The Secret Lair

Monster Week has kicked off over at Nuketown and the esteemed Mr. Newquist has posited that Jaws (1975) is the “prototypical modern monster movie.” That’s all well and good, but as terrors of the deep go we here at The Secret Lair feel that Spielberg’s shark lacks a little something; a little something we call Science.¹

Now, as Mr. Newquist rightly points out, there is a scientist in Jaws. Richard Dreyfuss portrays one Matt Hooper, an ichthyologist whose expert knowledge of Carcharadon carcharias and its ilk is…well, downright dull. Hooper is strictly a small-s scientist, not at all interested in turning sharks into more efficient killing machines or creating bipedal man-shark hybrids. You know: Science! Instead, Hooper is all about bite radius and feeding habits. Boring!

Nor is the shark any more exciting. Sure, it’s big—maybe even bigger than any great white man has ever encountered—but in the end it’s just a shark, and we can do better. Just ask Dr. Preston King (Jeffrey Combs), who fused human and shark DNA in Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy (2005), or perhaps Dr. Susan McCallister (Saffron Burrows), who genetically enlarged shark brains in Deep Blue Sea (1999); while their motives differed, both doctors used capital-s Science to create deadlier, more dangerous sharks. King’s hybrid shark is bipedal and amphibious, allowing it to kill on land as well as in the water, while McCallister’s sharks can swim backwards and are intelligent enough to kill even Samuel L. Jackson.²

As impressive as these genetically-modified sharks may be, they pale in comparison to the shark-cephalopod hybrid killing machine created by Blue Water Core for the U.S. Navy in Sharktopus (2010). Crossing a shark with an octopus? That’s capital-S Science at its finest.

1. You might be more inclined to call it “Mad Science,” but that’s just the sort of judgmental shortsightedness we’ve come to expect from you. [↩]
2. Spoiler alert! [↩]

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi is the 2010 Locus award winner for Best First Novel. The story takes place in the 22nd century; petroleum is a distant memory and giant agricultural conglomerates fight wars and wipe out local crops with genetically-engineered plagues to create markets for their genehacked grains. Thailand is the last holdout against these Calorie Companies, maintaining a closely-guarded seedbank that contains what may be the last natural food-bearing flora on the planet.

The Calorie Companies want in and the Environment Ministry wants to keep them out. Making matters difficult is the Ministry of Trade, which is doing all it can to loosen border restrictions and open up trade with the rest of the world—in direct conflict with the goal of the Environment Ministry.

In the middle of the mess, and soon to become a far more important part of it than she would ever imagine, is Emiko, a windup girl (genetically engineered “New Person”) whose very presence in Bangkok is illegal. Emiko works in a brothel, a toy for those with more exotic (and perverse) tastes than are easily satisfied by the real girls. She is a prisoner of fear, knowing that the Environment Ministry White Shirts enforcers are kept at bay only by the bribes her patron pays. Should the bribes stop, Emiko would surely be mulched, processed and turned into the methane that provides so much of Bangkok’s energy.

This was, simply put, a fantastic book. The post-petroleum world Bacigalupi created is complex and compelling (a great exploration of what the world might look like after the petroplague in Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason’s Ill Wind or simply the depletion of the world’s oil reserves) and the idea of genehacked grain and a food supply that is largely controlled by companies in Des Moines is fascinating (especially after reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan). Then there are the characters: Emiko the windup girl; the White Shirts, Captain Jaidee “The Tiger” Rojjanasukchai and his Lieutenant, Kanya; Anderson Lake, the Calorie Man looking for a way to undermine the Environment Ministry; and Hock Seng, the Yellow Card refugee from a China torn apart by religious conflict. Bacigalupi winds their separate stories together expertly, creating distinct voices for each and making them all sympathetic, even though their motivations often counter one another.

