The Birney Experience

I remember

 

As seen on Current TV's Retro Spectacular this month.

I saw this first run and, looking back, this is likely where I learned to "playback a scene" in order to remember something. In other words, remembering the actual list wasn't as important as remembering what was said. I think that makes sense. Anyway, that's how I remember stuff and now I know why.

 (Yes, there is an ad on the front. I figure Current TV needs all the money it can get, so I am not getting all upset about it.)

Good Hello

 

Crosley Bendix, Cultural Reviewer and Director of Stylistic Premonitions for the Universal Media Netweb.

Negativland is awesome.

A Damn Shame

From the current signin screen of APB:

APB has been a fantastic journey, but unfortunately that journey has come to a premature end. Today we are sad to announce that despite everyone's best efforts to keep the service running; APB is coming to a close. It's been a pleasure working on APB and with all its players. Together we were building an absolutely amazing game, and for that, we thank you. You guys are awesome! From all of the Realtime World staff we thank you for your continued support. The servers are still up, so join the party and say goodbye! - Ben 'APBMonkey' Bateman (Community Officer)

I had waited for APB to come out since it was announced many years ago. David Jones, the creator of Grand Theft Auto 1 & 2 and Crackdown was building the ultimate multiplayer sandbox shooter on a scale not yet dreamt of at the time. And while games arrived with more simultaneous players. such as MAG, the development of APB continued, becoming obsolete before it was even released. After many delays, it seemed only a handful of diehards could wade through the changes from the original concept and the byzantine pricing scheme. 

Within two months of release, Realtime Worlds (the developer of APB) entered "Administration" and what little support they were able to offer the players that were left disappeared. What remained was a world that rapidly became the domain of the aimbot and wallhack. A cheater's paradise where skill meant nothing and the only reason left to play was that you still had time left that you had paid for and you weren't going to let those bastards take it from you.

We no longer appreciated the insane levels of customization. The infinite varieties of avatars and custom clothing faded from our view. The tricked out rides no longer rezzed for us, leaving black vehicle shaped objects.

I wonder what the last death theme will be? One of the many painstakingly crafted five second snippets of recognizable songs or the default "8-bit"?

 

I have uploaded some screenshots I took while playing APB. I was part of a criminal gang called the "Trouser Snakes". I used the excellent ingame graphics editor to design the font and the mascot. This was then used to customize the shirt and to create a "graffiti spray" that could be placed on any of several dozen prominent locations. These perches were often very hard to get to. To get to some of them amounted to playing a three minute platformer, hopping from rooftops and climbing air conditioning ducts hidden in obscure alleyways. Four of the pics are of my avatar standing in front of defaced buildings. The other is my car, which was custom painted with what I thought were very artfully arranged blood trails and, of course, a trouser snake.

I am not saying the game was perfect. Even without the hackers and exploiters, APB was a rough gem that had not been cut and polished prior to release. But to those of us who can still see what could have been, we will go back to LaRocha or Zombie and ride the streets of San Paro until they turn off the servers. 

Super Duper

Apparently, Amazon thinks I am Taco.

 

Character

Associate Bob, from Demolition Man, is one of my favorite film characters. His aplomb at his situation on the passing of his employer and the threat to his life was wonderfully played.

Glenn Shadix, the brilliant character actor, has died after a fall at 58. (via @danbenjamin)

For fans of Demolition Man, there is a podcast about it at Natsukashi with Glenn discussing the film from last year. As they say on the podcast, if it is on TV, I settle in and watch the rest of it.

 

Art

Less and More. The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams.

I respond well to certain product design and the look and feel of Braun products have always made me happy.

I ran across that presentation from VernissageTV on my Roku (It's on the blip.tv channel). There are a lot of exhibition walkthroughs on the site.

Digging into the site's archives, I found this piece about a MOMA exhibit called Geometry of Motion 1920s/1970s that was fascinating. I was not aware that a lot of the 1970s art that I liked was tied to the 1920s. Some of the artists mentioned in the piece were new to me (El Lissitzky and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy) and their work is incredible.

The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910-1934 has a series of illustrations from a children's book by El Lissitzky. I will keep politics out of the discussion, but the imagery works for me.

 
(Select "Transform the World" -> "Suprematism and the non objective world" -> #3)

This is from the 2006 exhibit of Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers at the Tate.

 

I have to go deeper into the 1920s as I am very unfamiliar with what appears to be a lot of good art.

Words

This video has been making the rounds over the past couple of days and for good reason. This is a short film based on the idea of illustrating the complexity of words and how we use and think about certain turns of phrase. This was originally done for WNYC RadioLab, which is an endlessly fascinating place to begin with. Enjoy.

via thaasaphobic.com

 

 

Yep. My first post is a reblog.