhilarating. Many people have told me it takes a few months to "hit your groove," and I tend to believe them - at other times in my life when I've been faced with big changes, I've always been surprised at the human organism's capacity to adapt. Also in the equation is the fact I am significantly skewing the age distribution of my class upward, as a non-traditional age student.

During our introductory days, an administrator provided us with the Part Time Evening Division law class demographics, which indicated that for the 20th year in a row, more than half of the student body at my school was female - and the median age of incoming 1L's this year was 26. Considering the fact that the youngest students are likely at least 22, even if fresh from undergraduate work, I am a definite outlier lying a few standard deviations above the mean. But few worries about that...just a little grise, no so much eminence yet.

With all the brain work we'll be doing, I'm sure I'll have a lot to say along the way...

Labels: law, news, soapbox

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  On today's shooting of an Illinois sheriff's deputy, followed by a car chase and hostage-taking incident at a bank in tiny Arcola, Illinois, population 2,500, home of Old Order Amish and hometown of the author who created Raggedy Ann and Andy - a modern day Mayberry -

"These things happen in big cities, not a little town like Arcola," said [an eyewitness]. "You don't think it will happen in your town."

Unfortunately - oh, yes, they do. The Arcola incident fortunately has not yet claimed a life (although the deputy is in critical but stable condition). Crime may be such a common occurrence in large urban areas that we take it as a given hazard of city living until it happens to us, but awful things certainly do happen in the smallest of places. That's where some of the worst have taken place.

Delavan, WI: "This is a real big killing in a small town, and it's something that just doesn't happen here..."
Nampa, OH.
Paradise, PA.
Blacksburg, VA.
Columbine, CO.

There are many, many more. Like all bad things, it's always more comforting to think it will happen to someone else, somewhere else.

[For an interesting look at why multiple murders happen so frequently in small places, see "Mass Murder: What Causes It? Can It Be Stopped?" by Katherine S. Newman, available as an edoc and PDF file]

Labels: crime, soapbox

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  Some call it a red carpet Hollywood-Comes-to-Chicago extravaganza:

(CBS2) CHICAGO The cast of "Ocean's Thirteen" will walk the red carpet at the AMC River East theater in Chicago Thursday night for the city's premiere of the movie. CBS 2 Entertainment Reporter Bill Zwecker will be joining them on the red carpet, along with some lucky CBS 2 viewers. Stars expected to appear include George Clooney, Matt Damon, Ellen Barkin, Bernie Mac, Don Cheadle and Jerry Weintraub. Red carpet arrivals outside the AMC River East 21, at 322 E. Illinois St., are scheduled to begin around 6 p.m.

I call it one hell of long trip home up Lake Shore Drive because of all the traffic. Don't ask about the post title: I just enabled the Hindi Alphabet Transliteration option for s-n-g's.

Labels: chicago, soapbox

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  Some thoughts on public shock surrounding voluntarily bald women: baldness in women connotes undesirable states like desexualization (as tonsure in religious contexts), shaming (in repressive regimes like Nazi Germany and witchhunt-era Europe (and modern-day Asia), women frequently had their heads shaved in public as punishment), disease (anything from “treatment” of head lice to hair loss associated with cancer, etc.), or “sexual nonconformity.”

We also recall the bizarre photos of the female members of Charles Manson's "Family" showing up in court with shaven heads, freshly-scabbed-over swastikas carved on their foreheads - and the bald psychopathic LSD badtrippers in "Blue Sunshine." A bald-headed woman is clearly seen as somehow evil, dehumanized...or just plain nuts.

We’ve made some progress in the past few decades - Natalie Portman’s baldilocks for her recent film role in V for Vendetta were considered slightly less shocking than the late Persis Khambatta’s in the late-seventies Star Trek films - but unfortunately we’ve still a long way to go before women can wear stylishly shaved heads without arousing pity, scorn, or bewilderment:

"Some people will think I'm a neo-Nazi or that I have cancer or I'm a lesbian," so supposed the actress Natalie Portman, who has shaved her head for her next film role in V for Vendetta and debuted the look at Cannes [May 2005], to the consternation of many. Portman is the latest in a relatively small procession of anti-Rapunzels - Sinead O'Connor, Demi Moore, Sigourney Weaver, Skin, and the model Eve Salvail being the most well-documented. Despite the fact that we can digest all manner of unorthodox hairstyles and outlandish beauty trends, a shaven head on a woman is still a look that causes shock.