In this episode of The Secret Lair podcast, the Overlords get together to discuss a couple of recent movies starring Robert Downey, Jr. Note that both Overlords were in their new powered armor suits while recording this episode, which completely explains the tin-can quality of the audio in the recording. Really.

Discussion: Iron Man 2 and Sherlock Holmes

• Iron Man is Overlord Johnson’s OMG Best Superhero Movie EVAR, so the sequel had a lot to live up to.
• Holy analogy, Iron Man! Iron Man 2 : Iron Man :: The Dark Knight : Batman Begins
• Hey, Black Widow: Vere is your aksent, comrade?
• Overlord Miller would have preferred Nick Fury: Agent of M.E.N.A.C.E.
• Justin Hammer was a good California millionaire.
• Overlord Miller felt that Whiplash was a little shoe-horned into the story.
• Overlord Johnson thought Whiplash was pretty cool, but his demise was weak.
• Gwyneth Paltrow, Jon Favreau and new-Rhodey (Don Cheadle) had a lot more to do this time around.
• Howard Stark is Walt Disney.
• Overlord Miller seems to think that Robert Downey Jr. will be relegated to a cameo in the upcoming Avengers movie; Overlord Johnson disagrees.
• War Machine was pretty darn cool.
• The new Iron Man armor was pretty cool, too. Let’s avoid the West Coast Avengers version (AKA Silver Centurion), though, okay?
  
• How about that Iron Baby?
• We take a slight tangent to discuss:
  • Chris Hemsworth as Thor.
  • Chris Evans as Captain America.
  • Jake Wyler is another Chris Evans role (Not Another Teen Movie).
  • Do not do this with Captain America’s shield. Ever again.
    
  • Overlord Miller is looking forward to the Green Lantern movie, but we have some concerns about how the power of the ring will be realized on-screen.
• And finally we get to Sherlock Holmes, which Overlord Johnson felt was a bit reminiscent of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
• Overlord Miller was relieved, as it could have been much, much worse.
• Holmes’ fighting strategy brought to mind Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.
• Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) appears in the very first of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, “A Scandal in Bohemia.”
• Was the movie too “steampunk-y”? What have we got against steampunk, anyway?
• Madam Overlord Johnson felt the plot lacked any sort of mystery.
• Who will portray Moriarty in the sequel? Perhaps one of Overlord Miller’s man-crushes.
  • And now we’re on a Doctor Who tangent. That’s the royal “we”, where Overlord Miller is the royalty and Overlord Johnson is a bloody peasant.
  • Are we really talking about a porn parody of the old Batman television series? Apparently so, but we say “cultural touchstone,” so it’s okay. There’s a fully-clothed trailer for Batman XXX: A Porn Parody on YouTube, of all places.
  • Finally, Overlord Johnson isn’t quite ready to declare steampunk a complete failure as a genre of fiction just yet; he very much enjoyed Gail Carriger’s Soulless, a review of which can be found on this very site.

Lairkeeping

• The podcast will be on hiatus for the next six weeks or so, but we’ll be updating the blog between now and then.
• Our theme music is “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton.
• Visit us on the web at trip-dubs dot thesecretlair dot com.
• Try StatusNet for those short updates. This service is invite-only, so send us a note if you’d like to join.
• Got something to say that 140 characters just won’t cover? Say it on our community site.
• Coming up on The Secret Library, The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell. Really. Any day now.
• The Secret Lair blog is powered by WordPress.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:56 — 47.6MB)

“What are you doing?” Marc asked.

The angel held up a finger. “One second,” he said, his eyes fixed on the television. “This guy is going to blend an iPod.”

“What are you doing in my house?” Marc asked.

“I’m eating Doritos,” the angel replied. “And drinking Cherry Vanilla Diet Dr. Pepper. And watching infomercials…aaaand the iPod will blend! Of course it will!”

“Look,” Marc said. “I don’t know who the hell you are or what you want, but the cops are on their way and—”

“No they’re not,” the angel said.

“What?”

