Watch Videos in a Magazine

CBS is inserting 40 minutes worth of footage onto a single page of a magazine using "video-in-print" technology.

"Last year, the cover of October's Esquire magazine splashed blazes of electronic ink. Using the same technology as Amazon.com's Kindle, panels on the cover and an ad inside from Ford Motor flashed with messages and an illusion of a car on the road.

CBS has been especially active. In 2007, it placed ads with lickable mojito-flavored strips in Rolling Stone to promote a show about a family with a rum-and-sugar business. In 2005, it embedded People magazine with singing sound chips to promote an Elvis Presley miniseries." -The Wall Street Journal

Heroes and Villains: Wicked and it's Postmodern Undertones (No Spoilers)

Hyperlink Cinema - films where the characters or action reside in separate stories, but a connection or influence between those disparate stories is slowly revealed to the audience

Hyperlink movies like Crash, Babel, and Amores Perros allow the audience to witness life through the eyes of multiple characters. Some films make it very difficult to determine who the heroes and villains are. They demand us to understand human beings not as one-dimensional protagonists or antagonists but rather as people who sometimes make the right and wrong choices.

I think drama is at its best when the audience is not sure who to sympathize with more. An example that I found difficult to take sides on is in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air when Will’s deadbeat father comes back to visit. Will’s deadbeat dad offers to take him along on a road trip but his Uncle Phil is super against it, worrying that Will’s father will leave him hanging again.

Will wants to develop his lost relationship with his father again and sees Uncle Phil as too protective. And Uncle Phil, presuming that Will’s father will do more harm than good, doesn’t want Will to get hurt again. In this confrontation the audience may very well sympathize with both characters and it is not until the end when the two find out that Will’s dad has left him for the second time that we move to Uncle Phil’s side (in what is one of the best endings in the Bel Air series).

For me, a bad example of drama would be the movie The Break Up, where it is really easy to take sides between Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston depending on which one is being more of a jerk at the moment.

Good villains sometimes have a perverse logic to them which makes it difficult to take an opposing stance. The Joker's argument is that society is inherently unstable with those in power taking abuse of it. The Saw and Se7ven villains want individuals to appreciate their lives and do away with sin. Nero from Star Trek feels that Spock let Nero's planet get destroyed and wants Spock to feel the same pain.

Audiences don't agree with the actions these villains take though the critique that these villains pose is justifiable. In a twisted way, the reason why these villains are good characters is because somewhere deep down in ourselves, we identify with them.

Wicked makes it easier to identify with the Wicked Witch of the West by giving us her account. It creates a new back story for the Witch that treats her as a human-like character with logical reasons for doing the "Wicked" things she does.

People have found ways to put a spin on news since the beginning of time. Alexander the Great made sure to spread around the tale of how he “untied” the famous Gordian Knot by slicing through it with his sword, using the incident to legitimize his rise to power. The story here was more popular than the substance. Any able-bodied swordsman could have sliced the knot with a sword.

Our conscious understanding of the image being more powerful than the underlying substance has seen most of its development in the past century. Be it Nazi Propaganda, Corporate Advertisements, or the government of Iran blaming BBC reporters for inciting the recent election riots, there are competing frameworks of truth. The level of “truthiness” (thanks Colbert) is relative to the culture and context of which that truth is expressed.

In Wicked, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz tells the Wicked Witch about the different modes of truth. I forget exactly what he said but at one point he mentioned how a crusader to one person may be an invader to another. Even himself, the powerful, loud, all-seeing wizard of oz (the image) is nothing but a tiny, lonely, old man (the substance).

The citizens of Munchkinland are left in the dark about many of the events going on behind the scenes. They hate the Wicked Witch of the West and never get to hear her account of the story. In a way, as viewers of the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, we were the citizens of Munchkinland at one point until we learn the "truth" by watching Wicked.

The Dark Knight shares this postmodern theme in which a hateful figure, Batman, is really the hero.

I guess my conclusion is that I like how a lot of new stories imply that the world is not one-dimensional. That there isn’t always a “good guy” and a “bad guy” and even when there are, they may be the opposite of what we judge them to be.

If these stories can teach us one thing, it would be to look deeper into the context of those around us and to not judge right away. They don't want people to become empathetic to the villains of our world but rather to have them take the time to understand the situations and contexts a little better before passing judgment. They ask us to be watchful of the Spin that our own everyday Heroes may throw out there and to take the time to understand the opposing arguments and sides as well.

Ulysses by Alfred Tennyson (excerpt)

"Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

-Ulysses by Alfred Tennyson

Burger King Soccer Shirts

Congress Buying Private Jets after Scolding CEO's for using them

Brad Sherman, a representative of California, was attacking CEO's a few months back on using private jets to travel to the capitol hill testimony. He recently voted on purchasing private jets for congress under the defense budget.

Hypocrisy aside, a CEO's time is so valuable, that the economic cost of using a private jet to conveniently time visits and meetings may return more profit on potential deals through those visits. If the jet costs a few million but helped speed up a few billion dollars in deals, it may be worth it.

Also, I don't like Paul Krugman's character nor his opinions. Krugman is a Nobel Prize winner in economics. He frequently uses harsh terms when debating other economists like Mankiw. A bit too O'Reilly-like for me. I'd take Mankiw over Krugman any day.

Starbucks Industrializing Manual Labor

It sounds a lot more fun when workers are tested on how fast they can assemble a Mr. Potato Head.