Sometime the Show Should be Cancelled

Posted on 2012-Oct-25 by Jason Olshefsky

I went to Geva for the script-in-hand reading of The Curious Case of the Watson Intelligence. I've been to readings like this before and I've almost always enjoyed it. To put an optimistic spin on it, I speculate that playwright Madeleine George started with a functional script a few weeks ago, but in the process of tweaking it, the changes started to get quite radical. By the time it was time to get ready for a performance, it was nowhere near ready. As such, the whole play made little sense.

I think I understand what she was getting at: it seems an inordinate number of assistants happened to be named "Watson". There's Thomas A. Watson of Alexander Graham Bell fame, Sherlock Holmes assistant Dr. Watson, and most recently, the name of IBM's artificial intelligence computer that competed on Jeopardy. And looking back, all the Watsons as assistants share a certain privacy of personal affairs, and share being remembered as nearly machines — as tools that helped others complete their projects.

In drawing that parallel, she wanted to make some kind of literal comparison to the mechanical nature. As she mentioned in the discussion afterward, we continue to flock to technology and that makes us more mechanical than if we didn't.

But aside from an interesting premise, the play was severely lacking. Not only was the plot (two and a half intertwined stories) barely tied together, but I couldn't bring myself to get fully engaged because I found all the characters consistently more unlikeable than likable. But the biggest problems were numerous unresolved allusions: who, if anyone was actually artificial? if the intent was to show the parallels between various Watsons, why did they grow ever disparate? does George know that Eliza shares the name with an early computer program that eerily mimicked talking to a person (what we might call a chatbot today)? if Eliza and Merrick were supposed to be reasonably competent, why were they both portrayed as pathetically helpless? how could Eliza and Merrick have had a relationship she is a cutting-edge programmer from the 2010s but he appears to exist in the world of rotary phones and typewriters like he never left 1977?

It was like going to the shooting range, throwing a bunch of bullets on the ground and asking, "so how's my accuracy?" In the talkback, the audience barely said anything about the play. I think it's because nobody had a clue where to start — the only thing that came to my mind was to say that I thought near-genius computer scientist Eliza welcomed her nerdy stalker into her bed far too easily.

I am hopeful, however, that George can turn this around and make something interesting an enjoyable. But sometimes despite the aphorism, the show should be cancelled.

Zenith SM3287BT: June 3, 1995 to October 18, 2012

Posted on 2012-Oct-18 by Jason Olshefsky

On June 3, 1995, I walked out of Rosa and Sullivan $875 poorer and one Zenith 32" television heavier. I moved it from my apartment on Burkhard to my house now, and it's been around for everything from MST3K nights to screenings of Battleship Potemkin. I bought it a digital TV tuner in 2009 so it could still display off-air TV, although I haven't watched in a while. It's been at least a couple years since the red gun would come on when I turned it on — these days I have to let it warm up and cycle the power before I can watch movies in anything but dingy cyan.

But tonight, 17 years, 4 months, and 15 days later, I turned it on for the last time. Zenith Model SM3287BT, Serial Number 581-35141883, you will be missed.

I was going to watch Paris, Texas so I turned on the power strip and hit the on-off button. The degaussing coil kicked on, and then it made a hideous — quite loud — electrical crackling noise. I stepped back in surprise and the crackling continued. I inched forward and shut off the power strip. I gave it a tenuous second try but it would do nothing.

Needless to say, I found this to be the funniest thing that has happened all week. Finally: television surprised me.

I think my cat thinks I'm crazy.

Compliance at the Dryden

Posted on 2012-Sep-28 by Jason Olshefsky

The Eastman House calendar had this to say:

The disturbing true story of a prank call delivered to a fast food restaurant comes to life in Craig Zobel's (The Great World of Sound) controversial new film. Night manager Sandra — convinced that the police have fingered one of her employees — falls victim to the persuasive and commanding voice on the phone. Grimly depicting human readiness to obey higher authority, Zobel's provocative film is a sure conversation-starter.

As I've mentioned to people, it was kind of preaching to the converted. In the post-screening discussion, there were skeptics: "people aren't that impressionable," or "I wouldn't do that", or "the filmmaker took liberties as things didn't get that bad". But I was pretty sure things did get that bad (although according to the moderator of the post-film discussion, it was in the worst of the 70 some-odd occurrences, and actually less-severely portrayed on film), people do fall for that, and even I could be manipulated that way. (Although my disdain for claimed "authority" makes me a tad more resistant.)