“The police, the cops, the fuzz; they’re not on their way…well, not here, anyway.” The angel still hadn’t taken his eyes off the television.

“Of course they are,” Marc insisted. “I called 9-1-1.”

The angel took a swig of Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper and set the can back on the end table about two inches from the stack of coasters. “Lying to a messenger from the Almighty isn’t just bad form, it’s impossible,” he said. “You heard the television, assumed Norah had left it on when she came to bed—again—and came down to turn it off. You didn’t wake your wife, you didn’t call the boys in blue, you didn’t even bother to grab the Louisville Slugger you keep behind the bedroom door.”

“How the fu-” Mark started.

“Ah, ah, ah,” the angel interrupted, waving an admonishing finger in Marc’s direction but still watching the television. “Language, please.” On the screen, a man in a lab coat was pouring golf balls into a kitchen blender.

Marc closed his eyes tight, then opened them again. The television was still on, the angel was still sitting on the couch—on his side of the couch. “What—” Mark began, then closed his mouth.

The angel finally looked up, staring at Marc for a moment, his head cocked to one side. He pointed to the bag of chips in his lap. “Doritoes.” He picked up the can of soda—Norah’s soda; Marc never drank diet. “Dr. Pepper.” He picked up the remote with the other hand, waggling it as if it were a bone and Marc a dog, then gestured toward the television. “Infomercials.”

“I don’t understand,” Marc said.

The angel sighed. “You never do. Oh, not ‘you’ you, but…you know, you in the general ‘all of humanity’ sense.” He pressed a button on the remote and darkness was upon the face of the living room.

Marc panicked, reaching for the light switch at the bottom of the stairs, but his hand met cloth instead. “Let’s have a little talk,” the angel said. “How about we go into the kitchen? Maybe get something to drink.”

The kitchen light was on; Marc could see it off to his right. It definitely hadn’t been on before. The angel guided him to the breakfast nook and Marc sat.

“This isn’t a twist-top,” the angel said, standing at the open fridge with a Coke in his hand, “do you have an—ah, never mind, there it is.” He plucked the magnetic bottle opener off the freezer door and a second later there was a soft hiss as he popped the top off the bottle.

Now that the angel wasn’t sitting in the dark living room, Marc could better see the massive, feathered wings and the long, white robes. “You don’t have a halo,” he said.

“What? Oh, no,” the angel said. “Well, sometimes. But never that gold ring or diadem or whatever that you like to put on your little ceramic collectibles. You, as in—”

“Yeah,” Marc interrupted. “‘All of humanity’. I got that.”

“Good,” the angel said, sliding easily into the seat across from Marc. The breakfast nook was small—when Marc and Norah looked at the house four years ago the real estate agent called it “cozy”; Marc just thought it was cramped—but the angel somehow managed to sit without his wings getting in the way.

“Why are you here?” Marc asked. “I mean, I’m an atheist, for crying out loud.”

The angel narrowed his eyes. “Are you? Really?”

Marc nodded. “I am.”

The angel shook his head. “Actually, you’re an agnostic. Or rather, you were.”

Marc opened his mouth to object, but wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. He was talking to an angel, after all. An angel who had just brought him a Coke.

Marc looked at the slender bottle and saw a drop of condensation trickle down the side, carving a path through all the other little droplets that clung to the clear glass. Did cold soda bottles sweat in dreams? He picked up the bottle and took a sip. It was definitely Coca Cola.

Marc took another sip, which turned into a long swallow, and when he put the bottle back on the table half the Coke was gone. He looked at the angel. “You haven’t answered my question: why are you here?”

Were angels supposed to smirk? This one sure did. “Not going to argue the whole atheist/agnostic bit?”

Marc just shook his head.

“Well, that’s another bet lost,” said the angel, “but to answer your question: this is an intervention.”

“A what?”

“You know, an intervention. An orchestrated attempt by one, or often many, people—or angels, in this instance—to get someone to seek professional help.”

