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Unmuting on The Mute Question

Posted on January 15, 2012 at 12:12 pm

In the question “Should the ‘Silence’ switch mute everything, or just some things?” I do believe the iPhone community has found its “Should the end of the toilet paper hang in front of or behind the roll?” debate. We could go on forever and ever and we’d still go out for drinks afterward.

It seems like there’s only one universally-acceptable answer to “How should the ‘Ringer/Silence’ switch work?” question:

“The switch should behave flawlessly for the specific way that I want it to work.”

When others complain that Your Way totally fails for their personal use of the feature, the proper response is

“Yours is an edge case scenario.”

And when a solution is suggested, the response is

“That makes the feature way, way more complicated than it needs to be.”

(…in the sense that from the perspective of this user, the switch doesn’t need to be any more complicated than “Behaves exactly as I, personally, expect it to when I slide it to the ‘Silence’ position.”)

Mind you, I’m not saying “The people who agree with me are right, and everybody else is just a wrong stupid mister stupid-head wrongy-man.” I’m saying that I and the people who agree with me are no different from anybody else: we expect this switch to work the way that we, personally need it to.

For instance, one of the strongest arguments for the switch’s current operation is “I use my iPhone to wake me up in the morning. If the switch worked the way you want it to work, I’d be woken up by phone calls all during the night.”

To which my insensitive, knee-jerk response would be:

“I understand that Alarm Clock technology has matured to the point where an alarm clock that once would have been housed in the bell tower of a cathedral can now easily fit in a footprint no larger than that of a small bedside table.”

Plus, if someone tries to call me at 4 AM, it’s got to be a complete disaster of some kind and the very last thing I’d want my phone to do is allow me to miss the call. So why would you want to leave your phone on Mute while you sleep? “It’s an edge case!” the knee-jerk responder is therefore tempted to say. “Why must a basic feature be ruined just to address an issue that so few people need to deal with?”

These are all Perfectly Sensible arguments…but only from my personal perspective, which is worthless to anybody but me. For many other people, alarm-clockage is far more relevant to their lives than silencing a device in a public social situation.

“If you need your phone to be completely silent,” the Perfectly Sensible Argument goes, “Just switch it off. Or, take a moment to glance at the screen and see if there are any alarms pending before putting it back in your pocket.”

From that perspective, yes: perfectly sensible. But it’s worthless for users like me. My retort would be “Great: you’ve taken a clear, simple, two-position switch and turned it into a multi-step process. Also, I don’t want a dead phone in my pocket; I just want this device to be both useful and silent.”

Overall, the lesson is that silencing a phone is far too idiosyncratic a feature for any “one answer fits all” implementation. As I said in the blog post, no locked-in definition of “Mute” is going to work for everybody. Worse, any definition will fail for every user at some point, either in the form of a missed alarm or a humiliating disturbance of public silence.

Which is why the only solution is to allow the user to adjust those settings. The iPad has its own little sliding switch. The user can define its function as either “Mute” or “Lock screen rotation.” If the default function of the switch works fine for you, then this “added complexity” is invisible. If you wonder why on God’s green earth any rational human being would prefer an iPad that rotates willy-nilly as you recline on your sofa with a good ebook, you can fix it in about fifteen seconds. And then you never have to touch that Settings panel ever again.

There’s no good reason not to add that sort of customization to the iPhone’s Mute switch. The Mute switch will continue to screw up royally at least once for every user. But when that happens, his faith in Apple will cause them to think “I bet there’s a way to fix that.” After spending a second or five hunting through Settings, they’ll find it: a bank of toggle switches for the four or five different ways that an iPhone can make noise. On-Off-Off-On and presto: the Mute switch works exactly the way it should.

For you, it might be On-On-On-Off.

Possibly Off-Off-Off-On.

Or maybe Off-Off-Off-Off is more to your liking.

Why, I could go on forever. Actually, no, I could only go on for twelve more times but I think you already get the idea.

I still think the default for the Mute switch should be “No noise of any kind under any circumstances.” My argument comes down to this:

  • Ask an average person “Your phone has a switch which is described in the documentation as ‘Ringer/Silent’. You’ve set it to ‘Silent.’ Under what circumstances would you expect it to still make noise?” and the most common answer will be “None. None circumstances.” Not everyone will give that absolute response. But I suspect that there will be three or maybe four different answers, and only a single-digit percentage will correctly describe the current behavior of that switch.
  • In general, if it’s impossible to identify a canonically-correct default behavior then the default should be the one that’s easiest to understand. “Silence means complete silence” is easier to grok than “…except when it doesn’t. Here, let me explain the thinking behind this switch…” This general theory of UI wouldn’t apply if there were one obvious “right” default. There isn’t one here.
  • The “Ringer/Silence” switch is unique among iPhone UI. It’s a mechanical toggle switch. Toggle switches have only two positions: ON and OFF. Not “Mostly On” and “Sort of Off.” This is how the Humans have been taught to think about two-position switches and it’s far more natural for them to translate that same all-or-nothing nature to the feature itself.

But the right answer isn’t “This switch mutes everything.” The absolutely right answer is “If the user doesn’t like the default behavior, the user can go into Settings and tailor this feature to his or her personal needs.” The only canonically wrong answer is to lock the user into one mode.

A Settings panel wouldn’t change the operation of the Mute switch in any way. Slide the switch and the iPhone Mutes. The only difference would be that it’d work properly, as defined by the user’s individual preferences.

The only bits of this discussion that have left me completely confused are those from people who insist that such a Settings panel would overly-complicate the feature. A few people on Twitter actually categorized that as “An Android-like implementation,” and I’m 99.44% sure they didn’t mean it as a compliment for Google.

They could have. There’s only one thing I envy about Android: its underlying instinct to give the user more control of his or her device.

The upside of Apple’s approach is that the iPhone is coherent and consistent and it represents a considered point of view. Apple puts a monumental amount of thought into almost every human-surface detail of every device they make. They make great choices. But the downside is that institutionally, the thought “How can we give the user more freedom?” is lower on the list of priorities than it should be. Apple sometimes defaults to “No, if we let the user do that, it’ll just make things more complicated” even when that’s not the case.

I believe that a different company would have made this switch customizable long before iOS 5.0.

What did I tell you? Tech questions are dull and dispensable. It’s these philosophical questions that make for interesting discussions. Now, about that drink…

Oh, and for the record, when I went out to a comedy club last night…I turned my iPhone all the way off.

Filed under: apple, iphone.

36 Comments

Daring Fireball: On the Behavior of the iPhone Mute Switch

Posted on January 14, 2012 at 11:44 am

This is probably my favorite kind of discussion of a tech product or feature: the philosophical kind. Why isn’t there an LTE version of the iPhone? Answer: because with the currently available chipsets, the added speed of 4G isn’t worth the tradeoff in battery life.

Boring. Next?

Why does the iPhone’s “Mute” switch silence some alerts but not all of them? Is that wrong?

Well, gee, I don’t know. I suppose it depends on what you believe the natural mindset of the user is. And, how a device can best support its user. Should it do what the user asks, or what the user would ask it to do, if he or she knew such a thing were possible? Because…

Ahhhhh. That’s much better! Wait here in the living room…I’ll be back with a bottle of claret and a few glasses. In the meantime, switch off the Xbox so we won’t have any distractions during what I’m certain is going to be an awesome discussion. Wait, I’ll even silence my iPhone so that we won’t get interrupted…

Oh, right.

So that’s why I’m moved to post my own thoughts about this Daring Fireball piece. I think Brother Gruber is wrong when he says that Brother Jim is wrong. John’s point is that the iPhone handles the Mute switch in a friendly and sophisticated way. The iPhone doesn’t treat it like a modal function (speaker is on, speaker is off). The iPhone does a contextual mute. It’ll mute any alert that you didn’t specifically tell it to make. You weren’t expecting a phone call to come in at 8:31 PM. It mutes the ringer. You told it to sound an alarm at 7 AM the next morning. The iPhone wakes you up as scheduled.

That’s a reflection of a valid specific philosophy. I just think it’s wrong in this specific feature. The key question to ask is “When the user slides the switch to ‘Mute’, what does he or she think is going to happen?” They’re most likely to think that their iPhone will be completely silent until they flip that switch back.

I also try to think about how the user will react when things go wrong.