So let me back up a little.

The perpetrator – in this case, a man calling himself Officer Daniels – was using the known techniques of social engineering to manipulate his victims. It's a technique most frequently used in crimes of technology, and it rarely involves more than a brief conversation. One might call a bank (presumably with what looks like an internal number) for instance, and ask innocently, "oh, is this computer support?", "no, dang. Do you have the number handy?" Then they call that number, jot down the name of the person who answers, and ask, "Jim, hey — is it possible to get my Kindle on the network?", "no, I figured I'd ask anyway." Then jee calls someone else, "hi, this is Jim from computer support. I just,want to take a minute to check your IP address." I think you can see how with a large organization, it's easy to get small pieces of information out of a number of people which, when aggregated, is a tremendous amount of knowledge about the organization as a whole.

The exotic thing about this perpetrator is that he would stay on the phone for a long time — not only in the total duration, but with each individual person. One thing he was exploiting was to use an actor as a vetted source. At the start of the most disturbing segment, Sandra hands the phone to her boyfriend with the terse instruction, "this is Officer Daniels. He's a police officer. Do what he says." In that, he used Sandra to artificially create authority in the boyfriend's mind. Imagine if, with no explanation, your significant other handed you a phone and said that? Would your first thought really be, "I'm going to assume this is a stranger and figure it out for myself"? Of course not. Just like when you're introduced with a line, "this is my father", you automatically bestow respect — you don't say, "prove it."

Being part of the labor series, the moderator (whose name I can't remember and can't find off hand) tried to steer the discussion to one that damns the authoritarian hierarchy of low-level jobs, particularly fast-food employers. While I have disdain for that structure, I thought the reason for the behaviors portrayed had much more to do with human nature: it is in our nature as social creatures to want to help one another and that we take shortcuts to validate trust. Without those mechanisms, our society would be in a constant state of deadlock. Authoritarian hierarchy exploits those traits to business advantage, and in that way is a contributing factor to the efficiency by which "Officer Daniels" could dispatch his psychopathic plan.

What is there to thwart this behavior, though? In general, I think it is to respect anonymity of technology. A voice on the phone — just like the letters of a text message or e-mail — are not equivalent to a face-to-face conversation. If we treat indirect communication as an unreliable source, we can help avoid such situations.

It is also important to remember that we grant authority and that it is not bestowed, for the other key piece of the story is "Officer" Daniels' impersonation of a police officer. When authority is granted, there is always an option for independent thought and personal responsibility, but if it's believed to be bestowed, then an officer can bestow authority, and assume responsibility, both of which are but dangerous illusions.

The Big Burning Man Trip

Posted on 2012-Sep-07 by Jason Olshefsky

So the tale starts on August 22. Like last year, I left on a Wednesday although this time I was determined: I kept telling people I was going to "win Burning Man" as if it was some kind of contest. The Amtrak left pretty much on-time late at night. I talked with a nice woman on her way to Chicago.

With the train arriving on-time, I had plenty of time for my Chicago ritual: a visit to Lou Mitchell's Restaurant and Bakery for an excellent breakfast, then a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago. I only had an hour, but it's not much longer than that I get a little burned-out. I liked the contemporary fabric arts exhibit, "Fashioning the Object: Bless, Boudicca, Sandra Backlund". I got back to the station and we left without incident.

On the leg from Chicago to Reno (and the return) I used up my Amtrak mileage points on a roomette which is definitely the way to go. I can handle a day or two sleeping in coach (if I come from being well-rested) but having a place to lay down horizontal is fantastic. Add in the complimentary coffee, meals in the dining car, and a shower in each rail car, and it's awesome.

I met my first fellow Burners and spent a lot of time in the sightseeing car chatting with them and others. I felt like I had one vacation in Chicago, and was on to my second on the train. By the time we got past Denver, more Burners got on. I almost got interviewed by a guy named Duccio but time got the best of us and we were in Reno before I had the chance. I was probably the only person hoping for a delay: I also wanted to get in closer to check-in time at the hotel, but the train ran promptly.

I had to dawdle for a few hours before starting my third vacation in Reno. I saw lots of people heading to Burning Man but only chatted with a few. I spent more time than I thought it would take cutting out the "Blue Highway" font stencil I made for my Lonely Lamppost project. I also decided to try and mitigate uncertainty (see last year) so I signed up to take the "ToFlame" bus. I had to pay extra since my stuff amounted to three huge 50-pound bags (which is included as checked bags on Amtrak) along with two more smaller bags I packed full of water jugs. I was able to tote all my stuff on a luggage cart I made; I figure it totaled about 300 pounds.

