camsterdam – Page 2

Realism Must Fall

March 13, 2016March 13, 2016 camsterdam Leave a comment

Last night, I saw the UMS show “Nufonia Must Fall” by DJ Kid Koala. What initially began as a wordless graphic novel has now turned into a full-on performance, complete with puppets, live music, sound effects, and even a pre-show Bingo game.

The plotline changes significantly between the text and the filmic version (especially the ending), but the basics stay the same: a plain and “old-school” robot repeatedly is bested at his work at the deli by the new and improved, faster model called Hexabot who can make ten times the amount of sandwiches that our protagonist (let’s call him Plainbot) can. Plainbot meets a humanoid woman, Malorie, who is also lonely and works all the time with little satisfaction. After getting fired, Plainbot enters a contest, hoping to write “the best love song of all time.” He’s writing them for Malorie. But SPOILER! He’s super bad at writing songs, to the point of making people throw up upon hearing them, as seen in the novel. But Malorie likes Plainbot for how he is, and they go on dates together (dinner, ice skating, movies, all the old fashioned tricks).

The comic ultimately comes down to being a feel-good love story, as creator Kid Koala and director KK Barrett explain in this video.

In minute 2:23 of this video, KK Barrett remarks on something I’d like to stop and think about. He says that because of the silent novel, silent film, and puppet characters, “You don’t project onto them, but right into them.” This is what Scott McCloud would call “masking” : the use of simplistic, archetypal characters with familiar and minimal details that allows for a stronger emotional connection and easier identification (Wikipedia’s definition).

By using little details, no color and no dialogue, the characters themselves are masks for the “everyman,” save for Malorie’s gender and Plainbot’s android nature. The reader supplies the psychology, the emotion, and the connections between characters and frames. We can even create our own dialogue and background sounds. We are active participants in the creation of the story.

But, then again, I can’t say that I’ve ever been able to empathize with a robot before.

And if you actually slow down and think about the story itself, it’s kind of insane! A girl is basically falling in love with a robot and vice versa. If this happened in real life, serious exams on the woman’s mental stability would take place. The robot’s chip would be taken out to be analyzed, and maybe his body would be sacrificed as “research” at the next DARPA competition.

So why, at the Power Center, were the folks around me “awwing” when Malorie and Plainbot held hands for the first time, when they know a human-robot relationship is obviously weird and a little wrong? Why do we gasp “Oh no!” when Plainbot discovers that Malorie created the Hexabot? Why did I myself feel a flutter in my heart when Plainbot writes on his mixed tape “Lovesong for Malorie <3”? He’s JUST A ROBOT!

The funny thing is that I never questioned the relationship of Malorie and Plainbot while I read the graphic novel, alone in the quiet of my apartment. To me, they were both just characters in a story. Even though Malorie worked in an office cubicle, her lack of a nose and mouth and eye irises blurred the lines between being human and robot. This artistic choice within the novel made it easier to see them as simple, flat, masking characters. It was only until I was sitting amidst the hundreds of other viewers, hearing their responses that I began to be aware of the relationship on the screen in front of me. Suddenly, I saw 3-D puppets who could move their arms up and down, just as I do. Malorie had an expression and was obviously human. There was motion, there was life on that screen.

nufonia must fall production

Photo Credits: AJ Korkidakis

We always are engaging with stories and characters differently depending on the medium it’s shown to us. But in “Nufonia Must Fall,” it was the emotion and “realism” of the piece itself that was altered from paper to film.

Me, Myself, and I

March 6, 2016March 6, 2016 camsterdam Leave a comment

Sure, we all learned the types of point of view in, like, third grade. But I was told something the other day during my Creative Writing Tutorial that crumbled everything that I thought I knew.

I’m a fan of the first person. Yes, there may be some editors and publishers out there who are cringing right now, but let me explain myself. To me, the first person point of view allows a kind of depth that is unachievable by any other viewpoint. You get to know intimately the tone and voice of your character. Sarcasm can come much more freely in the first person because the voice and emotion that sarcasm depends upon is omnipresent. Third person requires quotation marks and dialogue in order to make use of sarcasm.