“You’re joking,” Marc scoffed.

Now it was the angel’s turn to shake his head.

“You want me to seek ‘professional help’? From whom? For what?”

The angel cast his eyes toward the ceiling.

“Oh, come on,” Marc said. “You’re telling me I’m supposed to seek help from…from God? That’s what you’re—” He paused. “This…this is a divine intervention? Literally?”

“Literally,” said the angel.

“I don’t believe this.”

The angel rose to his feet, his wings unfurling behind him, the great, alabaster-feathered expanse stretching across the entire length of the kitchen. There was light everywhere, a brilliance that seemed to have no single point of origin but washed over everything like a flood, dispelling every last shadow.

“Yes you do,” the angel said, stepping out of the light. Marc saw the blow coming too late to dodge; a right cross that caught him square in the jaw and sent him sprawling across the table. He was acutely aware of the Coke bottle falling, clattering to the floor, the remaining soda spilling out onto the tile, and then the angel’s voice, seeming to emanate from all around him in Dolby ∞.1 Surround Sound: “You don’t have the luxury of not believing anymore.”

The light was gone. Marc heard Norah descending the stairs, felt the cold Coke pooling against his bare foot, saw a single drop of blood from his split lip spatter onto the table next to the ring of condensation where the bottle had stood.

“Marc?” It was Norah’s voice, from the living room. “What are you doing? Why are the lights off?”

A pause, then a wash of incandescence and Norah’s voice again. “Have you been drinking my Dr. Pepper?”

If you listened to episode thirty-something of the podcast¹ you may recall me wondering whether steampunk worked better as an aesthetic than as a genre of fiction. At the time we recorded that episode, I was reading—and not especially enjoying—The Affinity Bridge by George Mann, a novel that sported a rather boastful cover blurb:

STEAMPUNK is making a comeback, and with this novel MANN IS LEADING THE CHARGE…An engaging melodrama that rattles along at a breakneck pace. —The Guardian

Simply put, The Affinity Bridge was not my cup of tea; I felt the characters were poorly-developed and some elements of the plot seemed to have been added as an afterthought and not resolved very well. As metaphorical CPR for the genre—if one were to accept that the genre needs resuscitation—The Affinity Bridge fails to clear the airway before administering rescue breathing and completely ignores chest compressions.

Even after finishing The Affinity Bridge, I wasn’t quite ready to relegate steampunk to the realm of the cosplayer—I was fairly certain that the book was not the shining example of the genre The Guardian would have me believe—dirigibles and brass goggles just have way too much potential and I wanted to see if that potential could be tapped in a manner that I enjoyed.

Enter Gail Carriger and her steampunk novel, Soulless (An Alexia Tarabotti Novel; Book 1 of The Parasol Protectorate).

Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she’s a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

I’ll admit that Miss Tarabotti and I did not get off to a smashing start. “I say!” she declared after a strange vampire attempted to make ill use of her jugular vein. “We have not even been introduced!” Then after whacking the vampire with her parasol she exclaimed “Manners!” Oh, well that’s just too much, I thought. Is this woman a Victorian-era Emily Post? I was also initially put off by the fact that every other surname (e.g., Loontwill, Hisselpenny) seemed vaguely reminiscent of something from a Monty Python skit.

Even so, the first chapter established an interesting premise and by the end of the second chapter I’d not only gotten my bearings, I was entirely hooked. Soulless, I learned, owes as much to Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde as it does to Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. And though I should have recognized the signs as early as Chapter One, it wasn’t until nearly halfway through the book that I admitted to having been thoroughly hoodwinked, for Soulless is, at its heart, a romance novel.² Granted, there’s a young lady holding a parasol on the cover and the text is primarily pink, but there’s no cleavage! No bare midriff! No shapely derrière crammed into leather pants! How was I supposed to know?