Case “A”: he Mutes his phone before a movie. He forgets to reset it afterward. His morning wakeup alarm vibrates instead of making air horn noises, so he oversleeps. He’s late for work, and misses an important meeting.

Case “B”: he Unmutes his phone after the movie and gets to the meeting on time. His boss tells the 20 people present that she needs everyone’s full attention and she asks everybody to mute their phones and please close their laptops. Our man duly flips the switch. At 10:30 AM, just as his boss’ boss is about to make an important point, his iPhone starts quacking to remind him about an eBay auction that ends in 15 minutes. He had totally forgotten that alarm…he set it almost a week ago.

In both scenarios, his iPhone has royally tripped him up. In both scenarios, he’s going to walk back to his office — hopefully not carrying an empty cardboard box and accompanied by someone from HR — and he’s going to immediately have a frank discussion with his iPhone.

“What the hell, man?” he says, as soon as the door’s closed. “I thought you were supposed to be on my side!” he says.

In Case “A”, the iPhone replies “Dude. You told me to be quiet and to stay quiet. If you wanted me to stop being quiet, you had every means and opportunity to do so. You just had to slide the exact same damned switch! You wouldn’t even have had to wake me from sleep! The switch is even marked in orange!!! Nothing else on any Apple product is marked in orange!!! So, gee, Einstein…you think maybe the day-glow orange was warning you that you’d enabled a mode that could have had unexpected, but easily-predictable consequences?”

In case “B”, the iPhone says “Oh. I thought you meant ‘Just be mute in some situations but not others’. No, I didn’t bother telling you what situations those would be. I do that sometimes. I’m a very people-oriented bit of engineering. I were a dumb device, I’d just observe the state of the switch and do exactly as I was told and never use my own discretion at all. Oh, and: not that you bothered to thank me for waking you up on time this morning despite the fact that you’d left me on ‘Mute’, but you’re welcome.”

(Of course the iPhone wouldn’t actually say these things. The user would be so angry that the phone would still be on “Mute.” But the iPhone would definitely be thinking them.)

My philosophy is “It’s much better to be upset with yourself for having done something stupid than to be upset with a device that made the wrong decision on its own initiative.” Every time I screw up and take responsibility for my own stupidity, it’s another Pavlovian stimulus that encourages smarter future behavior. If I forgot to unmute my phone after a movie, I’m a dumbass. But if my iPhone makes noise during the movie despite the fact that I’d deliberately chosen to silence it, I can only conclude that the dumbasses in this equation reside about 3,000 miles west of here.

I can’t give Apple a free pass on this. I was just as upset with an Android phone I once tested. I was getting a demo photo inside Bates Hall, the gorgeous, cathedral-like reading room at the Boston Public Library. I put the phone on “Mute”, I walked quietly to my desired position in the middle of the room, I tapped the shutter button…and then a maximum-volume CLICKKKK!!!!! resounded and reverberated through the cavern walls.

I felt like a total hayseed. “Stupid piece of crap,” I muttered, as I tried my best to adopt an apologetic facial expression and slinked away. Yes: this phone, at that moment, was a stupid piece of crap and I felt, correctly, that none of the responsibility for this screwup was mine.

Great technology locates a sweet spot between anticipating your intentions and only doing exactly what you tell it to do. Apple’s very good at this but like any company, they succeed and they fail. Apple’s most notable successes and failures usually spring from the same basic company mindset: “We know what the customer wants better than the customer does. After all, the customer doesn’t spend every working hour of the day thinking about how to make a great phone.”

The Mute behavior of the iPhone is just wrong; it’s an important function and its behavior isn’t transparent. The correct answer is so clear to me. Whether the switch silences everything or just some things, the behavior is going to trip people up sometimes. It’s unavoidable. Apple can only choose how users get tripped up. The right answer to most feature design problems the one that puts more control in the hands of the user. If screwups are inevitable, then the iPhone should choose to screw up in a way where the user feels like he understands what went wrong, takes responsibility for that mistake, and knows how to avoid repeating it. I shouldn’t be forced to consult a little laminated wallet card every time I slide a two-state “Mute” switch, to remind myself of all of the iPhone’s independent exceptions to the concept of “silence.” I can’t review all pending alerts and notifications to anticipate future problems.

No. I should slide the switch to “Mute,” and then the phone goes SILENT. If I miss an appointment because I did that, it’s completely on me. If my phone disrupts a performance despite the fact that I took clear and deliberate action to prevent that from happening…that’s the result of sloppy design. Or arrogant design, which is harder to forgive.

“Why not switch the phone off when you need complete silence?” comes the counter-argument. That’ll certainly work. But if you’re claiming that the Mute switch’s current behavior is correct, shouldn’t you argue that the iPhone should refuse to shut down if there are alarms and reminders scheduled?

You see where this line of thought leads? Straight to that scene in “The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide” where a hundred passengers on a commercial spaceflight are kept in suspended animation for centuries. The computer that operates the flight is awaiting a shipment of moist towelettes for the courtesy and comfort of the passengers. It’s the ultimate example of a computer preferring to do what it thinks its users want, instead of just doing what the user asked it to do.

No, I’m fine with Mute meaning M-U-T-E. Particularly if the phone defaults to “vibrate” when muted. But the right answer seems clear. The iPhone must never let a user down the way it let down that man at the philharmonic.

During those endless moments when the conductor and members of a 40 piece orchestra and the 600 people in the audience were fixing him with icy glares of utter hatred, and he frantically clicked and re-clicked the “Mute” switch on his quacking iPhone to no effect, and he was desperately trying to convey that goddamnit, he put this thing on Mute before he even sat down…yes, the iPhone was a stupid piece of crap.

I almost never say that about my iPhone or iPad. This problem is so easy to fix. Even something as simple as a Settings option (“Mute switch silences all alerts”) would do the trick. You don’t have to ask me what the default setting should be.

Filed under: iphone.

94 Comments

The iPhone: Five years later… | Macworld

Posted on January 10, 2012 at 8:37 pm

The memory that sticks with me, in fact, is that I was temporarily dumbstruck by the sheer feel of the device. I was testing it while sitting with a couple of Apple executives as well as an Apple PR handler. The idea was that I could try out the device while also asking them questions. As I used the iPhone, I found it very difficult to speak questions or even listen to the answers. The iPhone was so unlike anything I’d ever handled.

The iPhone: Five years later… | Macworld.

I had to link to my pal Jason Snell’s reminiscence about his first hands-on experience with the iPhone. It was so very familiar. I probably had my own briefing on the same day. I was a room with a VP, a senior executive, and a PR person. I had about a half an hour or maybe 45 minutes, tops, to ask as many questions as I could about a device that I knew nothing about until that morning. So what was the first thing I said after they handed me the iPhone?

Well, I said “Go help yourself to a cookie,” nodding towards the catering table. “I wanna play with this for a while.”

Yes. I don’t regret it, either. I had been blown away by Steve Jobs’ demo. I didn’t want to be led or coached. I wanted to see if I could make it do absolutely everything I wanted it to just by poking around with it.

It lived up to every expectation. Nothing — nothing — about the iPhone or the way it worked was in any way similar to anything else I’d ever used. Every tap and swipe and pinch and zoom was accompanied by the exhilaration of discovery and of new experiences. And the only time I couldn’t get something to work was when I launched the Notes app. None of its buttons responded. I finally asked for help…and was told that what I had been trying to use was just an image file taking the place of an app that wasn’t on the device yet.

I’ll never, ever get bored with my job. Every now and again, a device like the iPhone comes along. Great, groundbreaking technology provokes a physiological response: a tingling at the base of my neck. When a thing sets off my Spidey-Sense like that it means This is effing brilliant. I’ve never seen anything like it, but I’m certain that this marks a real moment of history.

Devices like the iPhone come along rarely. In between, I look at hundreds of phones and laptops and social networks and generic apps and gadgets which are each about 80% interchangeable with anything else in their product category. I have to check all of these things out. It’s part of the job. I keep right on looking and it’s for the same reason why movie critics keep coming to the screening room day after day even they know damned well that the first film of the day is going to be the second sequel to a movie based on an 80′s TV show: we love what we do and when we find something special, we feel like that love’s being returned.