We as humans were born to tell stories. It’s what you probably did two minutes ago to your roommate. It’s what you are texting to your mom right now. It’s what our ancestors did every night for fun. The myths they told, of course, almost always were in the third person. For example, Hercules did this great thing. Then, he beat up a lion. Then, he fell in love with the mysterious Meg… and so on.

But, these people that historically were spoken of in third person were mostly gods or heroic figures of history or people who seemed larger than life. They are beings that we may aspire to resemble, but will never actually become them. In contrast, we always tell anecdotes of ourselves in the first person. This allows for a subjective perspective rather than objectively factual (remember Hercules did this, then he did that). As the words come out of our mouth, we have the ability to embellish the “I” as fancifully or plainly or victoriously or victimized-ly as we want. This unreliability of first person is what draws me to the viewpoint the most. I’m fascinated by the psychology behind human credibility. Can we really trust what we see? Or do feelings get in the way and we end up seeing what we want to see? What motivation does a character have of lying to his/her reader? Then again, what motivation do we humans have when we omit parts of the truth from the stories we tell? This doubt and uncertainty is what makes our characters the most human. This is what readers bond to when they read a first-person story – the humanness of the character. Essentially, this tenuous relationship between truth and story is what makes them read on and perhaps read a bit more closely.

Now to the mind-blowing. Turning in my ninth draft of a first person narrated story I’ve been writing, my professor says, “You can cut down on wordiness by letting the narrator do the talking and just have your character experience the events happening around her.” My eyebrows pinched together in confusion. “But aren’t my narrator and the main character actually the same person?”

“No,” she responded. *poof* went my brain and the lie I’ve been living.

I asked my professor to give me an example. She explained: Your character, sitting in an airport, could say, “I saw the janitor drop his cell phone in shock.” But, if you get rid of the words “I saw,” what do you have left? The janitor dropped his cell phone in shock.

So, what do you achieve by omitting the words “I saw?” Well, a few things actually. First, you move the sentence and the action along, so your reader doesn’t get caught up in extraneous words. (This is along the same lines as why we are told to omit the words “I think” and “I believe” in academic papers). But, the crazy thing is that it leaves the sentence up to interpretation. Did the main character see this happen or not? A writer can use this scene description to showcase other activities going on around the main character to heighten drama OR to draw attention away from the character for whatever reason OR to emphasize that something is happening simultaneously to the main character’s actions that the character may or may not have seen! This “showing” rather than “self-reporting” narrator gives the reader a VIP pass inside the scene, in the same vein as dramatic irony. It allows us to know more about the story and fictional world than the main character herself.

This discovery was especially timely because there is a sense of this narrative split in the movie “The Lady in the Van.”

In the (mostly true) film, the main character Alan Bennett (Alex Jennings) is a writer who allows a homeless woman (Maggie Smith) to park and live inside her van in his driveway for 15 years. Although the plot itself has its own bizarre and unique qualities, I was struck by the choice to double Alan Bennett, much like Lindsay Lohan in the Parent Trap. Indeed, throughout the film, we see identical images of Alan Bennett next to each other, talking to each other, mostly arguing with each other. The two representations symbolize the split personalities between “the writer” and “the one who lives”, or the narrator and the experiencer. I’ve never seen this portrayed in a film before but it made me begin to understand what my professor was trying to tell me in class. And perhaps it begins to explain my own psychology as a writer. There indeed is always one hand on reality and one hand writing the next sentence.

Reader’s Choice

February 21, 2016February 21, 2016 camsterdam Leave a comment

Do you solemnly swear that this was your choice and your choice alone to read the content of this post that hereby follows? The author claims absolutely no responsibility for your choice to continue to let your eyeballs fall on the letters she put on this page. She would like to say that she did not write this with you in particular in mind.

I’m joking, obviously! Of course, I wrote this with an audience in mind – you, the readers of Arts at Michigan! But, in no way, have my words hypnotized you to read them (that would be amazing if they could!), and in no way, am I forcing you to agree with what I’m writing. You can exit the page at any time.

