The End (For Now)

Having completed my first year of Creative Communications, I am putting an end to A Philosophy of the Supermarket.  In the fall, I will reboot this blog with a brand-new theme.  I enjoyed sharing my thoughts with you, and hopefully, I tried to instill some thought in whoever was reading this blog.  Have a good spring/summer, and see you soon...

- Zach Samborski

A Poem About A Car (The Final Installment)

The Chrome

 

 

 

She drinks a gallon of money

for another coating of chrome

topping her aging days

ramshackled under sky fire

and upheaval of the clay

 

A vexing of my nerve

to chrome she surrenders;

she takes me to ditches

filled with cobbles of hail

and the rest of the metal

 

I'll lead her to balloon,

blow-out, bail on

connecting yellow;

I'll make her human

three seconds upside down

through the smog of air

 

 

 

 

 



The City

In the next few months, you will hear about Winnipeg 2087, my novella I'm doing for my Independent Professional Project.  Right now, I'm keeping the project mostly a secret, but I will tell you that it deals with one pressing theme: urban sprawl.

Winnipeg's downtown core is certainly at a crossroads.  Every urban planner is literally betting cards on what could bring it back to life.  They guessed Portage Place would do it back in 1987, and they got it wrong.  When Portage Place failed, they placed their bets on the MTS Centre, and sure enough, they were wrong on that count as well. 

In a way, the city used to be a large village.  Almost everything was interconnected.  Then came the superhighway concept, and out sprang the suburbs in the 1950s.  Many of the cities we speak of today are not really cities in the literal sense.  They are more like a series of communities connected by major uplinks. 

Well-known chains are the diving markers of every city's community -- you'll never find two Wal-Mart stores close to each other.  But it would be foolhardy to suggest that chains contribute to urban sprawl.  Technology is a major factor as well.  If you purchase online, bank online, and order Chinese online, you'll wonder what's the point of going to an urban core to do it all.

The irony is that consumer convenience has somewhat led to frayed nerves.  The bigger the suburbs, the larger the traffic mess gets, and it gets hellish for pedestrians.  If there are no linking pathways or walking lanes, pedestrians have to cross the thickest of highways to get to their destinations as the motors idle on and on.

If your house is the community, your exterior environment is your weakness.  The further you push your caravan into cyberspace, the more foreign the world around you becomes.

See STIR at the Magazine Trade Fair

The Magazine Trade Fair takes place in The Roblin Centre at 160 Princess Street this Thursday.  Throughout the afternoon, visitors can check out the work of Creative Communications students.  In groups of four or five, CreComm students wrote articles, took photos, and created designs for full-colour, professionally printed magazines.  Visitors should expect to see some lively booths, great prizes, and some fantastic food.

My group's magazine is called STIR.  STIR is a weekend morning magazine.  We cater to that niche crowd that prefers morning life to evening life on weekends.  We'll be serving up some coffee and fresh-baked banana bread at our booth.  We'll also provide details about our Breakfast Photo Contest, which ends on April 4.  Winners can get a $50.00 gift certificate to Hermanos Restaurant & Wine Bar (one of our sponsors) and another $50.00 gift certificate to Carnaval Brazilian BBQ.

The Trade Fair runs from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m.  'Like' us on Facebook at this link, and Follow us on Twitter at this one.  

The Harlem Shake: Everyone's a Corporation

The popularity of the Harlem Shake meme truly astounded me for the last couple of months.  There will be no video in this post; I'm sure you've seen the hundreds of 'em that have popped up all over YouTube.  And that really is the point: we've seen a cultural phenomenon that is not the work of media companies or corporations.  It is instead the work of ordinary YouTube users.  They spread the popularity of both the meme and the song itself.

Don't believe me? The popularity of the meme caused Billboard to change its policy for creating the 'Hot 100' list.  Thanks to 'Harlem Shake', Billboard now factors YouTube hits into a song's overall chart success. All because of a meme.

In the age of YouTube comedians and vloggers, we are witnessing the rise of a new kind of celebrity, one from the bottom-up and not the top-down.  The viewers follow suit and spread the word everywhere else.  

Think about this: whenever you are sharing something you see funny on the Internet, you are advertising.  You are literally doing the work of ten copywriters.  The agencies no longer need to seek out their target audiences.  Rather, you are doing it yourself.  