Oh, and Jason was 100% right on another point. Man, oh, man…as someone who had actually had substantial hands-on time with a working iPhone, there were a few months in 2007 when paying for your own meals and drinks was purely optional. Everybody wanted to hear the story, everybody wanted to ask questions and hear more.

It was just like that scene from “Bull Durham,” only more so.

“Yeah, I used an iPhone once. It was the best 37 minutes of my life…”

Filed under: apple, iphone.

7 Comments

“Hewlett” by Planxty (Amazon Advent Calendar day 24)

Posted on January 1, 2012 at 5:08 pm
Album Art

Hewlett

Planxty

The Well Below The Valley

Genre: Folk

I should warn you: this is a bagpipe number. The Irish folk band who recorded “Hewlett” list the instrument as “Uilleann pipes,” no doubt exploiting the same regulatory and moral loophole that allows the restaurant industry to print the word “sweetbreads” on the menu instead of the far more accurate “testicles.”

Not that I blame them, of course. Which would you rather have jammed in your ears?

(OK, clearly, I’m referring to “Bagpipes or Uilleann Pipes?” there.)

(Maybe I should just press onward.)

There’s something about this track that makes me think “Christmas” despite the complete lack of any of the usual yuletide ID markers. It’s an instrumental, so we don’t get to hear about reindeer or red suits. No bells (jingle, tubular, or church) or any of the other instruments of the season. And yet, it makes me picture a room with a fireplace and a lighted tree (illuminated by electric lights, not by sparks thrown by the fire) and think about every positive experience I’ve had at this time of year throughout my life.

That makes “Hewlett” a very 2011-style Christmas Holiday song. December has undergone a thematic shift over the course of my generation. Extremists in the religious and anti-religious camps sense this shift and they’re inspired to interpret it as a “War on Christmas”; some even see it as a call to further action. We, the 99% see it as simply moving the December celebrations into a much larger tent. One where we can celebrate religion openly and those of us who don’t celebrate religion will choose to simply celebrate humanity. Together, everyone cheers the annual miracle that the entire country can all agree to try really hard not to act like dillweeds to each other for a couple of weeks at least.

Yes, if I were to rewrite “Adeste Fidelis” for a modern age, my first action would be to find someone who can translate “Let’s all tone it down a little, could we?” into Latin for me.

Although we’re not united by a common religion, we’re certainly united by common experiences, and non-religious music like this packs a punch for a wider swath of people. I don’t think music like this invites anybody to remember the bad times they’ve had during the holidays. Instead, it sifts out the good stuff. It makes us think of the taste of the candy cane that was used to stir our coffee and not the stickiness that the wrapper left on our hands. The fast and exciting ride down the hill, not the uphill slog we made to get the sled up there. Christmas vacation, not the midterm exams that purchased our release.

That’s to say: I don’t begrudge a community for having a manger scene in their town square. It’s only relevant and meaningful to a certain subset of the community, but it’s just one display in one corner of the park. What unifies us are the thousands of colored lights strung through all of the trees around it.

I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday.

And seriously, don’t listen to this song with those silicone “seal out all other sound” earbuds that you press deep inside the auditory canal. Remember: bagpipes.

Try or buy “Hewlett” at the Amazon MP3 Store.

Filed under: Amazon Advent Calendar 2011.

4 Comments

“Christmas Time Is Here Again” by The Beatles (Amazon Advent Calendar day 23)

Posted on December 26, 2011 at 12:40 pm

I said “Merry Crimble” to everybody all through the holiday weekend, despite a unbroken streak of Not Saying That which began, I suppose, with my first exposure to air and daylight.

(Before that, there were no witnesses to anything I might or might not have said, and I refuse to ask you to accept unreliable single-sourced testimony.)

Yet all weekend long, I’d meet a friend or family member and return the good, time-proven Christian greeting with (yes) a “Merry Crimble.” It was all due to timing. My holiday meetup celebrations started almost immediately after I’d spent an hour on the UK-based Bagel Tech Mac podcast. The others were passing around Merry Crimbles. I tried it just to be sociable at first. I didn’t think I’d have a problem quitting, you know?

“Merry Crimble” comes from a Christmas record the Beatles made for their fan club. It beats out the two more famous holiday records recorded by the post-breakup Beatles. “Merry Christmas (War Is Over)” is a bringdown. You might as well add “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” to the party mix, or even just rip the audio from one of those late night “Save The Children” commercials.

“Harsh words, Ihnatko!” you cluck. Well! Then watch the song’s official video, straight from YouTube’s John Lennon channel. I swear that I had not seen this video before I wrote the preceding paragraph. Warning: you might not want to watch this as it gets very disturbing early on and doesn’t let up. I bailed at around the 47 second mark, with the appearance of the third clip of someone cradling a dead child.

This is a holiday song with a message, and that message is “Fa-la-la-la-laaa la-la f*** you (if you spent any amount of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas feeling any kind of joy).”

Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmas Time” is appealingly simple in both melody and content. Yes, I mean that as a compliment. You must admit that holiday songs which can easily be sung by kids’ choruses have a Darwinian edge over the ones that want you to feeeellllll something.

Alas, McCartney overworks the thing. One marshmallow is a delightful confection. Fifty pounds of marshmallows packed inside a pillowcase and then dropped on your head gets a bit wearying.

Whereas! “Christmas Time Is Here Again” is what it is: the Beatles getting together to knock out a Christmas song that would be fun to play and hear, without giving much thought to its commercial appeal or how it would contribute to their cultural legacy.

Only I’ve just listened to it all the way through and they don’t say “Merry Crimble” at the end, as I remembered. Perhaps the official representative of Apple Corps who posted this completely legal video cut it off before a talky bit at the end?

That’s all academic, anyway, because there is Crimbling on a previous Beatles fan club record:

But (dammit) it’s a “Happy” Crimble, not a “Merry” one. Honestly, I don’t know how etymologists handle their jobs. They need to get unravel these sort of word-origin forensics day in and day out. Plus, slightly clueless friends are always sending them samples of bugs that they’ve caught in their kitchens and asking for advice on pesticides.

(There ought to be some sort of professional courtesy-matching service. It’d pair up two people with similar-sounding professional certifications. Every time the bug guy gets a question on proper English usage, he or she can forward it to the entomologist. Someone asks the entomologist about when to use “that” instead of “which,” he or she sends it to the word guy. Physiologists/Physiatrists, Cosmologists/Cosmetologists…even Plumbers/Pilots, if they have particularly stupid friends and family members, would benefit from this service.)

Well, the point is that the Beatles made “Merry Crimble” famous and it’s a Lovely Holiday Tune besides. Alas, it’s not available on either Amazon or iTunes.

So! I’ll recommend that you try or buy “Gone Daddy Gone” by The Violent Femmes on the Amazon MP3 Store. Yes, I’ve heard the Ringo Starr version of “Christmas Time Is Here Again” and I stand by my decision.

(Oh, and the usual disclaimer applies: my Amazon Associates code is embedded in the link and anything you buy after clicking it results in my getting a small kickback. And the capital of Delaware is Dover.)

Filed under: Amazon Advent Calendar 2011.

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“Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy” by Buck Owens and his Buckaroos (Amazon Advent Calendar day 22)

Posted on December 24, 2011 at 3:19 pm
Album Art

Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy

Buck Owens and his Buckaroos

Christmas With Buck Owens And His Buckaroos

Genre: Country

C-day Minus One. Time to focus on the Christmas-ey sort of tunes, no?

We can file this song in the same thematic category as “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” Both are first-person, unreliable-narrator accounts of a child who has left his bed late at night to investigate an unusual noise in the house, and witnesses a scene that was not meant for his eyes.

The impact of this simple libretto increases with the age and increased sophistication of the listener. A wee lad who has yet to develop a properly-skeptical mind is inclined to take the story at face value. A year or three later, a wiser and more worldy youth understands that the narrator’s Mommy was actually kissing his Daddy, who was wearing a Santa Claus costume at the time.

Aha! But when this same child grows into a cynical and sullen teen, they reflect on the horror of what the narrator is witnessing and how he must be processing the scene. The narrator’s still-developing mind has a limited ability to grasp abstract concepts. In addition, his sense of security is inextricably entwined with his definition of his mother and father as an unbreakable unit. And so, when this child witnesses his mother dissolving that unity and seeking comfort from another man — ie, Santa — he can only interpret this as the destruction of his entire universe.