Still there? Good.

This idea of “warning” your readers about bawdy content and reminding them of their choice to read it is centuries old. For example, Chaucer famously does so in the prologue to The Miller’s Tale – undoubtedly, the raunchiest story in The Canterbury Tales. (Let’s just say there are a few exposed rears that make appearances throughout the tale).

The narrator of the Canterbury Tales, generally named as “Geoffrey,” writes in the prologue,

And therefore I beg every gentle creature, for the love of God, not to judge that I tell it thus out of evil intent, but only because I must truly repeat all their tales, whether they are better or worse, or else tell some of my matter falsely. And therefore whoever wishes not to hear it, let them turn the leaf over and choose another tale; for they shall find plenty of historical matters, great and small, concerning noble deeds, and morality and holiness as well. Do not blame me if you choose incorrectly. The Miller is a churl, you know well, and so was the Reeve, and the two of them spoke of ribaldry. Think well, and do not blame me, and people should not take a game seriously as well.

Chaucer himself reminds his readers that they have the choice to read the tale or flip the page to a new tale or perhaps to close the book altogether. He renounces all responsibility for the reader’s choice. While some might call this a sell-out, his attempt to build a safety net for himself is commendable. Once the publication circulates into the public, the author himself has no control over who reads his work and what their specific taste in literature is like. It’s actually one of the smartest things that an author can do!

Another example comes from Daniel DeFoe, who writing the 1724 book, Roxana, about a mistress who “thinks herself a whore,” prefaced with the disclaimer, “If there are any parts in her story, which being obliged to relate a wicked action, seem to describe it too plainly; all imaginable care has been taken to keep clear of indecencies, and immodest expressions; and ’tis hoped you will find nothing to prompt a vicious mind, but every where much to discourage and expose it. Scenes of crime can scarce be represented in such a manner, but some may make a criminal use of them; but when vice is painted in its low-prized colours, ’tis not to make people in love with it, but to expose it; and if the reader makes a wrong use of the figures, the wickedness is his own.”

DeFoe here echoes Chaucer’s “do not blame me” stance, and blames the reader for misinterpreting and misjudging the words put before them. Again, if they are offended by what they read, either it is their mind that is in the gutter or their error for not reading close enough to the meaning and psychology lurking between the lines.

But should these authors have to preface their work? Is not life itself often times dirtier, more violent, and more disturbing than anything we could read on paper? All material we read (other than schoolbooks) is consumed because we chose to read it. Maybe a friend recommended it to us. Perhaps it was praised by a critic. Maybe we were just intrigued by its cover. If we come to a part that doesn’t fit our fancy or unnerves us, we the readers are under no obligation to finish it, or indeed, read it ever again.

I’ve been wondering why books of today don’t come with these “trigger warnings” and “disclaimers” that they once used to. As a writer myself, I’m glad that I don’t have to preface my work. I wrote it because I wanted to. I wrote what came out of my head. I shouldn’t have to apologize for that. But then, why do other creative minds out there – inventors of video games and film – why must they label their products as PG or M or Explicit Content?

Even musical artists must warn their followers of explicit language, while no book I know ever has had to apologize for swearing. What’s so different about books, I wonder? And how did the Chaucer tradition of “don’t blame the author” fall out of style?

What’s your take on the issue? Should authors have to warn readers of their content?

P.S. I Lo…

February 13, 2016February 13, 2016 camsterdam Leave a comment

A love letter is one of the best pieces of paper you’ll ever hold in your hand. It’s more personal than a clothing accessory, more enduring than an edible sweet or a five-second Snapchat, more secret than a wink and a cheery clink. These written declarations of affection have been touching hearts since Ancient Egypt. But times indeed have changed – keyboards have replaced quills, and ‘thee’ got thrown out for ‘u’. The love letter now teeters on the cliff of extinction. If I could, I would make a campaign badge: SAVE THE LOVE LETTER! Help protect this rare species this Valentine’s Day by penning one of your very own to anyone you want to share your words with: whether it’s your best friend, your grandma, your SO, or your neighbor. A letter says that you’ve taken the time to think and write thoughtfully and reflectively on your love for this being that you share the planet and your life with. And who doesn’t love getting mail??