I think part of the reason Britney’s new ‘do is making headlines (besides the other recent publicized events in her life, like her separation and rehab ’stint’) is its chronological proximity to Anna Nicole Smith’s death. One American starlet “goes down in flames,” and another one is starting to act mighty peculiar. The tabloid media is waiting for Britney’s other shoe to drop.

(P.S.) Joan Jett shaved her head (briefly) at the turn of the millennium, partly as a personal "turning point," partly as part of her role in the Broadway version of Rocky Horror Picture Show; few people gave a hoot. Did anyone care when Howie Mandel shaved his head? Nooo. Then again, unlike Britney Spears, he wasn't captured on video exposing his genitalia in public.

Labels: culture, gender, politics, soapbox

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  You...and you...and you...and by extension, me, are TIME's 2006 Person of the Year:

...[L]ook at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It's not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it's really a revolution. [keep reading]

I couldn't agree more. In a way aren't the hundreds or thousands of little digital fingerprints behind a genuine "Second Life" (separate from the wildly popular self-contained virtual universe/game of the same name)? A second DNA?

Maybe all our cached Internet presences aren't "second lives" but extensions of our current ones. I've often joked here and with "meatspace" friends that "Google is forever," but in a way it's true: our electronic traces, fragile as they are when a blog post or office document "disappears," are in other ways doggedly hard to expunge and will likely exist beyond our mortal lifetimes in many cases. The technology is new and undergoing rapid change, but there will come a time when massive amounts of archived information will exist as historical artifacts. Our digital presences will outlive us, replicated and re-replicated every time someone downloads, saves or views a piece of who we were.

Consider the case of Malachi Ritschler, the Chicago artist and political activist who died in early November in an act of self-immolation as protest. Ironically, if there were no Internet, outside of his circle of family and friends, word of Ritschler's actions would certainly stopped when the mainstream media stopped their coverage. His final story would be a microfiched newspaper archive. With the Internet, not only did Ritschler's story attain a life of its own through his publication of a pre-demise auto-obituary, but those who saw the significance of his actions have utilized the Internet to spread the word. In a small way he has achieved immortality, although he is not physically present to experience it.

However, in some ways the Web is not all that conceptually different from older means of communication; at its core it is merely physical "mail" transmitted by wire (or wirelessly), differing only in the fact that the information that once traveled by mail (letters, books, movies, photos, recordings, etc.) had been translated into numerical existence. The quantum leap (and some would argue, the threat to conventional intellectual property) the Internet affords is speed of transmission and nearly unlimited - viral - replicability of digital commodities. What many find disturbing is that we ourselves - translating and extending our identities into digital existence - are becoming one with the commodity.

Developing a rational and workable understanding of "property," "commerce," and even "identity" within the new rules of the Internet age is in its infancy, hence the horrible mishmash of electronic frontier laws and jerry-rigged web filters governments around the world are using to try to block the Internet - in part, or in totality.

Increasingly, the Internet is precisely what the world is: kaleidoscopic, perpetually changing, hopeful, chaotic, constructive and destructive. The Internet is amoral, in the sense that without external intervention it is only a neutral conduit for human interaction; it is no more moral or immoral that the people who inhabit it.

One thing that needs to happen to genuinely fulfill the web's promise is greater global access to the Web, although political and business interests threaten to decrease access through economic (Net Neutrality) or ideological (censorship) barriers.

We need to step back and look at what the Internet age truly means. It means we are beginning to live in a fundamentally different world, one in which the old strictures only marginally apply. The physics of human relations have been shattered into bits and recombined - we have the never-before dreamed capability to represent (or misrepresent) ourselves at will behind an electronic wall almost instantaneously beyond the boundaries of space.

For centuries we have dreamed of traversing oceans and continents in the blink of an eye. We have dreamed of shape-shifting, and of invisibility. What magic proved incapable of bestowing upon us in fleshly form, the magic of the digital age has made possible. On the Web we can become fledgling creatures of pure data, without bodies to restrain us.

Perhaps it would help to think of the Internet and its recent "You"-revolution as a freshly-minted "Sixth Sense," one we are only beginning to learn how to control. As a global electronic society we will need years, if not decades, to master these exploded boundaries and reconfigure our identities and politics, as well as our responsibilities and moralities, into this open space of possibility.

Labels: soapbox

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