complication

Is it just me, or does anyone else have this weird pathology where they just make their life - in like everything they do - unnecessary complicated? Why go for easy when you go for fucking hard? Like proton star dense kinda hard...

I used to think it was because I was an emotional masochist, but now I'm just not sure. So I'm looking for validation / comrades-in-complication here...

Anyone? Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? Sigh.

Ladies and gentleman, that was Stu Willis. He'll be here all week. Round of applause thanks.

[golf clap]

boldness

My job was to do a somewhat-detailed synopsis of the first one (it came out to about 4 pages long). And then, while doing a synopsis of each of the subsequent ones, I had to put all of the new stuff in bold.

I never did this before, but it's actually very effective. It's a good way to track how various drafts ebb and flow, because in bold the changes really pop out.

-- from Scott the Reader on 'A Glimpse into Development Hell'

Good idea (and read the rest of teh entry).

I think I may do it with Shunted as I move towards refactoring it as a feature. Track all my previous drafts, all the changes, and find out where I've been heading... and use that as part of my future work to redevelop it.

FYI, my current feeling is I won't make the June deadline for the AFC. If they allow one to apply with a short feature and a strong plan to make it a feature, then I'll probably make it... but I'm not sure if thats a wise idea?

I'm also getting super itchy to make another short. Whether I apply for FTO funding for that remains to be seen. I'm trying work out if I have the energy to drive for something huge (which is why I'd get money) or go for something far more intimate. Its not like I don't have a huge backlog of semi developed whackiness on this blog that I can mine for material...

magazine rack

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

I'll write something more meaningful a little later. I saw the History Boys last night. Essentially, for me it was about the superficiality of cleverness - that theatre is often just 'Carry On' for the latte-set. I could feel Alan Bennett's insecurity through every line. I guess my reading is different from the traditional and not just because I'm trying to invert the proposition.

It reminded me a lot of University life, actually. Naming dropping theorists (oooh, Hegel, Paine, Focault, Kant); trying to develop a sense of the obtuse; arguing points for no point at all; getting ten marks for every semi-colon... Memories.

This was a particular apt exchange:

Dakin: All literature is consolation.

Scripps: No it isn't. What about when it's celebration? Joy?

Dakin: But it's written when the joy is over. Finished. So even when it's joy, it's grief. It's consolation. That's why it gets written down.

Que. Que. Que. Que. Que.

possibility trois

and i hate that i can be so cynical that i doubt that my good intentions are good intentioned. that instead, i've been under the control of my evil subconscious that's engaged in some fucking bizarre dick measuring contest with the rest of the world.

or that could just be nicotine withdrawals talking. hard to tell sometimes.

possibility duo

"So, you still feeling guilty?"
"No, I don't think so."
"I'm glad."
"Are you really?"
"Well for you"
"But what about for you?"
"This isn't really about me."
"Sure it is."
"I wish it wasn't; it'd be easier if it weren't."
"It wouldn't be easy; it just wouldn't be."
"I feel like all kinds of shit."
"You shouldn't."
"Yeah, I should. But I'm not sure if I care."
"You do. Thats why we're having this conversation."
"I wish we weren't"
"We're not. Not yet. This is a rehearsal."
"That's harsh"
"Trust me, its easier this way. The truth is going to pulverize you into a little puddle of incoherent goo. Rehearsal will give you delusions of confidence."
"Yeah, you're right. I'm so going to be wise and humble and all self-actualised. It'll be magnetic!"
"See!"

the long spimey meathooks game

The future's getting weird and scary. My futurist friend Matt Jones said to me the other day that, in one sense, the future is a race between the Bright Spime Future and what other smart friend Dr Joshua Ellis has termed the Grim Meathook Future.

[...]

The K-Hole is the remains of a massive system failure. That's the Grim Meathook Future: infrastructures that cannot cope.

[...]

Oh ... Spime Future? [...] or, as it is also sometimes known, The Internet Of Things. The idea is close to that of the noosphere, an invisible world of information flows. A Spime is an object (or blobject, or blogject) that exists as, around and within a constantly-updated, totally-recorded flow of information. In Sterling's words, "A Spime is an object that ate and internalized the previous industrial order."

[...]

There's a middle distance between the complete collapse of infrastructure and some weird geek dream of electronically knowing where all your stuff is. (I'm cheating: the end result of pure spime theory is electronic omniscience, which is not a useless concept.) Between

-- Warren Ellis in Issue 3 of the Ministry.

(pure aside: I'm excited that Mr Ellis is going to tackle social commentary again post transmetropolitan)

Read it. Its a good article, because it taps into a lot of things I've been thinking about recently. Y'know, like an entirely Augumented Reality version of instant messaging. Imagine being able being able to know exactly where your friends are (possibly pointed out with superimposed arrows and distance counters) and being able to send messages (text, voice, video, somophore* - the language protocols is almost irrelevant). Scary from a privacy perspective, but the technology will be possible in 10-15 years. Its just about leveraging multiple existing social and technological paradigms into a new 'platform'. I'm not sure what I should call that phenomena yet. It needs a term because its going to happen increasingly often. The iPod is the greatest triumph of leveraging multiple pre-existing 'things' (technological and social) into a new emergent paradigm that is more than the sum of its parts. Steve Jobs realised the power of the Package when he launched the iPod - his predictions were arrogant at the time but have been proven true. In a way, his entire philosophy has been about building the Package to produce emergence... (which I guess isn't true emergence as the end game has been designed to an extent... but whatever... not many people can play the Long Game and win.)

