Virtual Fools

As is typical in these parts, we took a few months off to attend to pressing matters of school, work, and life. You’ve likely noticed the even-more contemporary web re-design. Senor B–. just taught a web design course, so no more 2006-era visuals. Only the cutting edge.

May. The beginning of summer, the portal onto the new horizon of excessive temperatures, indeed the retreat into the bowels of windowless, brazenly air-conditioned rooms. A time for immediate reflection, but for people still lucky (unlucky?) enough to be on a university schedule, also a time for the stoking of new projects.

My spring was busy. But first, I’m happy to report that my book (Ken Russell: Re-Viewing England’s Last Mannerist) has received some attention. There is a short “Recommended” review in May 2010 issue of the American Library Association’s publication Choice. You can view it via their free trial, or through a library’s databasing service. There is a thorough review in the April 2010 issue of the Journal of British Cinema and Television. A preview can be viewed here.

The conspicuous lack of material on VF can at least be partially attributed to the other little bits of writing I’ve done for diverse venues. A few are fully and freely accessible online. I reviewed the recent anthology A History of Visual Culture: Western Civilization from the 18th to the 21st Century, edited by Jane Kromm and Susan Benforado-Bakewell (Berg, 2010) for the Southwest Journal of Cultures. I wrote a lengthy, comparative review of James Chapman’s War on Film (Reaktion, 2008) and Tony Shaw’s Hollywood’s Cold War (Edinburgh UP, 2007) for Scope. Though written two years ago, it emerged in issue 16, and can be viewed here.

I reviewed John C. Tibbetts’s highly commendable book All My Loving?: The Films of Tony Palmer (2009) for the above-mentioned April 2010 Journal of British Cinema and Television. I have two short pieces in the May 2010 issue of Film & History, one about the film The London Nobody Knows (1967), the other a review of Robert Shail’s Seventies British Cinema (2008).

The Last Word: Live!

One of my big projects for this summer is a live, improvised/sketch show based on the Va Gazette (Williamsburg, VA-area newspaper) column “The Last Word.” This column, now in its 25th year, is a forum which prints anonymous comments from the local community. By turns earnestly personal and maddeningly vitriolic, these statements provide easily adaptable material for what promises to be a gut-wrenchingly amusing performance. The show is June 18th and 19th (a Fri. and a Sat.) at the Kimball Theater in Williamsburg, VA. Ticket information, including preorder, is on their calender. The whole shebang is brought to you by 1693 Productions.

Plenty more to come. Many projects, original VF shorts, and reviews of diverse items of diverse media in the pipeline.

I recently unsubscribed from the 200+ feeds in my Google Reader in an attempt to reduce the time I spent pressing “J”. While the details of that experiment will be saved for another blog entry, it did spark a line of inquiry. Would financial commitments focus my media consumption?

The Problem

I pay for cable TV, I pay for Netflix, I pay $50 a year for Xbox Live Gold. And while I almost never watch TV (that’s the domain of my girlfriend), but I feel beholden to my Netflix and Xbox because I’ve committed money to them. If they were free services, I might not give them as much attention (I’m looking at you, PSN). And that’s precisely what the web is.

We’re used to getting things for free one the Internet because that’s always how it’s been. We put up with ads because we don’t have to reach for our wallets. But I rarely feel a sense of allegiance to websites because I can always go elsewhere for similar information. Granted, there are cases where I read a site specifically for its writers (aka Giant Bomb and Tested), but usually Autoblog is as good as Jalopnik.

This is one reason I still like magazines. Think of having a magazine delivered to your home versus looking at the table of them at the dentist’s office. When I subscribe to Wired or Car and Driver, I’ve made a decision on what to read and have limited my choices. When I’m in the dentist’s office, I stare blankly at the table before a) picking something I already know or b) picking at random. I read an article and get called back to the chair with no sense of satisfaction. Sure, I’ve taken in the information, but it never really sticks with me.

The Experiment

Turning back to the web, what if I used a financial commitment to narrow my consumption? What content would I subscribe to? How much would I be willing to pay? In the case of this thought experiment, I’m assuming that I would be able to enjoy the rest of the Internet, but that I would always start with my subscriptions first and they would take up most of my time.

Content I Would Pay For

TWiT Network, $5/mo

I’ve been listening to This Week in Tech since episode 20 or so. Leo Laporte’s little empire has a broad enough range of content that I don’t even think about subscribing to other podcasts. I listen to TWiT and MacBreak Weekly regularly, and tune into some of the other shows on occasion. But these two shows alone are worth the monthly contribution. In fact, TWiT already has a recurring monthly contribution system setup, making this a natural first example.

