Month: May 2024

I just started reading Jimmy Webb’s Tunesmith. It is one of the most entertaining and informative books I’ve ever read. It is also one of the slowest, in a good way.

It is slow going for the best of reasons. On every page, as he talks with love and wisdom about the art and history of songwriting, Webb generously sprinkles examples of the craft.

So on any given page, I find myself stopping to listen to at least one great song on YouTube — often by a songwriter I’ve never heard of — and sometimes roaming through one or two Wikipedia articles as well.

All in all, a fantastic and deeply rewarding experience. If all education worked this way, everyone would be a straight A student.

One of the best fantasy technologies of Star Trek is the universal translator. When you are wearing one of these handy gadgets, then anything spoken to you in an alien language sounds just like English. And when you talk to your alien acquaintance in English, your speech is automatically translated into their language.

This is no longer a fantasy. We now have the technological capability to do this for real. In addition, immediate automatic translation of written text is now also a reality.

So sometime in the near future, you will be able to go anywhere in the world while wearing your fancy high-tech glasses, and be able to read any sign or menu or document, or talk fluently with someone who speaks any language.

I am not convinced that this is a good thing.

It was 50 years ago today that The United States House Committee on the Judiciary opened formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon.

Apparently it never occurred to Nixon, nor to his lawyers, to claim that in his capacity as President of the United States, he could simply pardon himself.

It seems that back then there was this whole “rule of law” thing that people actually believed in. How quaint.

Certain actors seem to be perfect for certain movie roles. But what happens if a movie comes too early or too late for a particular actor to be cast in that perfect role? When the movie is produced, the perfect actor might be too young or too old — or even deceased.

I was thinking about this as I watched Dune 2. From the first moment that Javier Bardem appeared on screen, I realized that I was watching the reincarnation of Anthony Quinn.

If the film had been made with the same vision half a century ago, Quinn would certainly have been cast in the role of Stilgar. The essence of the two actors when playing that kind of role is practically identical.

And you could say the same about the casting of Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck. If the movie had been made thirty years earlier, that role would have gone to Kris Kristofferson. When playing that sort of role, the two men are eerily similar.

Here’s an idea for a project: Make a comprehensive chart of such actor parallels throughout Hollywood history.

It’s not just AI that is going to fundamentally change our relationship with interactive animated characters. It’s also the fact that more and more, such characters will exist in our physical world.

Mixed and extended reality will move those characters off the screen and into the room. This means that these characters will be able to make eye contact with us.

And I’m not talking here about breaking the fourth wall. A character on a screen can look at us, but it can only do so by looking at everybody.

In contrast, a future XR interactive animated character will be able to look you in the eye while ignoring me, or vice versa. This will have a powerful social effect, the way there is a powerful effect when a puppy decides to like one of us better than the other.

An entire new interaction language will start to evolve to understand what this means. And that will only be the beginning.

I finally saw Dune 2 in the theater. Speaking as someone who grew up with the novels, I thought it was a brilliant film. It did a much better job than most cinematic epics of translating book to screen, retaining the epic sweep of Herbert’s vision while adding its own brand of movie magic.

Although every time Christopher Walken showed up on screen, part of my mind just kept saying, over and over, “Walk without rhythm, it won’t attract the worm.”

I am not sure whether that detracted from the movie or, in some weird way, added to it.

As I said yesterday, “May the fourth be with you” is now ruined for fans, having been co-opted by the overreach of a certain large corporation. Perhaps it is time to move on.

In that spirit, it may be time to initiate a new holiday. So here goes: “May the fifth be with you!” (he said, taking swig from a bottle…)

Alas, I am not sure that this new holiday is very child friendly.

I was going to write today about that wonderful fan tradition around saying “May the 4th be with you.” But then this afternoon I received a long an comprehensive email from the Walt Disney Company, telling me all about how I can celebrate (in their words) “Star Wars day”.

Their email enumerates various TV shows, old movies that are back in theaters, animated shorts, assorted themed toys, Lego tie-ins, PC computer games. They even talk up a commercial for Apple products.

So many ways for me to spend my money. What a way to ruin a perfectly good fan-culture moment.

Maybe I’ll start celebrating May the fifth instead. Sounds like it could be a great drinking game.

When will telepresence technology get to the point where you can meet your friend for dinner at a restaurant and have the same high quality experience that we associate with good restaurants of today? Except in this future scenario, neither of you needs to leave home.

You can think of it as a sort of futuristic culinary Zoom meeting if you’d like. And it may be something that never happens. But if it does, I have another question.

Will this development be a sign of a better future, or a worse future? Some food for thought.

They say you never learn from your successes.

I appreciate the thought, but sometimes I would prefer to have a little less learning.