The ToFlame bus was scheduled to pick up people at the Reno airport then stop by the SaveMart which was only a few blocks from the hotel. It's a block off I-80 and a major last-stop for the deluge of Burners from California. So I hauled my 300 pound pack over there and hung out with some people making their final purchases, and a bunch of people hitching rides. After I was there I probably could have managed a ride, but I felt better with the bus — especially when the bus finally arrived (actually two of them) about 3:30 p.m.

From there it was a matter of getting 60 people from both buses to buy their provisions and all get back on. It was like herding cats and we didn't leave SaveMart until probably 4:45 or so. Mind you, the "scheduled arrival" was something like 5 p.m. at Burning Man. Ha ha. Traffic on the narrow Rt. 447 north of Fernley, Nevada was heavy and we even stopped completely for 20 minutes or so.

We got a chance to watch about half of The Beast Pageant on the bus, much to the amusement of the rowdy passengers. There was even another Rochesterian: and, of course, I knew her (albeit through her parents). Once we got to Burning Man we had to head to the Will-Call ticket area as half of each bus needed to pick up tickets. We finally made it through the gate and were all dropped off at Esplanade and 6:30 (the address, not the time). The bus ride was like a third vacation; Burning Man itself the fourth.

I dragged my stuff out to 7:00 and found some nice people on Foxglove to camp next to. I set up camp and helped them with their shade before heading out to explore. I looked for a girl from the bus on the other side of the city with no luck, but I found some fire spinners and met a guy who had a neon-orange boat decked out as an art car. We chatted for a bit and he took me for a ride. After that I realized I was hungry, having not eaten for hours, but I couldn't resist checking out the Pier which included a crashed pirate ship with a crooked deck and galley. It was an incredible piece and they had projectors that created the illusion of ocean waves on the Playa, visible from the deck. Walking back to my camp, I noticed the sky was brighter than I expected: it was in fact 4 a.m. when I got in. I guess I had bucked my circadian rhythm which would have me in bed by 7 p.m. Pacific time.

On Monday I met the people across the street and helped them wire the lights on their Blue Whale art car (which we later named "Connie"). The whale was new although the base vehicle had been through several incarnations in the past.

I stopped by the ARTery and got my Lonely Lamppost placed at 1:00 at 2600' — about halfway from the Temple to the 2:00 corner of the Esplanade. (Funny enough, it was almost exactly the opposite side from where I was camped.) Matt drove Lauren (another artist) and I to our respective sites. I assessed the nearby artworks (both from the map at the ARTery and by sight-lines) and tweaked my location closer to 12:45, putting me at the intersection of "Burn Wall St.-Dream Tree Rd." and "The Man-Black Rock Bijou Rd." I headed back to camp and painted the signs for the lamppost (with only one heat-induced typo of "Biiou" on one side), carted it out, and got it set up before dark.

The Lonely Lamppost at Burning Man, 2012

Lonely Lamppost by Zhust at Burning Man 2012

Upon returning to camp, we all headed out and got in line behind Charlie the Unicorn Goes to Burning Man to get registered with the Department of Mutant Vehicles (DMV). That night, after a great meal with my new friends across the street (Mama Kabuke's Big Tent, formerly It Still Stings Camp) I called it an early night and crashed around midnight or so.

One of my nightmares about Burning Man is having to deal with someone who puts their noisy generator right next to my tent and having to deal with the uphill battle of teaching them what "considerate" means. So this night I was awakened around 3 by a noisy generator placed right next to my tent. My solution was to just get up and move it twice the distance from me. The next day I asked and was welcomed to camp with Mama Kabuke's crew. Problem solved.

Tuesday I explored a bit in the day. While yelling compliments from the "Compliments" booth around 4:00 and Dandelion, I met Little Wave from Winnipeg and chatted with her a while. I couldn't manage to convince her to join me for dinner, but I did get a woman from our camp to go. It was at Sacred Cow at the 7:30 plaza — I found out about it from a couple Burners I had met in Reno. On the way home from that, we stopped at a "bar" which was actually mostly non-alcoholic: "When Life Gives You Lemons" served lemonade and other lemony treats. She and I got talking about languages and she suggested immersion rather than translation: read a book in Italian and try and pick up what you can from context alone, or watch a familiar movie in Spanish. I thought it good advice.