Not sure where to start? Here are some tips to write the most heartfelt and genuine letter without being too cheesy, cliché, or Hallmark-y.

Think ink. A real paper letter gives the recipient the sheer pleasure of opening up an envelope. It allows you to be a little cheeky and hide it where they least expect it. Your one-of-a-kind handwriting technique flavors the text in a way that no one else could accomplish. Plus, why risk the chance of an overzealous spellcheck and spam filters? You want to be sure that the exact letter you write is seen by the person you love.
Address to Impress. “Dear” is so overrated. This isn’t an email to your professor (at least I hope not!!). Make your greeting unique and get your reader smiling from the get-go. “Dearest Duck,” said Lady to Lord Byron. “My dear little lunatic,” wrote the actress Juliette Drouet to Victor Hugo. When in doubt, get a little wacky, get a little retro, get a little silly.
Flavor it with details. Make sure to flag all the quirky things you like about your reader. Let them know you didn’t copy the default template for “How-To Write a Love Letter.” Think both physically (“the lines on your face that crinkle when you smile”) and mentally (“how you’ve literally memorized the whole Tim the Enchanter scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail”). Let glimpses into your own daily life color your paper: “As I sit here writing to you in the Diag, people must be wondering why I’m smiling so much.” Recollect the first time you met, your favorite shared experience together, ponder about the next thing you want to do together to knock something off your bucket lists.
Avoid clichés. That’s right. If you’re being paid to write cards for Hallmark, then by all means, bring on the cheesiness. But, for real? None of this “two souls entwined” crap. Gush too much and the game is over. Find the perfect balance between authentic feeling and hearts-for-eyes emoji.
Intertextualize. Perhaps you have really tiny handwriting and you’re worried that you don’t have enough to say to appropriately fill the entire paper (at least two-thirds down the page is adequate). Think of your reader’s favorite movie, song, book, or play. There isn’t one out there that doesn’t include some romantic love. It will show that you really have paid attention to what they love. And gives your brain a moment’s rest, but still packs all the same punch. Alternatively, you can…
Include a poem. But not a “how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Everyone knows that. Instead try something a little more obscure to add to the uniqueness. Try Frank O’Hara’s ‘Animals’ or Pablo Neruda’s ‘I Do Not Love You‘ or Simon Armitage’s “You’re Beautiful.”

7. PG-13, please! Remember these letters are a kind of artifact. When you pass, you never know who will find them. And you don’t want to win a posthumous Bad Sex (Writing) Award, do you? So let’s keep it clean please, and let E.L. James do all the dirty work.

8. Sincerely… “Believe in me” (Juliette to Victor again) is heartstopping. Henry VIII’s “No more for fear of annoying you” to Anne Boleyn is awkwardly endearing. Dump the dreary “Yours truly” for something a little more creative.

9. Handle with Care. Send love letters only to those you can trust with them. Remember, these words are fragments of your soul. Mark the envelope as “FRAGILAY.” Likewise, treat any letters you’re so lucky to receive with kindness. Keep these paper relics – from past flings and present flames – for yourself and your mental scrapbook. Now that’s so much more than …

P.S. Interested in reading famous people’s love letters? Check out: http://thoughtcatalog.com/rachel-hodin/2014/01/the-16-most-beautifully-touching-love-letters-from-famous-writers-and-artists/.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Of Music and Motivation

February 7, 2016February 7, 2016 camsterdam Leave a comment

Raise a hand if you’re a second-semester senior.

Having been accepted to a grad school for the fall term already, FINALLY understanding the treasures and trappings of Netflix, and umm…well, kinda just being burnt out, I’ve been going through some really tough roller coaster rides this semester of high energy studying and frankly, a whole lot of lethargic laziness. A part of me thinks, “I’m in next year, I’ve got a plan. Why does any of this matter anymore?” but my studious, energetic and generally curious side says, “But the things you’re learning are AWESOME! You’ve come to this far and have done SO well!! Don’t give up yet! You’re almost at the finish line!”