The narrator may recover, with speedy and deft counseling. But how can we predict the long-term trauma? This child could grow to adulthood without the basic sense of trust that’s key to any longterm emotional connection to another person. He’s doomed to a lifetime of failed relationships and empty narcissism, all because his parents lacked the good sense to deadbolt the kid inside their room every night to prevent him from wandering around. Also from fleeing a house fire via the hallway and the front door. Again, I blame bad parenting: kicking out a bedroom window and jumping from the second floor teaches a kid self-reliance. Darwin makes the best babysitter.

How shall we interpret “Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” once we’re past puberty and well into adulthood? Our robust, grownup sophistication allows the hidden message to become crystal-clear: Mommy definitely has a “type.”

What is it about this gentleman that forces her to ignore the wisdom of her better angels? Is it the beard? The belly that shakes like jelly? The leather boots and the faint scent of deer pheremones? Or is it simply the fact that Santa is, by his nature, a giver who enters a home — and by extension a relationship — without any expectation of receiving material or emotional support of any kind from his partner?

It’s probably wise to leave it there before you convince yourself that the couples in “Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” were two pairs of cosplay swingers who had found each other via Craigslist, and that they were engaging in an evening of wife-swapping.

I actually didn’t even know about this song until it appeared on my BFF’s annual holiday mix CD. He selected a version by the Reverend Horton Heat, in keeping with the Alternative Music theme of this year’s offering. I went and got the Buck Owens recording. I really like its “classic country” style. Plus…I mean, I already had the Good Reverend’s version.

Try or buy “Santa Looked A Lot Like Mommy” on the Amazon MP3 Store. Yes, the link is embroidered with my Amazon Associates code and anything you buy after clicking it results in my receiving a small kickback in the form of Amazon credits…which I will spend on gloriously silly things.

Filed under: Amazon Advent Calendar 2011.

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“Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home) by Darlene Love (Amazon Advent Calendar Day 21)

Posted on December 23, 2011 at 10:20 am
Album Art

Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)

Darlene Love

The Concert Of Love

Genre: Rock

Yesterday, I thrilled you all with an English paper I wrote during the second semester of my third Sophomore year in high school. I got a solid “B” on it and I’m real pleased with how it turned out. I think this essay heralded to my teachers and parents that I’d finally turned an intellectual corner and that I’d probably graduate sometime before I hit my 30′s, despite the premonitions of my guidance counselor and the unofficial motto of the school.

Listening to yesterday’s selection (Patrick Stewart’s one-man adaptation of “A Christmas Carol”) is indeed one of my Most Cherished Holiday Traditions. Tonight’s edition of the Letterman show is another. They’ve never titled the last show before Christmas as “The Dave Letterman Christmas Special” but yeah, that’s clearly what it is.

You could even say that the Dave Letterman Christmas Special is more organic than any overtly-declared Christmas Special starring Andy Williams or He-Man And She-Ra. Every Dave Letterman Christmas Special consists of several reliable highlights:

  • Darlene Love sings “Christmas Baby (Please Come Home) accompanied by a chorus and enough additions to the CBS Orchestra to make the stage of the Ed Sullivan Theater look like the final party scene from “It’s A Wonderful Life”;
  • Jay Thomas tells his Lone Ranger story;
  • The Holiday Quarterback Challenge, in which Dave and Jay (Thomas) take turns hurling footballs at the Late Show Christmas Tree until one of them knocks the giant calcified meatball off the top off the Empire State Building that serves as the tree’s angel for the week of the holiday;
  • Paul Shaffer does his impression of Cher singing “O Holy Night” during one of her Seventies TV specials.

Dave might also tell the story about the time a stagehand cursed out Tom Brokaw during a staff holiday party, though this seems to have become more of a “Christmas week” tradition. Like the appearance of a fresh-cut tree in the living room, Dave saying “Why don’t you go **** yourself?” in a gruff voice is a giddiness-inducing sign that Christmas is near.

The cursing is just another data point supporting the argument that the Dave Letterman Undeclared Christmas Special is more like a family holiday party than a network holiday show. A good family Holiday party where the rundown of elements grew over time through an eager unspoken mutual consent, as opposed to someone reading some damned article in some damned magazine fronted by some damned lady with her own talk show and then forcing the whole family to bend to this madwoman’s insane will.

Why, exactly, is it important to celebrate the season by knocking a softball-sized meatball from the top of a Christmas tree? Well, why was it important in our house that my Dad hang up an old “Happy Halloween” decoration with the word “Halloween” covered up with a bit of paper with “Christmas” scrawled on it? He did it for a laugh one year, then he did it again the next year…and then it became so closely-associated with this time of year that it came into its own. Dave and Jay knock the meatball off the tree because it’s the Christmas show. No further explanation is required.

The second reason why you could describe The Dave Letterman Undeclared Christmas Special as “organic” is because the term is so carelessly-defined and its usage is so sloppily-enforced by government regulators. It can be applied to just about anything, regardless of its content or how it’s produced.

Anyone would agree that “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)” is the high point of the show and possibly the highlight of the whole year. Here’s a great behind-the-scenes video (made by Letterman staffers Jay Johnson and Walter Kim) of all the work and pride that goes into this part of the show:

The highlight of the video is a full presentation of the number, assembled as a seamless montage of annual performances. Take some time to look at the faces of the performers. Look for Paul Shaffer in particular, pounding away at the baby grand with an expression akin to a silent shriek of absolute glee.

When I say “Every year, I’m at the edge of my seat when the song starts and I have goosebumps by the end,” I’m telling the literal truth. When I say “Every year, there’s nothing that will keep me from being home from 11:35 to 12:35 to watch it as it airs,” ok, that’s kind of a lie because my DVR is exceptionally reliable and unlike dinner with friends, it’s just as good when you’re watching it on video instead of experiencing it at the same time as everybody else.

But it’s true that the Letterman Undeclared Christmas Special is a genuine beloved holiday tradition. It’s just a TV show and yet it’s not just a TV show. Watching it is part of a process that connects me to a mood and a spirit that I’ve enjoyed every year of my life at around this time. It’s a reminder that this species has an exceptionally good core, despite occasional discouragements to the contrary, and overall it leaves me quite favorably-inclined towards recommending to my superiors that we keep your planet around for at least another couple of dozen years.

Buy or try “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) on the Amazon MP3 Store. You don’t need to guess why I prefer this live version to the original recording. I’ve embedded my Amazon Associates ID in the link; anything you buy on Amazon after clicking it results in a small kickback to me in the form of store credits, which I will then spend on gloriously foolish things.

(In the spirit of the season, of course.)

(“In the spirit of the season” is yet another one of those poorly-regulated phrases that can be used almost anywhere.)

Filed under: Amazon Advent Calendar 2011.

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“A Christmas Carol” (performed by Patrick Stewart) Amazon Advent Calendar Day 20

Posted on December 22, 2011 at 6:57 pm
Album Art

A Christmas Carol

Patrick Stewart

A Christmas Carol

Genre: Audiobook

Patrick Stewart’s one-man dramatic reading defines “A Christmas Carol” for me. It’s the media adaptation that gets straight to the heart of the original: his version makes it crystal clear that we’re meant to cheer Scrooge on. Yes, indeed, we are. Or we’re meant to, anyway, as the story progresses.

Could we even go so far as to describe Scrooge as the hero of “A Christmas Carol”? Hmm. It depends on whether or not you think it’s heroic to rescue yourself, as opposed to saving Lois Lane, Marion Ravenwood, or Christmas.

I say “yes.” Scrooge examines his own behavior and ultimately he decides to move away from a position of safety and comfort and into something more dangerous and uncertain. That might not be exactly heroic, but at the very least it’s brave. And that’s why, when this story is adapted and performed as well as it’s done by Patrick Stewart, we like Scrooge and want him to succeed.

“Rubbish!” you say. “Scrooge is no different at the end of the story than he was at the beginning! Marley showed Scrooge that he was ultimately going to be damned to wander the earth bound by iron chains! And the Ghost of Christmas Future showed him that he’s going to die next Christmas Day if he doesn’t change! Scrooge is just trying to save his own skin!”

“Hogwash,” I reply.