If I say “romance novel” like it’s a bad thing, well…in my experience it is. I fully recognize that I am not the target audience for that particular genre, but the few experiences I’ve had with it have not been good ones. In the “paranormal romance” sub-genre, I’ve read the first three Anita Blake novels by Laurell K. Hamilton and I’m fairly certain I’ll never read another.³ I read Eve Kenin‘s Driven expecting a hybrid of Mad Max and Ice Road Truckers, not realizing that it was actually a bizarre retelling of the battle of Hoth where Han Solo had breasts and no Wookiee co-pilot.⁴ I’m not saying the experiences were traumatic, just that I’m not wired for the whole romance bit.⁵ I mean, I’m a married man, for pity’s sake!

We like to say that there are exceptions to every rule, which sounds tired and trite, but here’s yet another example that warrants the claim. Soulless is a clever blend of supernatural (or paranormal, if you must), steampunk, humor and romance, and it works. There’s enough mention of steam-powered machines and dirigibles and brass parasols (and, yes, goggles) to maintain the steampunk aesthetic, which is woven deftly into the setting and the story without being obtrusive. The setting itself (in which vampires and werewolves are integrated into Victorian-era society and politics—at least in Jolly Old England) is nicely realized and Ms. Carriger populates her world with an array of interesting (if not all terribly original) characters.

The romance worked for me because it was bawdy without being explicit, and because after our shaky start, I really liked Miss Tarabotti (and her eventual suitor); the characters played off one another well, their verbal (and non-verbal) sparring was amusing, and the supernatural element added an interesting twist, as did the supporting characters on either side.

Soulless isn’t likely to inspire me to run out and raid the Paranormal Romance section of my local bookstore, but I’m definitely going to pick up the next volume in The Parasol Protectorate trilogy, Changeless, and I’m pleased to have found a steampunk novel that does the genre well, even if there is an awful lot of kissing.

1. The one where we whinge and carry on about the sorry state of…no, the other one, no the other other one. Episode Thirty-Four, all right? Happy now? [↩]
2. You shouldn’t make me read romance novels, Johnny. My mother made me read a romance novel once…Once. [↩]
3. It was an omnibus, that’s why. [↩]
4. I swear I didn’t see the “futuristic romance” label on the spine until after I got the book home. Or the phrase “her libido is shooting into overdrive at the feel of his hard body pressed against hers on the back of her snowscooter” on the back cover synopsis. Or the postage-paid insert offering memberships to The Historical Romance Book Club and The Love Spell Club. Is it too late to plead temporary insanity? [↩]
5. I’m also saying that trying to read an action sequence written by Laurell K. Hamilton makes my head hurt. [↩]

In this episode of podcast, we are joined in the Lair by Madame Overlord Johnson, who did not bring cookies. What did she bring? Opinions and class. Turns out we were already full up on the former, but sadly lacking in the latter.

Chief Medical Officer’s Report

It is entirely possible (probable, even), that the Bad Doctor has been ill-informed as to the purpose and, indeed, the very nature of our speculum farm in New Zealand.

Are we entering one or more of our shetland-bonobo hybrids in The Chagrin Valley Hunter Jumper Classic Horse Show? Well, it depends upon how well they jump, or perhaps hunt.

Finally, our Minister of Crackpot Schemes and Unfortunate Synergies may have—perhaps inadvertently—created a form of…oh, let’s call it Genetic Art.

Discussion: What is Art?

Well, that’s a fine question, isn’t it? Probably something transcendent and revelatory. Or not.