With the angel and devil always weighing down your shoulders and yapping at you, how can you ever do your homework?

I think I have found the solution.

I recently came across the theme song to the video game, Dragon Age: Inquisition. Never playing the game before, I heard the main theme serendipitously on Spotify and felt a rush of sheer invincibility. Imagine the energy of the huns flooding over the mountain in Mulan, the pride of explorers crying Land Ho for the first time, a marathon winner breaking the ribbon at the finish line, and the power of a space shuttle blasting successfully into space, and that’s how I felt as I listened to Trevor Morris’ anthem.

Instantly, after the song, I felt like I could do anything, lift anything, achieve anything, ace anything. I decided to go on a quest to seek out more songs that would give me this sort of feeling. Maybe if I tricked my brain into thinking I could focus and DO ANYTHING (including my homework), I might actually be able to DO IT! The name of my playlist would obviously and aptly be titled: You Can Do Anything! That’s right: I believe in the power of words 🙂

And maybe, we should start believing in the power of music. As Christopher Bergland says in Psychology Today, “music and mood are inherently bound.” He says that “you can dial up a mood, mindset or perception on demand by choosing music that elicits a specific emotional response in you,” whether it’s for athletic benefits , studying purposes, for road trip boredom busting, or to create a certain vibe to match your day.

When choosing your own Motivational Music playlist, keep it authentic and from your soul. So what if you have a song that you might be embarrassed if someone knew you were listening to it? A) You never should have to defend or feel bad about why something resonates with you. And B) That’s why Spotify: Private Session was invented.

Though everyone’s playlist will be different due to personal tastes and styles and motivational needs, I’ll share mine as an example. Because my playlist is for studying purposes, I went with an instrumental theme.

Cammie’s YOU CAN DO ANYTHING playlist!

I’m making no promises that these songs will motivate you as they have done to me. All I know is that I have accomplished a lot already thanks to this playlist and the wonderful musicians who have made music to make my heart soar, my typing fingers fly, and my body feel as if I had the strength of 10 Grinches plus 2. Happy playlist-making and cheers to productivity!

* Next time you’re listening to music, put it on shuffle! Did you know that the randomness of not knowing what song is going to play next actually increases the brain’s levels of Dopamine, your feel-good chemical? It’s time to get happy!

“Must There Be A Superman?”: Lois Lane Takes On The Man Of Steel

January 31, 2016February 4, 2016 camsterdam 2 Comments

“I’m at the top of my game. Leave saving the world to the men? I don’t think so,” says Elastigirl, in the 2004 Pixar movie, “The Incredibles.” As more and more women come onto the superhero scene, the conflicts become less about right and wrong, and transform into a war of the sexes. So far, in my English 418 class about Graphic Narratives, we’ve seen very few women populate our comics. When we do, the women are mostly depicted only as victims. This coming week, we begin to see Misty Knight in “Power Man” hold her own … most of the time. But even Misty is saved by Iron Fist in “Freedom” when she, as a trained cop, can obviously fight for herself. Iron Fist shifts the power scale heavily to the side of the male hero: man’s judgment is seen to trump all other opinions.

So what happens when females try to be in charge? Are they successful? How are they depicted? What do the female characters tell us about the men who try to overpower them?

Comics writer and artist, Kate Beaton, focuses much on parodying historical, literary, and pop-culture figures, all while offering up perceptive critical analysis of social politics. Beaton tends to turn toward the female perspectives, and often gives a voice, albeit one that is sarcastic and snarky, and attention to those women who often are the background noise. Beaton’s also strolled into the world of superheroes a few times, with Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and even Spiderman (dubbed by Beaton as a more specific “Brown-Recluse Man”). The value of superhero parody is that she can explore the heroic characters that everyone wants to be like, whom everyone wants to be victorious, yet no one knows anything about as a “real person” – you know, the real person who goes to the bathroom and gets drunk on Thursdays and picks their nose when they think no one is looking.