After we got back I was on my own again and wondered what to do. I had brought a game I called my "Parrot Cards" (because they have parrots on them, but pronounced like "Tarot", not "parrot"). I had noted the Burning Man addresses ran from 2:00 to 10:00 which coincided with the numeric playing cards, so I added letter tiles and had a way to pick a random address. The playing card suits have traditional Tarot meanings which I simplified with diamonds meaning the body, physical, or external world, clubs meaning the mind, emotions, or internal world, hearts being the suit of religion, love, and heart, and spades being the suit of the military or challenge. I gave "readings" to a few people but mostly used it myself.

So I drew the 10 of diamonds and G, sending me to the dance clubs at the edge of the city. I tend to find it an okay pastime to dance to club music, but I'm easily drawn away to other things. I hung out at Robot Heart at 10:00 and Germanium for a bit before walking back home — again noting the warming eastern sky of dawn. I was awestruck by the sheer number of attendees, with tents, RV's, art cars, installations, and public spaces. The official tally, I gather, was about 52,000 people.

Wednesday I slated as my day to do as little as possible. I sent out a few postcards, and I got to drive Connie to the Temple. I met a guy who was building a whale to be a performance space, I think at the northern end of Rt. 1 in California. As far as the Temple of Juno was concerned, it kind of left me cold — I didn't feel very connected with it.

That night I was hanging out with T. from camp and some people came by and asked if they could drop off their drunk friend who they were unable to drag back home. I would have told them to keep trying, but I let T. answer. I was surprised when she gave an emphatic "absolutely." She insisted on asking who was going to stop by in the morning, and she hung out with the guy for a while until he passed out. Her philosophy was to try and embrace the 10 Principles of Burning Man as much as possible, even when it might be inconvenient.

It's a lesson I'm going to have to let sink in: do good when it's easy, when it's inconvenient, when it's difficult, and eventually, when you don't think you can.

On Thursday, I was invited to be one of the four official drivers of Connie. The DPW says it's only the driver and the driver's spouse, so Jordi ordained himself three spouses.

I happened upon Hair of the Dog (HOTD) camp during the day and said hi to Troy, my birth-twin (same month, day, and year.) I blundered around some more and came upon this camp that offered to do a polygraph and shaman cleansing ritual. I had to give it a go. The idea was to use the polygraph to divine a painful event, then to use shamanism to transform the event into a point of growth and healing. It was unnerving but effective, especially for a sciency-guy like me.

Friday I took Connie out on a tour by myself. I drew the 3-of-diamonds (referring to physical or material things) and L so I headed there. Some people on Iris St. came out and stopped me to give me lemonade. This was a theme all week: this was my first sober (well, sober-ish) Burning Man, and I had no trouble finding non-alcoholic treats. Curiously, it was all lemonade (even Mama Kabuke's kept the booze in back and offered water, "gay-torade", and lemonade to passers-by.)

My logical side was irritated by the accuracy of the Parrot reading to find the Otic Oasis out there: indeed a physical thing, and one I forgot that I wanted to see. I parked Connie and walked to it. It was very cool. I hung out at the camp adjacent and tried to solve their puzzle/interlocking pieces. Their kitchen yurt was amazing: all cut from laminated pieces.

On the way back toward the center of the city, two girls stopped me and I gave them a ride: Playa Kitty and Elise. They were headed to Discofish at 7:15 and Edelweiss which was just around the corner from Mama Kabuke's. We stopped at my Lonely Lamppost for a minute on the way, and got about 100 feet away when a dust storm hit. I didn't realize it would last so long and didn't set the brake. When another woman had leaned her bike against Connie, that was the only way I realized we started being blown backward as her bike fell over. In all it lasted an hour before we managed to gradually make small steps back in tiny clearings.

Saturday I took a crew out for an art tour: Elise (my secret Playa-crush, not the one from yesterday), Emily, Amy, and Momma all piled into Connie and we headed out. Funny enough, it seemed I was either alone in Connie or I was delighted to shuttle women. We headed out to see Burn Wall Street which was being prepared to burn, although the graffiti was most excellent.

When we got back, a couple of the guys had set up a comically obvious snare trap with gin, tonic, and one of Beckster's giant juggling dildoes. Then Zen took another and tucked it into his shorts and did weightlifting, pretending his penis was hanging out unbeknownst to him, smiling broadly at people who responded uncomfortably and awkwardly to his antics (universally, even). I was laughing so hard I was crying.