(Though I credit both of us for not going for the cheap laugh and saying “Humbug.” It shows a lot of restraint and class.)

Marley’s visitation scene makes Dickens’ intentions clear. Marley’s true burden isn’t the hundreds of pounds of chains and steel cashboxes he has to drag around everywhere: it’s his unrelenting remorse. Only after his death has Marley become keenly aware of the depth of the suffering experienced by the city’s disadvantaged. He’s eager to aid…but as a spirit, he’s powerless to interfere. All Marley can do is watch, and remember all the times during his life when he walked straight past the same kinds of people without paying them the slightest notice…and think about how he could have lifted them out of their desperate situations by applying the slightest effort. That’s a tidy vision of hell.

“Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,” cried the phantom, “not to know, that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! Such was I!”

As if to firmly dot that particular “i”, Dickens ends the scene with the view of the street from Scrooge’s window. The streets are filled with spirits, many of them known to Scrooge during their lives as fellow members of the 1%:

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.

We come to learn that Ebenezer Scrooge isn’t a baddie. He just grew more cynical and suspicious of other people as the years passed, and then of Humanity in general. Ultimately, he distanced himself so completely that he withdrew from the whole system. Time and time again, he angrily demands to be left alone. He doesn’t even attempt to interfere with the good works of others, and (to my recollection) doesn’t even act in a meanspirited way. A thoughtless one, yes, but is he ever actively hostile? He wants the men collecting for the poor to go away. He doesn’t want to be roped in to his nephew’s Christmas party. He wishes that the carolers would just leave him the hell alone.

In doing so, he failed to understand that you’re part of the human race whether you want to be or not. Therefore, the only choice any of us have in the matter is whether to play a positive role in human society or a selfish one. By the time Scrooge meets the Ghost of Christmas Future, he’s already realized the mistakes he’s made and the damage he’s done to himself and the people around him. When he sees his name on the tombstone, he doesn’t plead with the Ghost because he’s desperate to save his skin. I think it’s clear that he was eager to finally use his resources (his money and his time on Earth) to become a positive part of society, and thought that the cup was being dashed from his lips. He was like Marley in that moment: wanting to alleviate human suffering, but denied the ability.

So there. I could move on to a long debate about whether or not a desire to help others is, in fact, a selfish desire. But I’ve just checked carefully and it turns out that this here is a blog post and not a page of dialogue for Dr. House.

Patrick Stewart’s reading preserves Dickens’ perspective on Scrooge. Which is why it remains at the very top of the heap of “Christmas Carol” re-interpretations, topping the Alastair Sim version and the Season Three Christmas episode of “WKRP In Cincinnati.”

It also hits a more minor, but still important, point: it doesn’t shortchange us on the Christmas Day scenes. It wouldn’t be very satisfying if Scrooge woke up, undocked his iPhone from the nightstand charger, confirmed the date, PayPalled a bunch of money to some good causes, and then went back to sleep. Patrick Stewart doesn’t hold anything back. There’s a smile on Scrooge’s face and a gleam in his eye that comes through even in audiobook form. And yet, he doesn’t go overboard and destroy the effect of all the hard work that preceded that scene. The word to describe Scrooge’s emotions would be “grateful” rather than “manic.” We should be grateful that we have the time and the means to do something positive.

This is a scene from the 1999 Hallmark made-for-TV movie. It’s a good’n; so good that it…no, no, surely not.

…

What the hell…it’s Christmas: it’s so good that I can even completely forgive Hallmark for bankrolling “Riding The Bus With My Sister.”

No matter how good Stewart’s movie is, though, I can’t prefer it to the audiobook. Stewart has been regularly performing his abridged “Christmas Carol” as a one-man show since 1991. He does every voice. I invite you to wonder, as I do, how he compresses his rich, impressive King Lear-esque baritone into a charming Tiny Tim. I can assure you that he does. And when he plays female parts, it’s about as far away from a Monty Python pepperpot lady as one can get without leaving this planet.

Oh, how I love this audiobook. I can’t possibly exaggerate how I feel about it. I first bought it on cassette at a salvage store. Since then, I’ve bought it on CD and on Audible. There’s no set date during the holiday season when I move it from my iTunes library and onto my iPhone. But it’s early. The Indianapolis 500 starts with a voice on a loudspeaker calling “Gentlemen, start your engines.” For me, the holiday season begins with Patrick Stewart intoning “Jacob Marley was dead…”

And when I hear those words, I feel pinpricks at the back of my neck and I am very, very happy. There have been years when I simply never got around to setting up the tree. Holiday cards? Those only happen when I think of an idea early enough to have the cards made, and get the cards made early enough to address and mail them.

But there is never, ever a year when I don’t listen to Patrick Stewart’s dramatic adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” at least twice. In a career seemingly filled with indispensable work, I would quickly choose “A Christmas Carol” the least-dispensable thing Patrick Stewart’s ever done.

So you should definitely get yourself a copy of this. It’s available for instant download via Audible. If your holiday weekend plans involve driving all over creation making merry, you can choose no better car audio than this.

Me, I bought and ripped the CD. That’s the highest tribute I can pay to any commercial audio. If an album’s good, I’ll buy a track or three. If it’s very good, I’ll buy the whole thing.

If it’s as good as “A Christmas Carol,” though, I want the CD. I want the recording at its highest, uncompressed quality. I want it in an unlocked format that I can rip and then install on any playback device I own now or will ever own in the future.

Buy “A Christmas Carol” from Amazon. As usual, my Amazon Associates ID is embedded in that link and any purchases you make on Amazon after clicking it results in my receiving a small kickback in the form of Amazon store credits…which I will spend on delightful foolishness.

Er…I mean, food for hungry orphans.

Filed under: Amazon Advent Calendar 2011, yellowtext.

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“Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me” by “Weird Al” Yankovic (Amazon Advent Calendar day 19)

Posted on December 22, 2011 at 10:49 am
Album Art

Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me

“Weird Al” Yankovic

Alpocalypse

Genre: Pop

Last time, I talked about novelty versions of pop songs. I believe (checks notes) ah! Yes, as I suspected: I said critical, sweeping things about an entire genre, and dismissed it out of hand mostly because I, personally, have no taste for it.

This statement is by no means invalidated by my lifelong appreciation for the work of Sir Alfred Yankovic (I know the New Year’s Honours List won’t be announced for another week yet, but look, who are we trying to kid?). I honestly think he’s the present-day successor to Gilbert & Sullivan. Like W.S. Gilbert, he’s a deft lyricist who often composes songs that point out the foibles of current society. Like Arthur Sullivan, he freely, but not exclusively, bases his music on familiar tunes.

“Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me” works great at face value. It’s every frank conversation you’ve ever wanted to have with That Guy in your address book after his forwards have finally exhausted your last scrap of patience. But do take a moment to really listen to it as a piece of music. Appreciate the agility of the lyrics and don’t ignore that it’s been set to a lovely little tune with a graceful structure.

I’d pegged this song as a wAG original. But no less an authority than Wikipedia informs me that it’s an style parody of the music of Jim Steinman, who (ibid) is a songwriter best known for passionate first-person anthems like “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” and most of the music from Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out Of Hell.” I suppose the common thread to Steinman’s most familiar songs is that they’re being sung by characters who really, really want you to know how much they’re feeling what they’re singing.

Sir Al made a shrewd choice in singing “Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me” with more of a plaintive tone than an aggressive one. Think of the context: as with many of Steinman’s signature songs, the singer is speaking directly to one person. As with none of them, however, the singer knows he has the option of just creating a new filter that automatically routes everything from that address to the Junk folder.

It’s been noted that Lord Al’s career has far, far exceeded those of the performers he’s parodied. It’s easy to see why: by definition, he’s always learning new styles of music. Thus, his act has never atrophied, grown stale and irrelevant, or resigned itself to the dustbin of nostalgia and PBS concert specials.

Plus, it forces him to keep working at it. Over the course of three decades he’s gone from figuring out the chords to “Another One Bites The Dust” to acquiring a vast portfolio of skills as a performer, composer, and arranger. I would be very, very interested in seeing a musical or a movie with an original Yankovic score. I can’t imagine it being anything less than good.

Try or buy “Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me” on the Amazon MP3 Store. Anything you buy on Amazon after clicking that link will result in my getting a small kickback in the form of Amazon store credits…which I will spend on gloriously silly things.