• Once again, we’re chatting about “Video games can never be art,” an article written by movie critic Roger Ebert. Because there’s no horse dead enough that we’re not willing to give it another whack.
• Chris thinks that The Void might well be art. It moved him.
• Amazing Fantasy #17? Geek reference fail. Spider-Man was introduced in Amazing Fantasy #15, Johnson.
• Myst, Riven and A Mind Forever Voyaging may well have been art. Probably not Batman: Arkham Asylum, though; it’s not boring enough.
• Some elements of Homeworld, Assassin’s Creed and The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom may be art (or even Art), but when all elements (visuals, audio, gameplay, etc.) are combined, the games fall short.
• How about those graphic novels? Watchmen, Planetary and Transmetropolitan are all cited as examples.
• Fan-fiction? Are we stirring that pot, too?
• crit·i·jism (Pronunciation: \ˈkri-tə-ˌji-zəm\) noun. 1. The reeking ejaculate spewed by critics.
• The Tangent Train chugs right along and we wind up talking about the maturity of geeks, Star Wars (there’s a shocker) and horror films (Overlord Miller doesn’t like the gore) until someone finally puts the show out of its misery.

Lairkeeping

• Our theme music is “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton.
• Visit us on the web at trip-dubs dot thesecretlair dot com.
• Try StatusNet for those short updates. This service is invite-only, so send us a note if you’d like to join.
• Got something to say that 140 characters just won’t cover? Say it on our community site.
• Coming up on The Secret Library, The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell. Really. Any day now.
• The Secret Lair blog is powered by WordPress.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:02 — 61.4MB)

Welcome to The Secret Lair’s Kerfuffle Archive!

The Intarweb is a busy place, and we know it’s tough to keep track of whose hackles are raised and why, so we aim to make the Kerfuffle Archive your quick-reference guide to the latest slapfights, fracases, brouhahas and donnybrooks on the Intertubes. We’ll give you the who, the what, the when and the why, with links to the source of the scuffle and other helpful information.

Even as our web-crawling, tube-scraping robots were combing every nook and cranny of the Net for information relating to the Kerfuffle of the Moment, it suddenly became old news; a new contretemps arose and we had to quickly dispatch another squadron of tiffbots to determine the identity of the new feather rufflers and feather rufflees.

Here are the three most recent kerfuffles, with the current Kerfuffle of the Moment first:

Gaiman Gets Paid

Background: On April 23, 2010, the Politics in Minnesota blog published “‘Club Book’ organizers defend pricey allocation,” in which author Neil Gaiman (American Gods, Sandman) was criticized for his speaking fee after appearing at a small Minnesota junior high school. On May 7th, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published an article titled “One author: $45,000 for an afternoon,” drawing further attention to the story. Mr. Gaiman has since responded on his blog; in an entry titled “Political Football in A Teacup,” the author explained that his payment came from a Minnesota tax allocation created by Minnesota’s Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment: “[e]ither they gave the money to me or it went away – it couldn’t be used [by the library] for anything else.” Mr. Gaiman said that he is in the habit of donating his speaking fees from library speaking engagements to charity. Of the $45,000 fee, Mr. Gaiman also noted that “no-one asked if I’d do it for less.”

Who’s Angry: The Minneapolis Star Tribune and people opposed to The Legacy Fund.

Response: The blog entry on Politics in Minnesota garnered only 12 comments, while the Star Tribune article has thus far generated more than 150. A Boing Boing post regarding Mr. Gaiman’s response currently has over 130 comments.

Note: Excerpts from the speech and Q&A Mr. Gaiman gave at Stillwater Junior High School can be heard on the Minnesota Public Radio web site.

Diana Gabaldon vs. Fan-fiction

Background: On May 3, 2010, author Diana Gabaldon (Outlander, Lord John and the Hellfire Club) posted an entry on her blog titled “Fan-Fiction and Moral Conundrums,” declaring that fan fiction is illegal and (in her opinion) immoral. The entry was followed by at least one more on the topic, but Ms. Gabaldon has since deleted the posts and all attached comments. As nothing ever goes away forever on the Internet, the enterprising kerfuffle-seeker will be able to find a record of the row if they do a little digging.

Who’s Angry: Writers of fan-fiction, mostly.