After dinner we went out to the Man burn. We had a spot just a few people back. Despite a bit of agoraphobia (considering thousands of people behind me) I enjoyed watching the burn up close. I couldn't resist taking a lap and oggling the art cars surrounding the man. It was great.

I walked to the Burn Wall Street site and checked out more art cars. I sat down and was thinking I could go for a nip of whiskey. A guy sat down next to me and stuffed a bottle of bourbon into my field of view. He said his name was Yuri. It took a few minutes to ask, but it turned out he was the bartender at Lux for a while. He was just walking through looking for someone to sit near. Once again, the "Playadipity" and finding Rochestarians everywhere found confluence.

The burn, while not spectacular, was participatory. Everyone was chanting to burn the fuckers down and cheering more loudly than average whenever one fell. It was all quite cathartic.

On Sunday we fetched my lamppost with Connie. It survived just fine. The site was pretty clean and I only found a few little fibers. I took it apart back at camp. I also packed up my stuff and got ready to leave on Monday, figuring on sleeping in the Big Tent somewhere for the night.

I had a few drinks that night and went to the Temple Burn. Just as when I visited earlier in the week, I wasn't particularly moved. I'm not sure why exactly.

Monday I helped clean up camp and take apart Connie. Jordi and Devon drove me out to the bus stop. It arrived before they left and the whole process was much smoother than entry. We even left via the 12-mile entrance, bypassing the entire exodus line (which I gather wasn't particularly bad this year anyway). The only hassle was with the Eldorado Hotel shuttle driver who was reluctant to let anyone on board who had any dust on their luggage. Nonetheless, I got in fine.

On Tuesday evening, the Amtrak left pretty much on-time. This time the fellow Burners were numerous, leaving one-at-a-time as we progressed across the country. It was a bit disconcerting to become more judgmental each passing mile: it didn't matter on the Playa, but now these people were turning into alcoholics, egomaniacs, and slackers before my eyes. Disconcerting but fascinating.

Nonetheless, I still had a good time talking with them. I told my tale and mentioned that I was "going to win Burning Man". Well, after arriving to camp solo and getting to drive an art car, having a great time, and getting excellent meals, I think I won. Kate jumped up and ran to her seat. She said someone had given her a sticker which she reluctantly took, passing it to me:

I Won Burning Man

Dominic Barter on Restorative Justice

Posted on 2012-Aug-15 by Jason Olshefsky

I headed to RIT this evening and attempted to find Golisano Hall. I went to Carlson by mistake (and partly out of habit as that's one of the locations of the Caroline Werner Gannett Project lectures). I tried to get on the open WiFi to find a map, but the WiFi wasn't actually accessible — a metaphor for RIT's anti-community, pro-police-state, lets-all-live-in-a-bunker philosophy. I finally found a map and (as I suspected looking at the building behind it) I was standing in front of Golisano Hall: "you are here" on so many levels.

I was there to see Dominic Barter will present a lecture titled Toward Conflict: A Conversation about Restorative Justice. He began by talking about how there are no outsiders in a community. Often we think of conflict as being between two parties, but there is always that group affected by the conflict, and (by nature of being part of the community) complicit in it.

But "conflict", "community", and even "group" are pretty potent words that need some refining to understand what's meant.

Conflict is at its core, a disconnection of communication. The presumption is that all people think they are doing good with their actions, so everyone behaves in a way that is somehow beneficial. But an action does not benefit everyone. The conversation can stop there with each party assuming the other is mistaken, confused, stupid, evil, etc. Or one party can state its objectives, and the other (while hearing the words) may not be able to empathize with that position and be unable to understand.

Conflict remains as long as that disconnection of communication remains. And it demands to be addressed; it demands to be dispelled by reconnecting communication — all because the self of each person longs to be recognized, understood, and respected. This desire for communication is so strong that, if left unresolved, leads to animosity and eventually violence.

On community, let me back up for a minute. I'm often bothered by the word "is". It has this nebulous double-meaning as a way to describe a measurement ("the sky is blue"), and as a way to define an equivalence ("one plus one is two"). So I get flustered by "you are part of the community" because "community" can simply be a measurement of place, but it can also be a definition of behavior.

So rather than define community as a set of behaviors, Barter (if I remember correctly) sees it as the people and shared places — you, everyone you speak with, everyone you interact with, everyone you see.