Filed under: Amazon Advent Calendar 2011.

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“Hard To Handle” by The Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain (Amazon Advent Calendar day 18)

Posted on December 20, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Album Art

Hard To Handle

The Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain

The Secret Of Life

Genre: Pop

I have a very low tolerance for precious novelty interpretations of pop hits. I don’t really understand the concept.

Let’s take “Achy-Breaky Heart” as a case study. My problems with this song are as follows: repetitive melody; not particularly catchy melody; uninspired lyrics; Billy Ray Cyrus’ mullet.

None of these shortcomings are in any way corrected by an Alvin And The Chipmunks version of that song. So why, then, would I like that version, either? If anything, the song’s last problem is compounded when the song is being sung by vole-like creatures. At least Cyrus’ hairstyle ended at his neck. The Chipmunks sport full-body mullets…and there are three of them.

So a band doesn’t automatically get a free pass when they do a cover version of a hit song using alternative instruments or an unconventional musical arrangement. Wendy Carlos’ “Switched-On Bach” remains a classic for her thoughtful electronic re-interpretation of classical music. Through her synthesizers, she reveals new truths and beauty in the Brandenburg Concertos. You can’t, you know, duplicate that highly-satisfying result by dragging a MIDI file into a Casio keyboard. Not even if you go all-out and use Tone #062, aka “Space Meow.”

“Hard To Handle” was originally written and recorded by Otis Redding and I swear to God I knew that before I happened to Google for the name of the band that made it into a big hit in the 90′s, which I already knew was The Black Crowes but I thought it’d be good form just to double-check that.

(cough)

I consider The Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain to be among the best five all-ukulele orchestras in the European Union and I’m willing to fight any man or woman who challenges me on that point. I happened to be in London while they were performing at the Barbican Centre, and happened to buy the very last seat available just a few hours before the show. I was very pleased to be the specific person responsible for that moment when the group’s manager leaned his head into the dressing room, pulled the cigar out of his mouth, and congratulating the UOoGB on having sold out the venue.

The tune’s a cover magnet. The melody and the lyrics are impeccably high-quality raw ingredients for a band and a singer to work with. It seems like there’s only one possible mistake to be made, and it’s an understandable one: the band and the singer can’t each be working so hard to sell the song that they wind up fighting each other. For sure, you can’t have a scenario in which they’re fighting and one side is clearly winning. I think that’s why the Crowes’ version isn’t my favorite, even though I like it lots.

The Ukulele Orchestra doesn’t make their whole playlist out of ukulele arrangements of hit songs, though they do great things with that line. I first heard about them via their version of “Psycho Killer”:

I love the fact that there’s a distinctly inverse relationship between how seriously they take themselves and how seriously they take their music. Admittedly such an inverse relationship is by no means unique among musicians but the Ukes have chosen put the bigger number on the “how good do they sound?” side of the equation. As demonstrated by this, their version of “The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly”:

Their cover of “Hard To Handle” is true to the song’s origins. It manages to inject the right amount of aggression, soul, and glee that belongs in any proper version of this tune. This track’s been a mainstay of my playlists for so long that whenever I think “Hard To Handle” I instinctively hear the Ukes’ version and not one of the more blockbuster-ey ones.

Yup, I’m a fan. The Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain isn’t a comedy act and it isn’t a novelty act. It’s a musical act. I hope they make their way to New England some time. Their live show was tops and I’d love to see them again.

Try or buy “Hard To Handle” on the Amazon MP3 Store. As usual, that link is embedded with my Amazon associates code and anything you buy there after clicking the link results in my getting a few store credits…which, I promise you, I shall spend on foolish and wonderful things.

It’s (oh, right) Christmastime, so let’s close this one off with the Ukes’ version of “Blue Christmas.”

Filed under: Amazon Advent Calendar 2011, yellowtext.

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“Camel Walk” by Southern Culture On The Skids (Amazon Advent Calendar Day 17)

Posted on December 19, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Album Art

Camel Walk

Southern Culture On The Skids

Dirt Track Date

Genre: Pop

You shouldn’t look things up on the Internet when you know that the answer can’t possibly do you any good.

There are three titles associated with this song and two of them are wonderful. “Southern Culture On The Skids” is a fantastic name for a band — or a book, or a line of gift jams and jellies, or just about anything else that isn’t specifically related to a surgical procedure — and “Dirt Track Date” is a pleasantly evocative phrase.

It’s the title of the song itself that worries me. If you’ve heard the song, you will undoubtedly agree that “Camel Walk” is a good fit. It’s a lopey, drawling, lurchy sort of rock (mostly) instrumental that compels you to walk as though you have some sort of inner ear disorder that doesn’t effect your lateral, side-to-side balance but which knocks away your ability to maintain your front-to-back equilibrium. The overall effect on your gait is to create the impression that you’re on a treadmill, and the deck is made of a waterbed mattress rolled into a tube.

You really should have scrolled up or down and bought this track by now. That’s really a hell of a description and an emphatic endorsement of any song. Just don’t listen to this song while carrying a hot bowl of soup, and you’ll be fine.

But does “Camel Walk” have any other meanings?

After you’ve reached your 30th birthday, you learn that the cartload of Modern Slang that you’ve been happily pulling behind you all your life is nowhere to be seen in your rearview mirror. It got unhitched at some point during your journey through life and you’ll never find it again. Congratulations: you’re part of the Grownup Culture, who doesn’t understand how or why “sneakers” became “kicks.”

The larger problem is that the youth of today…well, I’m not saying that they’re coming up with acts to perform upon and with each other that had never occurred to any prevous generation of humans. I’m just saying that during a simpler and more innocent time, if two people spent an hour pleasuring each other by flossing between their partners’ toes with strips of raw pork tenderloin, there would be an agreement to never speak of that incident again. Whereas it seems like the modern reaction is “Let’s talk about this to all of our friends and post about it everywhere we can. Plus, if we define this new thing as ‘Feeding The Squirrels’ then there’s an excellent chance that we can make the grownups look foolish.”

Fast forward a month, to a high-school English class. The teacher offhandedly mentions how he kept running out the squirrel feeder all weekend,. He smiles at the immediate and explosive reaction this generated from his students, but has no idea why the whole class is hyperventilating.

“Camel Walk.”

See, I’m just a little bit suspicious. The singer says “Baby! [owoooooo-whee!] Yew make me wanna walk…like a camel!”

I don’t think I’m completely wrong to wonder. In certain parts of the South, is “walking like a camel” what happens when a man gets his whatsis stuck inside a dealie, and the only way to get it out is to leave immediately for the emergency room? Like, he has to support the weight of the dealie with his hands, forcing him to walk slightly like a camel as he clumsily tries to balance the weight and avoid tearing his thingamabob clean off.

I know the URL for the Urban Dictionary.

I think I’m just going to choose not to visit it.

Yeah. Sounds wise. Nothing good can come of that.

Try or buy “Camel Walk” on the Amazon MP3 Store. As always, the link is embedded with my Amazon associates code and anything you buy there after clicking it results in my receiving a small kickback in the form of store credits. I promise to spend it on wonderful and foolish things.

Filed under: Amazon Advent Calendar 2011.

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“I Believe” (from “The Book Of Mormon”) – Amazon Advent Calendar day 16

Posted on December 18, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Album Art

I Believe [Explicit]

Andrew Rennells & Ensemble

The Book Of Mormon

Genre: Broadway

As I write this, I’m watching a nice little special on Turner Classic Movies about holiday films. Famous people (Chevy Chase, Chazz Palminteri), once-famous people (the guy who played the mean kid in “A Christmas Story,” the woman who played Zuzu in “It’s A Wonderful Life), and a bunch of writers (here as a livelier alternative to just cutting to a screenshot of a relevant Wikipedia page when some facts need to be presented) share stories about their favorite flicks.

Many of these stories begin with cozy remembrances of the first times they saw “Miracle On 34th Street” or “Holiday Inn,” and how closely they associate those movies with childhood Christmases with the family, etc.

Lovely. And it makes me wonder how we’ll be telling these tales in the future.