[insert segueway here]

Which brings me to a quick critique of the assertions made above by Ellis' futurist friend. Namely, I don't think that the Spimey Future and the Grim Meathook future are contradictory possibilities. Rather, I think they're symbiotic symptoms. The Spime Future is largely being driven by the burgeoning transnational private sphere - a sphere which its spimeiness actually reinforces. Its the triumph of the technoliberal wet dream: a utopia of island-individuals (indiviulands?) freed by information being free. The meat hook is the Shadow of this Utopia. Its the collapse of geographically, often highly physical, infrastructures. The very things whose corporeality makes them incapable of being swallowed by the Spimes. as a product of the exodus from territorial bodies politic to transnational communal webs. Its the form that State Failure will take within the West (and others).

The reality, of course, will be somewhere in between. A world where your train will still be late, but at least you'll know where it is in maglorious superimposed 3D with GPS-enabled precious.

Yum.

* One of the great practical jokes I've been wanting to pull is sending someone an MMS in somophore. Sadly hasn't happened yet. Least of which is my lack of bothering to set up MMS on my phone. I'd rather make a music video in somophore (FUCK, now that is an idea...)

the Long Game

This isn't a reference to the Doctor Who episode of the same name. But rather a term I use to talk about working strategically over a massively long time scale. I guess its a partial personal reference to the Long Now Foundation, yet I also recall it being talked about in International Relations theory. e.g. The Project for the New American Century is a think-tank whose entire purpose is to play (and win) the Long Game... Its like chess. Ever played a game of chess where you know, within five moves, whether you've won or lost the game? (In my case, its usually lost). You can know how its going to play out in the next 30 moves or so (possibly more). That's the Long Game.

Now imagine playing the Long Game over the next 50 years of your life. Where do you have to be at certain points to achieve the same outcome? How do you respond to change? You must always assume that there will be things outside of your control, that there will always be Black Swans to throw you off the game. You must plan to be flexible yet also know in what way to respond to keep yourself ahead. You need to be patient - results may not be seen for years. You need to value positioning - certain things may only need to be pushed in certain ways at certain moments to achieve the outcome. You need to be a master of cat herding, of the tipping point, and spiral dynamics. You need to see the big picture. You need to have faith that you know how those white pieces are going to stick together. Sadly, its a form of manipulation.

Beyond this being something I find interesting from an intellectual 'oh my god my head fucking bleeds thinking this large' level (read some Foreign Affairs articles and you'll see that there are people out there actively promoting what needs to be done to achieve certain outcomes over the next century).... its something I feel like I'm beginning to appreciate being a possible factor in how my life is going to unfold.

[rambling personal bit to follow]

I went to a talk last week put together by the Australian Writer's Guild. It was on Script Development (getting money for it) and had a representative of the NSW Film and Television Office and one from the Australian Film Commission. As you may or may not know, I was planning on putting together an application for AFC funding in June. I still may (boom tish).

My script, Shunted, is currently 50 pages. I've decided to develop it as a feature because that's what it needs to be. The story is too compressed for 50 pages and suffering for it. (Those people who've read it are all like 'YES FEATURE YES' which is a good sign). I asked the FTO lady whether I can get feature level funding for a script that's currently 50 pages but I want to develop into a feature length. She said No. I nearly cried. I've been focusing so much on the possibility of getting money, finally, for something, that I've ignore that there may be other problems. However, she gently pointed out that I have until May to get it to at least 70 pages. My response was 'I don't think I'll be able to take it to a feature that quickly, its a lot of reworking and rethinking first'. She was happy with my answer: "I'm glad you realise that its going to be a lot of work". Good signs, I guess, that I'm maturing in my approach to my craft.

On the walk to Central Station, I did a lot of thinking (Centering, I call it). Essentially, I realised that the life I've chosen for myself necessitates playing the Long Game. Realistically, Shunted won't start getting made - if at all - for at least another 4 years, that means a minimum of 6 years till it hits the screens. I'll still be young (32), but my career will just getting started... and I need to think beynd that if I want it to be sustainable. I want to be one of those guys who starts directing when older and just keeps on making movies. I love the idea of being a crotchety old seventiessomething man making movies. I want to have that life experience and that wisdom and that love and engagement with the world and I want to channel it into The Work. To me, that's far far more important than being a wunderkind who burns out after one film c.f.. the wasteland of Australian cinema - some ridiculous portion of Australian directors NEVER make a second feature. Fuck that. Seriously. I am in this for the end-game and I don't want to ruin it by an overzealous ill informed opening gambit. I have something of value to offer, I just don't think I'm in a position to realise it yet. My skills are still catching up to my ideas.

Whether I like it or not, I am in the Long Game. Time to play it properly.