He also doesn't like referring to "groups" involved with a conflict — as if there are literally two teams, each with common ideas that disagree with the other. Rather, it is simply individuals, each one with jeir own ideas, some of which are shared with others. Conflict resolution, then, involves every individual in the community — everyone who interacts with those "central" to a conflict are effected and necessarily involved.

Another way to look at conflict is an imbalance of power. So Barter's process — called Restorative Circles — is literally a circle of people which, by its nature, equalizes power. He tries to work from a perspective of being part of the community rather than as an outsider, and in that manner attempts to keep himself from being part of a power imbalance.

He says it always happens in three phases.

First, people reacquaint themselves with how to communicate. He has observed people not talking to the target of their statement — as in looking away, or at jeir own supporters. And people are inarticulate and flail about with words. He reminds himself to be confident in the ability of people to communicate, so he tries not to interfere, but when someone cannot fathom another's rationale, he asks jem if jee can explain a "good reason" for the misunderstood behavior, knowing that people think they act benevolently.

This phase always takes longer than he thinks it should and he starts to panic. But it inevitably does, and eventually people start communicating with one another.

Next, everyone starts to identify humanity in others. Each realize that everyone is human like jem — that there is benevolence behind everyone's actions. And they empathize with one another, and begin to see the source of the conflict.

Finally, they start creating possible actions. Barter says he's amazed to see the creativity of solutions that arise. And because the whole community is involved, the likelihood of those possible actions being implemented is dramatically improved.

I had to ask about anxiety and control. I like to be in control, and I at least feel most comfortable when the logical part of my mind can offer possible likely outcomes. But when it breaks down and is unable to formulate any likely outcomes, I feel anxious — that old "fexcitement" reaction that's the physiological fear/excitement response. And that's unpleasant and I try to avoid it. So to enter a situation like this — where I have no idea what solutions exist, what the conflict is, and even if it will work — is extremely difficult.

Barter said he experiences that as well and has learned to rely on a support network (either other people being present or readily available by phone). For him, support takes the form of people reminding him who he is. I presume he means to regain focus on his goals and methodology.

I thought it perhaps most fascinating that he described himself as an extremely impatient man. He knows how ineffective it is to rush the process, so to ensure it is successful and robust, he is willing to invest a lot of energy in making sure it is done right.

These Restorative Circles happen start small with just a few people each, then grow, and eventually can include as many as several hundred people at once. In all, it's an amazing process that we need to reacquaint ourselves with.

Thoughts on Ruby Sparks …

Posted on 2012-Aug-13 by Jason Olshefsky

With the Dryden closed on Mondays, I have been making a habit of going to the Little for their $5 Monday movies — often to see two films. Tonight I went to see Ruby Sparks. I had seen the trailer and had written it off, but I read an interview with writer-and-star Zoe Kazan which sold the movie on me (but be warned it's full of spoilers.) In short, consider what happens if a woman writes a role for herself as if she were a male writer creating a manic pixie dream girl (MPDG)? It all seems a little more self-aware to me, and I'm interested to see if all that works out. Alternatively, what if a movie centered on a MPDG were able to pass the Bechdel/Wallace test?

The introductory first act introduces us to Calvin, a young writer who met with massive success in his first novel. He lives alone in a fancy house and is trying to follow up with a second work. But it's not going so well. His only company is a scruffy dog who (as he reveals to his therapist) he got as a way to try and meet women, but it's not working. So his therapist suggests he try writing a few paragraphs about meeting a woman who adores his dog. And later while dreaming, he finds such a woman, albeit imaginary.

Enamored by his fantasy, he sets to frantically writing. He confides in his therapist that he's worried that he's falling in love with the character. And then all hell breaks loose when he thinks she's living in his house. She believes fully that the history defined by his writing is her actual life. And then worse: everyone else thinks she's there too, presumably because, well, she is.

But rather than turn into a rehash of Mannequin or Weird Science (yikes: dating myself seriously!) it steers more toward what it's like to be a being who has no idea she was just a fictional construct, centering on the differences with a real person.

And this is what the trailer completely misses: it's sort of a multi-layered writer's movie. I mean, all the characters are fictional constructs, but one is also a fiction-in-a-fiction. And then, while Calvin and Ruby are the most fully-realized characters, how can they coexist with others who are absurdly broad? For instance, when I saw Antonio Banderas as Calvin's stepdad Mort playing the stereotypically over-the-top artist, I thought, "oh my god, it's like he's made of ham." It's interesting to consider how all the characters exist and why they're there, and how fully formed the would believe they are.