This is important because the Internet is reshaping world economies in addition to communication structures. Stay tuned for what lies ahead.

Philosophy of the Day

Your car does all the talking.

Rock N' Roller Cola Wars: An Imaginary Conversation

The following conversation between Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant and now-deceased pop star Michael Jackson took place sometime in 1989:

Plant: "So, Michael, you think you're cool hawking all that Pepsi to the young people?  I was on tour before you got your first recording contract! And now I'm drinking Coca-Cola! Take that!|

Jackson: "Are you kidding me? This is 1989! Young kids today are among the PEPSI GENERATION! Coca-Cola's for Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa!"

Plant: "If Coca-Cola's so lame, how come we're number one and Pepsi is number two?"

Jackson: "'Cause you baby boomer rockers ruled the world for so long! One day, this world will be OURS! Victory for the young people! Pepsi says so!"

Plant: "Watch yourself, Michael.  I remember my generation's rallying cry during the days of Vietnam.  But someday, you've got to get off your high horse and join the gravy train.  And drink lots and lots of Coca-Cola."

Jackson: "What are you saying?"

Plant: "I'm saying you'll be drinking Coca-Cola like the rest of us. One day, you'll be a seasoned veteran convinced he is seasoned enough to shun his Pepsi for his Coca-Cola."

Jackson: "You have opened my eyes, Robert.  You have opened my eyes."

A Crazy Movie Consumer

Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.

(source: oddfilms.com)

John Hinckley Jr. in police custody a few months after he attempted to assassinate then U.S. President Ronald Reagan.  Hinckley watched Taxi Driver repeatedly.  His motive to shoot Reagan was to impress actress Jodie Foster, who appeared in the film as Iris, a teenage prostitute.

(source: lubbockcentennial.com)

We infatuate with movies because the characters can be believable.  We can relate to their thoughts, feelings, and emotions.  This blog post will be rather confessional because of the point I am trying to raise: that movies are the armchair therapists who sometimes give us the wrong advice.

Of all the movie characters out there, Travis Bickle is the one I can relate to the most.  In Taxi Driver, Bickle was disgusted with the crime and filth of near-bankrupt New York City.  Like Bickle, I have seen my share of filth and petulance around Winnipeg.  I, too, look in disgust at the crime, peddling, and freeloading I see from time to time on the streets of this city.  One Travis quote I can relate to really well is the following:

"Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets." (source: imdb.com)

Having sat alone in food courts, buses, parks, and even the library, I also wish for some kind of divinity, a natural force flooding what I despise into the acid of the sewer for dissolution.  This environment is especially intoxicating in extreme heat and extreme cold.  It suffocates the psyche.

In Taxi Driver, Travis has vigilante fantasies after he comes across a teenage prostitute named Iris (played by Jodie Foster).  He then purchases some guns in hopes of freeing her from her pimps.  Though I have no intention to purchase a firearm, I admit to having vigilante fantasies.  Time after time, I imagine myself behind the wheel of a 1962 Cadillac Sedan de Ville with my firearm in the glove compartment.  It's the middle of summer, and the temperature is muggy.  I've got my hit-list of released sex offenders taped tightly to the dashboard.

I track the first guy down.  I roll down the window to point my .357 Magnum, and the rest is history.  The assaulted woman who walks the streets in fear now feels a bit safer thanks to my actions.  It's a beautiful fantasy where good prevails over evil, morality becoming infinite and psychopathy perishing in the powder blast.  But this is reality, not fantasy, and I am hopefully still in control.

I always relate well to the movie vigilante.  I see characters like Dirty Harry Callaghan, Paul Kersey, or Travis Bickle as outlets to vent my frustration.  There is, however, a bigger reason as to why I relate to Travis: he is awkward and socially uncomfortable, and so am I.  Below is a clip of Travis I find especially powerful.  He's trying to get in touch with Betsy (played by Cybil Shepherd).  Travis took her on a disastrous first date; he took her to a pornographic movie theatre.  When she stormed away, he told her, "I don't know much about movies":

In this scene, director Martin Scorsese treats the viewer to an incredibly awkward phone call.  Travis's attempts to reconcile are so pathetic, it can be painful to watch.   There are many moments in my life where I have been just as pathetic as Travis making that phone call.  Or so I often say.