“So I’m on a usenet newsgroup and someone is talking about this amazingly funny cartoon where Jesus fights Santa. It was such a long thread that I upgraded to the latest version of Netscape, downloaded the right video codec, shut down my Mac LC and restarted it, and then, at 2 or 3 AM when I knew that server load would be low and I’d have plenty of downstream bandwidth, I dialed my SLIP server, typed the right address into the client, and watched ‘The Spirit Of Christmas’ by Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

“My browser kept locking up partway through, and I had to restart three or four times and keep playing with Conflict Catcher before I figured out what was making the plugin unhappy. And I think I was getting barely any throughput, so even when it worked, it was pretty blocky. But I posted a question to the Comics and Animation forum on Compuserve and somebody was able to tell me how the last thirty seconds ended.

“It was the best Christmas ever. Right from the moment when Jesus called Santa a ‘****ing pussy’.”

I look forward to telling that story into a camera some day when I’m in my Sixties.

You might not like “South Park” — even I get grossed-out and offended by some episodes — but man, you can’t deny Parker & Stone’s talent and work ethic. By the time I heard that they were about to open a Broadway musical, I thought “Sure. Why the hell not?”

In fact, nothing they ever wrote into any episode — not even the one where Wendy gets breast implants — offended and hurt me as much as their unconscionable decision to write a show that’s brilliantly funny, put one of the best numbers from the whole show into the Tony Awards telecast, regularly sell the endlessly-playable cast album for next to nothing…and ensure that tickets would be unaffordable and completely unobtainable.

Oh, for cripes’ sake. I’ve been sitting here and sulking for almost a whole minute! You’re supposed to, you know, assure me that I’m totally right and praise me for being so brave in the face of adversity and then offer me a Drumstick frozen iced treat. Instead, you’re just look away awkwardly.

…

(sigh) Thanks, nice of you to make the belated effort, but pointing out how many people are involved in staging a musical like “Book Of Mormon” and reminding me that it’s only fair that they be paid a wage commensurate with their value isn’t helping.

I guess I should just soldier on.

Well, the nice thing about tickets I can’t get that are priced above what I can afford is that I needn’t protect myself from spoilers. I bought the album after seeing the Tonys, and then read the libretto so I could actually understand what the songs were about. It’s clear that the producers deserve their success. It’s creative, it’s massively-funny, it doesn’t care about offending people, and yet it hasn’t the slightest intention to offend anybody. They’ve pulled off a great trick: they’ve created a musical that’s critical of certain elements of religion while praising, in a real sense, other elements.

All the while, it has a bright center and a good heart. For $150, I want to leave the theater feeling happy, not as though all is lost, existence is futile, and happiness is a veneer that can only be obtained by the vain, selfish, cynical, and corrupt.

I mean, you’re stepping out of the theater and into Times Square. New York City has already got that stuff covered, you know?

The album is full of great tracks. “I Believe” comes in that pivotal second act moment when our hero, who was thoroughly beaten-down and discouraged and ready to give up, reconnects to his passion and resolve. Yes, he’s singing about utter nonsense, but it’s a bit like watching a little kid twirling and twirling in circles. “It’s pointless,” you think, “but dear God, he does look happier than I’ve felt all year.”

Try or buy “I Believe” from the Amazon MP3 Store. As usual, the link contains my associates code, and anything you buy on Amazon after clicking that link results in my receiving a small kickback in the form of store credits.

But don’t just buy that one track: this week, the whole cast album is on sale. Just five bucks! Five piddling, stinkin’ bucks! Go! Buy it!

Filed under: Amazon Advent Calendar 2011.

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The Abominable Bogus CV

Posted on December 17, 2011 at 7:00 pm

Cover of "The Abominable Charles Christopher": Charles and a white wolf floating down a calm river on a log.

A real treasure arrived in Friday’s mail. Observe, Volume 1 of the collected edition Karl Kerschl’s magnificent webcomic, “The Abominable Charles Christopher.

It’s probably a good idea, as a general rule, to try to avoid declaring superlative absolutes, such as “this is the greatest webcomic.” But can I get away with saying “When I think ‘greatest webcomic’ this is the strip that pops into my head before I remind myself about the problem with superlative absolutes?” All right, then. There are three things I want from any ongoing webcomic series: terrific art, terrific storytelling, and a regular, reliable publication schedule. Normally I’m happy to get two out of three. “Abominable Charles Christopher” nails the trifecta.

Karl was lovely enough to include a sketch in my copy:

Title page of book, dedicated to me and with a nice marker sketch of a lion in it

That’s the level of the artwork in this strip, week in and week out. I’ve never bought a print of any of his strips. Why? Because for God’s sake…which one would I choose?

I’ve been a fan of “Abominable” for a year or two. When I stood in my kitchen and unwrapped the book, it was the very first time I’d seen Karl’s strip in printed form, as opposed to on a laptop or iPad screen. I must say, this book shows off the limitations of electronic publishing. Karl’s artwork leaps up to an even higher level. It’s obvious that Karl has in no way “dumbed down” his art to the limitations of a 128 pixel-per-inch laptop screen or a 1000-pixel-wide image area. Seeing these strips in print reminds me of just how much I’ve been missing.

And mind you: I was already blown away by the art. “Abominable” in print is joy, doubled. I’m glad to have this book and I’m eager to recommend that you snag a copy for yourself.

I’m also grateful for the chance to update the “Kind Of Truthful But Not Really” version of my cv.

You have one of these, don’t you? It’s that second, slightly more-impressive cv that you’d never hand to a potential employer, and for an excellent reason: every item on it is technically true but wouldn’t survive a series of careful followup questions.

For instance, my legit cv lists “Wrote an ebook about artificial habitats that was licensed by NASA as student educational material.” True. That happened. If the interviewer asks for details, I would happily and confidently tell them about the 60-page book I wrote about building aquariums and about the relationship between goldfish, gravel, water, air, and vegetation. I got an inquiry from NASA after I published it. After I signed and returned a bunch of forms, they gave it out (for a time) as part of a kit for schoolkids which explained the problems of building colonies in space.

The Kind Of True But Not Really version of my cv, by comparison, includes “Ren and Stimpy” among my writing credits. “Ren and Stimpy”? Really? Yyyyyesss, that’s….tttttrrrrue, I suppose. But its truthiness falls apart with the right two followup questions:

“You wrote for the ‘Ren and Stimpy’ cartoon?”

“No…but I have a writing credit in the Marvel Comics licensed comic.”

“Oh. So you wrote a story for the comic?”

“Er…no. Here’s what happened: I once went out to dinner with a couple of comics writers and I made some sort of joke and one of the guys asked if he could use it. I said sure, and then I forgot about it. Months later, people started emailing me about how they bought this month’s issue of ‘Ren And Stimpy Comics And Stories’ and one of the stories says ‘Thanks to Andy Ihnatko for letting us steal one of his jokes’ on the title page.”

With that in mind, I point you to the back cover of the “Abominable” anthology. Karl knew that I’m a big fan of the strip and he asked me for a cover blurb.

I was only too happy to provide one:

Back-cover blurbs for the "Abominable" book. My blurb is under Neil Gaiman's.

And so, the freshly-updated Kind Of Truthful But Not Really version of my CV now contains the following item:

“Collaborated, with Jeff Lemire and Neil Gaiman, on written material for a comic book.”

Before there’s any misunderstandings, dear reader, I quickly and emphatically reiterate that the Kind Of Truthful But Not Really cv is only a whimsical mental list and that I would never, ever, ever use it in a live-fire exercise, so to speak.

Still! Although the statement “I collaborated with Jeff Lemire and Neil Gaiman on a book” has only the wispiest, slightest, most insignificant and monomolecular thread of truth to it, there are thousands of practitioners of homeopathic medicine who will be incredibly impressed. Or at least that’s how their belief system compels them to react. They only have two options: either tell people that I collaborated with Jeff Lemire and Neil Gaiman, or admit that the whole idea that the efficacy of something is magnified a thousandfold by diluting it down to near-undetectability is, in fact, all a giant scam. I like my chances.

And if either Mr. Lemire or Mr. Gaiman is reading this, I just want to take the opportunity to say that it was a pleasure working…er…adjacent to you.

Filed under: books, Comix, yellowtext.

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“I Can’t Write Left-Handed” by John Legend & The Roots (Amazon Advent Calendar day 15)

Posted on December 16, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Album Art

I Can’t Write Left Handed

John Legend and The Roots

Wake Up!