The Mike O’Meara Show, $10/mo

I grew up listening to talk radio. Not like political talk radio, and not NPR, but the kind of radio often described as “Guy Talk.” You know, talk radio epitomized by shocks jocks Howard Stern or Opie and Anthony. The kind of talk radio that is basically dead on terrestrial stations. Say what you want about most of the shows, I will defend to the death the Don and Mike Show. They were on the air together over twenty years, and after Don Geronimo left the airwaves, Mike O’Meara picked up the mantle with the rest of the cast to start the Mike O’Meara Show. After a solid year’s run, their station switched formats and they were out of work. But they came back a few months later with a daily podcast and have slowly been gaining momentum on the iTunes charts. The podcast is five hours of good content a week from a group of really talented people. My higher subscription price reflects my desire to support their effort.

Whiskey Media, $5/mo

It probably goes without saying, but between Giant Bomb and Tested, there’s enough content that one could get rid of their television. I’ll admit that I don’t care much for This is Only a Test, but I’m your typical Jeff Gerstmann apostle, following him about and spreading his Word. The Bombcast is my favorite piece of media and I put everything else on hold to listen to it. The Whiskey Media sites are all about depth—the kind of minutae I can really sink my teeth into. While I have no interest in anime, comics, or (upcoming) movies, I’m really looking forward to the Tested wiki. It’s encouraging to know that these sites are run by passionate people with no interest in selling to a megacorp that will control their product coughcnetcough.

Ars Technica, $15/yr

I actually prefer Ars to its sister site Wired. Between tech, games, and science, their tagline might as well be “Stuff Bobby Enjoys.” Unlike other tech blogs, they’re not caught up posting every little cell phone announcement and they don’t earn their pageviews through the rumormill. The writing is good and the coverage has just the right depth. Ars already offers a $5/mo subscription, but I’m not as much interested in their perks (like the PDF library and forum access) as I am their regular content. My ideal subscription price is more like that of a magazine.

AOL / Weblogs, Inc., $5/mo

Say what you want, it’s hard to deny that Weblogs, Inc. has a good slate of blogs. While Gawker is intolerably bad (save for some posts on Lifehacker), I enjoy Engadget, Joystiq, Autoblog, and TUAW.Like Ars, it has a slew of categories that appeal directly to my interests. The writing isn’t always the best, but these blogs certainly have good coverage as a group. I’d feel better about supporting them if I knew that writers got paid more to contribute, but this hypothetical discussion is about the selfish task of reducing my media consumption.

So, then, now that that’s covered, which websites’ content would you pay for?

The Virtual Fools are proud–and just plain excited– to be returning to Magfest (now in its 8th iteration, though this is our 7th). The event takes place at the “way too nice for a motley crew like us” Hilton Mark Center in Alexandria, Virginia. The imported Italian marble in the lobby contrasts sharply with grown adults dressed as Mega Man.

We are busy this year, just as busy (or busier) than in years past. [Note that I am still working off a "not finalized" schedule in posting this--for updates, follow @bokista on Twitter in case things, god forbid, get moved or delayed].

The whole caboodle kicks off tonight, with an “epic party” inclusive of Shael Riley & The Double-Ice Backfire and Virt concert performances, as well as a pervasive Goldeneye 007 theme.

Our guest/panelist contributions start on Friday. At 5pm in “Panels 1,” we present Game Studies 101, a comprehensive, hour-long introduction to the study of the videogame. We intend to introduce this nascent field and provide scaffolding for the various ways in which scholars discuss games. Then, starting at 6 pm, VF teams up with/against members of X-Strike Studios and PBC Productions in a majestic, bout of theatre-sports moderated improv! Come see your favorite goofballs compete against other goofballs. Time permitting, we’ll also do some long-form.

The Low Score Podcast with Bobby and J (special guest, me) will likely be podcasting on Friday and Saturday, at least once in public, so stop by and find us if so inclined. We’ve got a (thankfully) lighter day on Saturday, but will be made busy by all the great festivities–a definite highlight of which is the Sid Meier “keynote” at 1 pm.

Things get super busy again on Sunday. We are taking part in an illustrious “Gaming Intellectuals” panel from 12-2, with Ryan Soloby (ex of Chromelodeon), Tim Macneil, Robert V. Aldrich, and Shaun Cashman (believe it or not, a schoolmate of mine from NCSU)! In this two hour discussion, likely moderated by Aldrich, we’ll discuss game narratives, providing, hopefully, widely divergent views on their success, usefulness, and evolution.  Shaun’s got a “gaming immersion” panel right after, and the X-Strike Studios “premiere showcase” can surely tide you over until…our Password: Videogame Edition at 6 pm. Hey, remember Password? Need a refresher? We’ve resurrected this red-headed-stepchild of the game show world. Much like last year’s successful Match Game, we’ll be giving many contestants a chance to compete for some pretty nice prizes. There will be fun, jokes, celebrities, quips, zings, voices, impersonations, highs, lows, agonies, defeats, and triumphs.

So that’s what we’ve got planned for you. But there is much, much more. Take a peak at this semi-complete schedule, check the official site for the final deal, come to the convention, greet the New Year with force.