In her new book, Step Aside Pops, Beaton pays homage to Superman with the comic, “Lois Lane, Reporter.” The entire story is made up of 6 unrelated 3-panel comics, all depicting the various ways that Superman screws things up for Lois and generally gets on her nerves. Kate Beaton says, in the footnote of Step Aside Pops (pg. 16), “Don’t give me those comics where Lois is a wet blanket who can’t figure out the man beside her is Superman. If Lois isn’t kicking ass, taking names, and winning ten Pulitzer Prizes an issue, I don’t even want to hear about it.”

Beaton certainly paints Superman/Clark Kent in a different light than he was in the original Siegel and Shuster comics. Instead of the weak and cowardly Clark Kent we saw in his 1938 debut, “Champion of the Oppressed,” we see a persistently bothersome coworker whose double identity is obvious to Lois based on his obscure behavior, and she could care less about him if he was Superman or Cristiano Ronaldo. Lois is busy, driven, and is trying to save the world in her own way- by reporting about it. But, does Kate Beaton truly represent Lois as the no-crap-taking girl she wishes Lois could be?

(via: http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=305)

In the first strip of panels, Lois has a strong visual presence. She fills the space of the first and third frames, while we sneak a barely legible peek at Clark Kent’s glasses and cleft chin. Lois is dressed professionally (and androgynously) with a blazer and tie, which adds a sense of corporate power. Although Lois only speaks twice, both minimally with the sarcastic sound of “mmhmm,” there’s a certain strength in the absence of her words. The mmhmm indicates a purposeful statement of annoyance, and at once shuts down the conversation. Mmhmm neither asks nor answers anything. It does not progress any action, which paradoxically puts the ultimate power of plot in Lois’ hands.

Lois continuously shows that she isn’t interested in Superman. No, not even a big secret can persuade her. In the third set of panels, Lois shows that she can play games, too, as in the panel when she beckons to Kent seductively, saying, “I have a secret, too. Psst, come here.” The lovesick Clark Kent falls for them every time. The feisty Lois we know and love responds with “You. Are In. My Goddamned Way.” This is the epitome of Kate’s kickass Lois, I think.

The next comic strip begins with Lois Lane on the phone with her mom. Suddenly, an absurdly large head of Superman pops through the window. “Lois, are you in trouble? I saw you on the phone. Just thought something was going on.” This comic scene certainly calls into question Superman’s judgment. In the 1972 Superman comic “Must There Be a Superman,” Superman considers that “Maybe I have been interfering unnecessarily! I decide what’s right or wrong…and then enforce my decision…by brute strength.” Does a superhero automatically have perfect judgment of justice? Beaton’s Lois Lane comic parodies Superman’s assumption and asks us to question, “Who is capable of saving themselves?” and even more, “Who is in trouble to begin with?”

Kate Beaton really had convinced me of Lois Lane’s badass-itude, until the last comic strip, in which Lois is at the White House in order to interview the president. Our girl has worked her way up through the journalism ladder and gotten herself to work on the story of all stories, when suddenly, SuperSnoop (I mean, Superman, eh-hem), busts the walls down and “saves” Lois. They fly into the air with Lois in Superman’s arms, and she yells, “What are you doing?” I was seriously upset that the comic ends on this note, because it reinforces the stupidity of some superheroes who “save” people who didn’t want to be saved, either because they actually think they are doing good, or in Beaton’s case, because Superman is depicted as a creepy lovesick stalker. Again, I can’t stop thinking of “The Incredibles” and this clip below, where Mr. Incredible gets sued for saving a man who tried to commit suicide and didn’t want to be saved. Even though Lois obviously was not trying to kill herself, this scene helps to explain how superheroes sometimes use their fame and strength to do things that aren’t in their victim’s best interests.

Perhaps Lois needs to have a talk with her lawyer! In any case, I enjoy Beaton’s delving into the female side of the Superman comics, which not only makes us look at Lois in a more positive light, it also turns the tables on the males of historic comics and continuously makes us wonder, “Must there be a Superman?”