Genre: R&B

“Wake Up!” was one of my favorite buys of 2011. A pal recommended “I Can’t Write Left-Handed” to me and after I gave this version of it a listen, I had to slap myself twice. First, because the album had been out for a year and I’d never heard of it, and then because the song itself was first released back in 1972 and I’d spent all 39 of those years not listening to the original version, either.

Granted, I had other priorities in the early Seventies (I was kind of a child-development geek back then…totally obsessed with it, you could say) but the free pass ends in the Eighties.

“I Can’t Write Left-Handed” is an anti-war song in which a Vietnam vet dictates a simple letter that he can’t write himself because of his battlefield injury. That’s it. But it gets right to the point: that the human cost of war is enormous, and that the perspectives of someone who’s actually seen combat are very, very different from those of someone who hasn’t. Even those of a soldier who hasn’t been to war yet.

Here’s what separates a good anti-war song from a poor one. The focus is on the people who have been directly affected. It’s not on the singer, and how angry and offended he, personally is. For some reason I’m suddenly thinking of the moment when Starr Jones made that bold career choice to switch from Tolerable to Insufferable Twit. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed more than 150,000 people. Starr’s method of relating to the disaster was the fact that she’d honeymooned in that area a month before the disaster, and had felt like she’d been blessed by God.

Take it away, Jon Stewart:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
God Blesses
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

It’s kind of a cautionary tale. Selfishness is self-limiting at best and self-destructive at worst. It’s such a potent toxin because it’s so easy not to see it in your own behavior. Was Jones trying to deliberately swing the spotlight towards her and off of the dead, injured, displaced, and bereaved? Or was she simply trying to find a way to connect to a disaster that happened halfway across the world, and which did so much damage that the numbers almost defy comprehension?

The lesson is that it’s usually not important that you work out your own feelings about these things. That’s a luxury, at a time when so many are in such dire circumstances. The Vietnam War produced protest songs by the psychedelic busload. How many of them were particularly thoughtful? How many were just selfishly angry?

I wasn’t around back then so I don’t have either that experience nor the full context. I really can’t judge. I’m happy that in our current environment, despite the fact that we need tactile and repeated reminders of just how many of our citizen soldiers are out there risking everything, there seems to be a reliable partition between our feelings (pro and con) about the use of American military forces, and our feelings for those out there on the line.

This particular track is a new cover recorded by John Legend and The Roots. The 1972 original had Bill Withers describing an experience he had with a recently-returned vet, and the story that the encounter inspired. This version has John Legend describing the song in which Bill Withers told the story that inspired the song. It’s a little bit recursive but hey, it works.

The shift in context between the two versions is interesting. It’s a potent song so long as anybody is fighting anywhere in uniform. But the original was written during the days of the Draft. Today, we have an all-volunteer army. I suspect that means something, and it nags me that I can’t figure out what that is.

There are categories of vocations where the common thread is “service.” The military, law enforcement, firefighting, teaching, certain articulations of the ministry, community organizing, even politics: on some level, they’re impossible, undoable jobs in which everyone who signs up pretty much knows that they’ll be paid far less than the benefits that they create for Society.

And yet, there are people who go out and do those jobs. Yes, of course: not always for altruistic reasons. But even if you became a firefighter because of the great pension program, or you became a soldier in part because the Army was hiring and everybody else in the state wasn’t, that doesn’t change the basic fact. There are people who run out of a burning building to save themselves and then there are the people who run in to save the lives of strangers. If you watched that orientation video and you still signed the contract, you’re not getting paid enough.

I read an essay by a decorated soldier who tried to explain the disconnect in perceptions between soldiers and non-soldiers. In explaining his actions and even his mere presence in a war zone, he just said “It’s the job I signed up for.” That’s the key. I know I’ll never understand it fully but I know the truth is right there. It seems remarkable to anybody else that taking those kinds of risks and making those kind of sacrifices could be simply part of a job description.

Back to the original question: how does this song change when the vet in the song fought in the Middle East instead of Southeast Asia? When the soldier made a choice and volunteered, versus (in effect) being hit by a big truck as an act of God and had no choice in the matter?

And of course, it’s a stupid, selfish question. He’s can’t write left-handed any more and he doesn’t think he’ll be around much longer. Why the compulsion to pull one’s thoughts away from that for one moment?

Okay, let’s get back to cheerier topics: music. I own both the Legend/Roots album and the version of the song recorded by Bill Withers, recorded live at a Carnegie Hall concert. I gravitate towards the newer edition. It has more momentum; there’s something about the additional repetition of the song that builds to a kind of prayer, and the more conventional R&B/soul arrangement suits the song better than the more intimate 1972 performance. But Your Taste May Vary.

Try or buy “I Can’t Write Left-Handed” on the Amazon MP3 Store. Anything you buy on Amazon after clicking that link results in my receiving a small kickback in the form of Amazon credits…which I promise to spend on fun things.

Filed under: Amazon Advent Calendar 2011.

3 Comments

From One Bush Administration to The Other

Posted on December 16, 2011 at 2:35 am

I was up all night but wow, the results sure were worth it! You must certainly be immensely impressed by the blog’s new look, eh?

…

No. No, you mustn’t. I started with a page layout that would have been considered cutting-edge during George Bush’s presidency. I’ve updated it to something that would have been marked me as a sophisticated professional web designer during Dubbya’s.

(Maybe even his first term.)

Yeah, I know. The new design really ain’t much. There’s nothing advanced in the backend — it’s still just CSS — but beyond that, it simply looks old-fashioned: Masthead, navigation bar, content column, sidebar column. It’s not even built on a grid system or anything. But! It’s a next step. And the next step after any next step is the next step after that.

It’s been a longish night so I’ll fix the typography later (sure, it’s time to wire things up to take advantage of webfonts). Also, the more time I spent getting the sidebar to work the way I wanted it to, the more it occurred to me that yeah, maybe I can get rid of it entirely. It’s still filled with the stuff I put in three years ago when I moved to WordPress. I might change the content to give the sidebar a more emphatic function, but I might just as easily decide to move to a one-column layout. Perhaps with a static bar at the top and bottom that highlights things I think are worth highlighting.

(I mean, look at BoingBoing.net. It’s a huge site, and yet it could hardly be simpler in terms of layout, right?)

But at least I finally scratched some long-overdue items off the To-Do list. Most of my blog’s readers access it via the RSS feed. When I first added that feature to my blog, it was being run via my own hand-coded CMS system. It wasn’t a checkbox to click; it was a whole section of script that I had to write. Then as now, my goal is to make it easy as possible to read this stuff, and that clearly means “full posts in the RSS feeds.”

Ah, but what about the first time someone visits the site? They need to be welcomed. Concierged. A hot towel should be offered. Perhaps also a drink coupon of some sort. Ihnatko.com really didn’t fulfill that role well at all. I kept meaning to add pages about my speaking and links to my writing, my podcasts, and other tendrils of the Ihnatkoverse but just never got around to it. Also, the site design didn’t naturally gravitate towards that kind of navigation.

As always, though, a big hidden purpose of this site is to serve as a test bed for web technologies. From time to time, I hear about a new framework or a new whatsit that web designers are using, and I like to play with it a little. Recently, for instance, I learned that Twitter has released the toolkit that they use (up to a point) for their own webapps. It looks pretty neat. I’m still using Carrington as my basic blog template. That’s the guts of making this blog work on WordPress. Bootstrap looks like a nice starting point for the CSS, with some nice scripting libraries added in.

That’s to say nothing about different scripting languages, different production workflows, different coding environment, different concepts and theories about backend design…I’ve been learning plenty. Most of it never left my hard drive, of course. I’m all for eating my own dogfood but then there’s the sort of dogfood that you shouldn’t — legally — be allowed to serve even to a dog.

I’ve also been looking at Tumblr and other blogging platforms. Cool stuff, but I keep circling back to an ages-old frustration of mine: I can easily spend as much time searching for a canned theme that I like as I would have just learning what I need to learn to build the site I want from scratch.

But for all of this bluster about my learning new tools…what arms did I take up tonight, in my fight to make my site look Slightly Better Than Awful? The exact same ones I used in 1995, when I built my first site: BBEdit and an FTP client.

Filed under: announce, wordpress.

7 Comments