I am fortunate that my mental standing is strong enough to bring me to restraint.  I act without restraint only within my fantasies.  These fantasies, too, are not prevalent.  They are something I merely retreat to from time to time in moments of frustration.  But some go to the movies for different reasons.  They go to get ideas.  John Hinckley Jr. was one of those people.  He watched Taxi Driver over and over again to the point of shooting U.S. President Ronald Reagan in March 1981.  In the same film, Travis attempts to assassinate a presidential candidate.

I came to an interesting and somewhat frightening conclusion while writing this: we are all on the same spectrum of Hinckley.  Like him, we demand attention for our actions and deeds.  Like him, we have fantasies of what is just for ourselves.  That's why a movie like Taxi Driver is all too real.  The "good guys" aren't supposed to be burned out or mentally frustrated, but many of them are.  We are more like Travis Bickle than Harry Callaghan or Winston Churchill -- aggression minus the virtue.

We rely on movies for narrative sources we can understand: love conquers all, friends in high places, good over evil.  If one of those narratives fails for us personally, we cling to the others more closely.  Because we want it all to be true.  The master narrative is humankind's gratification.

Every Time We Say Goodbye...

(source: ebay.com)

Anyone who owns the T-shirt pictured above must laugh at the irony.  When The Who went on their "farewell tour" in 1982, thousands of fans filled the stadiums to catch a glimpse of their idols for the very last time.

Or so they thought.  Seven years later, The Who went on tour again and promised it would be "the last".  Then they went on tour again in 1996 and promised again it would be "the last".  It turns out The Who never got sick of touring after all and reunited for good.  

The concept of the "farewell tour" is always fascinating.  To me, it implies the musician or band is feeling irrelevant in an ever-changing musical climate.  Consider 1982: The Who seemed out of step in an era dominated by The Police, Duran Duran, and Dexy's Midnight Runners.  The angry-eyed, protopunk-haired teenyboppers of the 1960s slid into yuppie oblivion and treated music as an afterthought in the new age of family values.  

Yet when The Who decided to call it a day, millions flocked to their concerts.  The Who sold out stadiums as vast and wide as the Kingdome in Seattle or the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando.  The newly indifferent punk saw concerts like these as a nostalgia shine, a reclamation of an earlier memory.  

It's a strange thing.  We buy things, tire of things, and when those things go away, we seem to clamor for them once again.  My generation (no pun intended), those Millenials of the late 1980s and early 1990s, suddenly wish for shows like Rugrats and Boy Meets World to return to the air.  For the purpose of nostalgia, or maybe something a little bit more, they go see the Backstreet Boys in concert as if 1999 repeated itself year after year.  

First came the farewell tour, then came the reunion tour.

And the reunion tour sure is clever because the desert of nostalgia brings out the illusion of relevance.  Bands get the illusion they are bigger then they actually are, whereas in reality, the audience is simply older and more niche.  This is no slight against The Who.  The Who may very well be exceptions to the rule; the imprint they left on popular music is something I cannot deny.  But the rule rings true for many figures of fame from the past (like the Backstreet Boys).

At some point during its lifetime, a generation will flirt with regression to a simpler time.  Millenials who realize the bone-headedness of majoring in English suddenly dream of childhood.  They dream of where they didn't have to worry about debt.  I'm sure the same rang true for Baby Boomers who grew slightly disillusioned with the rampant materialism.  For many Baby Boomers, The Who signified a time where the youth dreamed of victory in their exaggerated rebellions.

Yet there is something different about the Millenials.  To me, Millenials seem to be in permanent regression. Silliness is the mantra of the Millenial.  My Generation -- Pete Townshend, your words are calling to me -- stays locked indoors and watches the millions of cat videos online.  My Generation -- thanks Pete, you dear old chap -- is dealing with a shrinking attention span.

They are the twenty-something children.

Children, Pete, children... which wars will they fight? Which cars will they build? Do they count on themselves to put themselves together? Or do they wait and expect the glowing online screens to do it for them? 

The greatest question: are they afraid to conquer and seize the day? Or are they afraid of the years of mundane? I can't tell.  But what I can tell you, Pete, is that these Millenials are more hard-wired into the mechanisms of popular culture than ever before.  And in doing so, they are wrapping themselves up in the plastic bubbles not knowing there is a spray of a thousand needles coming to pop those very bubbles.  To the child, "pop" is fantasy.  To the adult, "pop" is escapism.  Because in moments of crisis, it's easier to embrace the myth than the reality that must surely be confronted.  The solution, then, is to regress into the caverns of nostalgia.