The film gets me thinking, what if it were possible to buy, say, a robot girlfriend? What if I could make someone who is exactly what I think I want? Would I even come close to anything desirable? And then I also know it's necessarily a paradox to have free will (a.k.a. intelligence, artificial-or-not) and be manipulable or programmable.

Writing offers an outlet for those dreams of Pygmalion — a way to literally (and literarily) make friends. And Ruby Sparks touches on all the ramifications of that.

So I guess I'd recommend it if you're wanting for that kind of film. I find expectations to be extremely important when it comes to viewing a film, and the trailer does such a poor job of setting those expectations in the "right" direction that I don't recommend the trailer or any single-paragraph summary. And it certainly helps if you also like looking at Zoe Kazan.

Thoughts on Steve Jobs "Lost Interview"

Posted on 2012-Aug-03 by Jason Olshefsky

I decided to check out Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview at the Dryden. I think it was something to do with semi-morbid curiosity, and I feel like I have a connection somehow — what with being 10 years younger, but with a similar hunger for electronics and computers. We had Apple II's in our high school, and I learned machine programming and did some hacking, although my main expertise was with the TRS-80 Model III (and later Color Computer) we had at home. What I mean to say is that the seeds of how we lived our lives were rooted in the same kind of stuff.

Anyway, Robert X. Cringley, "during the making of his TV series Triumph of the Nerds about the birth of the PC, … taped an hour-long interview with Steve Jobs who proved witty, outspoken, and visionary." This was in 1995: 10 years after Jobs was ousted from Apple, during the time when he was developing NeXT computers on his own, a year prior to selling NeXT to Apple (which became the foundation for OS X), and 18 months before returning to Apple to take over as CEO.

From the film, I gather interviews Steve Jobs almost never gave interviews. In fact, I can't recall ever seeing him do one, knowing his presence only from the Apple shareholder meetings he was famous for. So it was a rare treat to see not only the interview, but also getting to see pretty much the whole thing without being edited down for television.

At one point, Jobs says he thinks computers are the greatest invention ever made. I reflexively agreed — I do everything with computers, and my job is centered around them — but I think I also agree more deeply. It's one of only a few tools ever invented that improve upon the qualities of the mind (akin to language, writing, books, etc.) rather than as a tool for saving labor or for improving health and safety. For instance, after the film, I noted that Joseph Fourier developed his Fourier analysis in the 1800's, but at that time, it was little more than theoretical math — worthless to everyday society. But with computers, we exploit it all the time, using it as a foundation for JPEG image compression and MP3's.

Also, I always seem to be surprised that someone had made a claim about the impact and significance of the Internet from its early days, as when Jobs claimed we'd be doing everything on the World Wide Web and the Internet. I remember, though, that it was pretty much obviously a big deal. Heck, even I had my first website sometime in 1996, although I didn't know exactly how it would manifest (nor did anybody else).

Overall I found it to be a fascinating time capsule, well worth seeking out.

About JayceLand's New Look

Posted on 2012-Jul-19 by Jason Olshefsky

Well times change and so do I. In the last few years, I've transitioned further from going out to live music all the time to seeing mostly movies and only a handful of shows a month. So I decided to further pare down the number of events I list on the site.

My standing rule is that this site should be as easy for me as possible. I had toyed with a user-generated site and all kinds of fancy databases (which may still come) but that is most certainly not easy. And then there's the whole fragile way I generate the site each week — pretty much unchanged since 2001 — using FileMaker Pro 5 databases on a Macintosh Classic, exporting the data, and using some Unix scripts to make a HTML file. The workflow is quick (i.e. easy) although it's fairly convoluted.

So I decided the new site would be a weekly blog post with highlights of things-to-do — things I will very likely do (rather than "have a passing interest in doing" as it stands now). If you're only interested in the events lists, you can link straight to the events category and skip all my regular blog posts. The JayceLand home page will now redirect to the normal blog. To keep my sanity, I'm going to stop numbering them — the last numbered update was #705 on July 12, 2012. (And even then: 705 weeks of posting events … enough is enough!)

In addition, I'm dropping most of the internal links. You can Google a band just as well as I can. And I don't think I need to remind everyone the address of the Bug Jar (along with a link to Google Maps.) So it'll all look a lot more vanilla. And be much easier for me which, well, is the whole point.