A Thousand Farewells

Nahlah Ayed’s book A Thousand Farewells covers her many travels to conflicts the Middle East as a CBC journalist. In the book, Ayed discusses her experiences of war both as a child and as a journalist.  Ayed discusses not only what she has seen but also how conflict and travel affect her personally.

As a piece of storytelling, A Thousand Farewells works well.  It has its share of drama and tension, particularly when Ayed describes her near-death experience in Iraq.   With great detail, she describes the gunman who took her to Muqtada al-Sadr’s office.  The gunman punched her repeatedly in the head and came close to killing her (p. 146).  This was the one part of the book that stood out to me the most because Ayed did such a good job detailing how she got there and how she escaped.

I also enjoyed Ayed’s story of returning to Winnipeg after spending seven years in a refugee camp in Amman, Jordan.  She fills it with lots of interesting details that really hook the reader, such as hugging her father upon returning or being called a “Paki” at her high school.

Considering how much Ayed went through, I expected her prose to be engaging, vivid, and revealing.  Unfortunately, it turned out to be rather technical and mechanical for the most part.  Consider, for instance, the following passage by Ayed: 

"Baghdad was coming apart.  At the height of the carnage, the violence had sifted its people according to religion and sect, pulling them swiftly apart the way DNA separates in a dividing cell." (p. 151)     

                                                                                                                                                    

The writing is competent and clear, but Ayed does too much telling and not enough showing.  Showing the exact details of carnage is much more effective than just calling it ‘carnage’.  In addition, I felt Ayed should have been more creative with her prose.  It is true that a simple, straightforward reportage can be effective for communicating to an audience.  But it’s also important to consider the medium.  Ayed’s prose style works great for a newspaper feature article, but a 340-page book should go further than basic reportage. 

Ayed should have used more metaphors and similes (like the DNA example) and other elements found within creative fiction, such as a stream-of-consciousness narrative.  I found the narrative in this book to be rather choppy.  Ayed tends to jump back and forth from historical exposition to a dramatic travelogue, and the result is often jarring.  As a whole, Ayed seems to be emotionally detached from  her writing, which can sometimes be alienating to the odd reader who wants to know more about her feelings and experiences.  But maybe that was her intention.

One book I find similar to A Thousand Farewells is Michael Herr’s Dispatches, which is about Herr’s experiences in the Vietnam War.  Like A Thousand Farewells, Dispatches is linear and chronological, yet is also episodic.  The chapters function as segments with a thesis connecting each of them.  The biggest difference between both books is that Ayed explains the history of the conflicts, whereas Herr focuses more on the action itself.

A Thousand Farewells is important reading for aspiring journalists who want to work overseas.  When reading the book, they will see that reporting in a war zone can be a high-stress job.  While working in Lebanon, Ayed experienced dizzy spells due to the sheer amount of stress (p. 241).  Ayed also offers a useful message to journalists in this passage:

"People are not quotes or clips, used to illustrate stories about war and conflict.  People are the story, always.  And you cannot know what people are thinking by reading the reports.  You must come to know them somehow.  Speaking the language, as I did, helps tremendously, but it is not a prerequisite.  Taking the time to speak to people off camera -- at length -- is." (p. 324)

There are moments throughout the book that feature interesting profiles of people in war.  In Baghdad, Ayed befriends a woman named Reem and discovers her poetry, which works as a great hook (p. 134).    She even meets opium dealers in Pakistan (p. 77).  These little bits are the strongest parts of the book, and it is essential for journalists to spend extended time with their subjects to get the hooks needed for their stories.  

When reading this book, I kind of felt disoriented.  Ayed goes to Egypt, leaves, and eventually returns to a new scene in Tahrir Square.  I've always pictured the Middle East as a place of conflict and confusion with vast patches of deserted landscapes, and A Thousand Farewells seemed to confirm those suspicions.  However, when Ayed goes from one town to the next and mentions a whole plethora of names and locations, I feel like I'm in a land I still don't understand despite reading a great deal about it.  The main thing I can take away from A Thousand Farewells is that the Middle East, like all regions, is not easy to simplify.