Good Luck to Tieson

Posted on 2012-Jul-03 by Jason Olshefsky

Back in January I got a dog named Tieson. Even back then I knew he'd be a handful. But, over the last 5 months or so, I worked on his quirks. I took him to an obedience class at Dogs At Play (75 Howell St.) which helped a lot. I figured out how to keep him from peeing in the house: I just kept him confined — at first to his travel crate (which he didn't seem to like too much) and then to the foyer which gave him a little more room to move around (which he seemed fine with.)

But there was always his Jack Russell Terrier tendencies. His high energy level was not a problem for me, nor was his desire for play and attention. But he needed someone who was always dominant. And that was the problem.

Any chance he had to take his "rightful spot" as alpha dog, he took. For instance, if I was sitting on the couch to watch a movie and I invited him up, after a while he'd snarl a bit if I tried to pet him. If I persisted he'd eventually bite me. He was, however, a good and obedient dog, so I could just say, "get off" and he'd get off the couch (with a begrudging growl sometimes) and then I could call him over and (as long as he was on the ground and I was on the couch) I could pet him without any problem.

But I want a dog that is a companion, not a servant. And after he tried to attack a neighbor who came to trim the hedge row on my side, and after he attacked Ali and Lucy (the dog she and I have joint-custody of) I decided enough was enough.

I looked on the Internet and found Russell Rescue, Inc. who specialize in rescuing and adopting Jack Russell Terriers. There are only three contacts in the northeast and one happens to be in Irondequoit. I sent an e-mail and called but I got no response, so tonight I took Tieson to The Humane Society at Lollypop Farm (99 Victor Rd., Fairport).

Because of his history of biting, he's got an uphill battle. I think he'll get to a behavioral evaluation, but then it's up to him to not growl or bite. He's a pretty smart dog, but I hope he figures out that it's do-or-die.

Literally.

The house is now much more quiet with just me and my cat Pumpkin. But I am overall relieved. As I described to a friend, it was like living with a roommate you barely tolerate. Even though the good times were nice, there was a lot of tension and stress. And now I'll be able to sleep in when I want to because I'll actually be able to set the alarm clock rather than this:

The Tieson Alarm Clock

Good luck, buddy.

The Fraud that is Truthland

Posted on 2012-Jun-21 by Jason Olshefsky

So I heard about this film Truthland which is purported as a response to GasLand by Josh Fox. While I think Gasland barely scratches the surface of the issue of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas extraction (hydrofracking or fracking) — and promotes the most sensational aspects — I think it is overall a service that it raises awareness and encourages people to explore further.

So having "drank the Kool Aid" so-to-speak, I was skeptical of Truthland. I watched the trailer and it looked pretty good. But then I was thinking, "I wonder where the website is hosted" so I looked into it. It came back "clean" in the sense that it wasn't hosted at a gas company like I expected but by Linode.com. But then I thought, "man, that website looks really good". It'd probably be around $5K to $20K to make something that looks that good. That seems kind of unusual for a family to be able to afford (and without even a mention on IMDb.com, much less media attention or even a Kickstarter campaign.)

And then I thought, you know, the footage in the trailer looks really good too — like too good. I mean, I think it's possible that a mom in Pennsylvania knows how to produce a top-notch documentary, but it seemed kind of unlikely. The quality demonstrated in the trailer ain't from some off-the-shelf Canon no matter how much money you spend: shooting obviously included a recording engineer, someone with fill lights and reflectors, a good cinematographer, and at least two cameras. For instance, at about 1:30 in the trailer interviewing Joseph Martin: note the gap between Shelly DePue and Martin where you can see the tree trunk between them, then in the close-up, the camera is to the left of the first and zoomed, obscuring the tree? A digital zoom after-the-fact would show the same angle. Plus there's obviously wireless microphones to record the interview and reflected light to key their faces in the shade of the trees. These are not things the average person thinks of — only an extraordinarily exceptional person would.

So way at the bottom of the page are two links: one to Energy In Depth, and the other to The Independent Petroleum Association of America. Well gee, that seems weird. Most documentaries give thanks to friends and relatives who ponied up the thousands of dollars it would take to shoot it, but this one cites a couple industry groups.

So I Googled it and a few links down is Fracking Industry's Answer to 'Gasland': Devised by Astroturf Lobbying Group and Political Ad Agency. And that pretty much puts a lock on it. I don't mean to just make an ad hominem fallacy of it all: there is big money at stake, and the central deception (that this started from DePue wanting to find the truth) calls into question everything that is said. And if everything that's said can't be believed, why say it at all?