Response: Ms. Gabaldon’s original blog entry, as near as we can tell, generated about 550 comments, but we haven’t seen any numbers for her followup entry (or entries). Science-fiction author and blogging legend John Scalzi (Old Man’s War, The God Engines) posted “Author Pokes Fanfic Hive! Film at 11!” in his blog on May 5th; that post currently has more than 140 comments attached to it. On May 7th and 8th, author George R. R. Martin (A Game of Thrones) posted related entries on his blog titled “Someone Is Angry On the Internet,” “A Few Last Words” and “A Few More Last Words.” The three entries have generated more than 700 combined comments to date.

Roger Ebert on Video Games

Background: On April 16, 2010, renowned film critic Roger Ebert published an article on his blog at the Chicago Sun-Times. In the article, titled “Video games can never be art,” Ebert expressed the opinion that video games are not art, and that “no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.”

Who’s Angry: Video gamers; possibly video game creators.

Response: Mr. Ebert’s blog post has spawned (It’s a video game term; get it?) more than 4,000 comments as well as blog entries, YouTube videos and web comics. As we recently noted here, some of the responses have been less than civil.

• Microsoft has officially terminated Xbox LIVE support for the original Xbox console, but a handful of die-hard HALO 2 players managed to keep playing on their out-of-date systems. How? They never turned them off.
• How about that Jonah Hex movie trailer? Overlord Johnson has mixed feelings [Video]
• Nexuiz is a free first-person shooter that hearkens back to Unreal Tournament 2. It runs on Windows, OS X and Linux, and it’s ridiculously fun. [Video Game]
• When Air Commandant Moore talks about Champions Online, he is not referring to us. This will be corrected shortly. [MMO Review]
• Not enough links for you? Head on over to Radio Isopod for linky goodness from Doctor Gestalt.
• We normally only do one image per link post, but this one was too good to pass up. [Source]
  
• Finally, a question that must be asked: is a giant octopus cake technically seafood? [Gallery (of Cake!)]
  

• “They’re used. Some of them have stains. We cover that up.” Robert Lee owns Cullman Liquidation. They sell mobile homes. [Video]
• Volcanicast is dead! Pulp Audio Weekly lives! Bob and Wesley have retired one podcast and created another. Listen to the premiere episode…if you dare! [Podcast]
• When was the last time you were in Sim City? Were there 5.999999 million other people there, too?
• Finally, the folks at Very Demotivational bring us Grand Theft Locomotive, or as they’ve titled it, GTA Victorian Edition.
  

Last week, renowned film critic Roger Ebert posted an article titled “Video games can never be art,” in which he posited that video games are not art and will not become art during the lifetime of any gamer drawing breath today. As one might imagine—especially if one is an avid video game player—the chorus of responses to Mr. Ebert’s article are not exactly singing in harmony with him. As of April 16th, there were more than 2,600 comments on the article, the bulk of them disagreeing with Mr. Ebert’s claim.

Let me go on record as being very much on the fence with respect to the question of whether video games are (or can ever be) art. I’m firmly in the “I don’t know art, but I know what I like” camp. Personally, I feel if I’m enjoying something created by someone else, then that something is probably art.¹ I will cop to that being a very unsophisticated definition, but as a great nautical strongman once said, “I yam what I yam,” and what I yam ain’t very sophisticated.

I don’t take umbrage with Mr. Ebert or his opinion,² nor do I take issue with the gamers who offer their rational, reasonable arguments in defense of video games; I’ve seen some responses that are thoughtful, considered and present compelling comparisons between video games and more “traditional” art forms such as jazz and classical music.

Unfortunately, I’ve also seen a commenter named Lujo insult Ebert at length, in terms most would consider obscene (not to mention coprophiliac), without offering anything even faintly resembling a cogent argument supporting video games as an art form. It’s childish, puerile name-calling for the sake of name-calling during which the commenter asserts that Mr. Ebert “cannot take a real criticism or argue his case”, while spectacularly failing to even attempt an argument of his own. To which Ebert responds, “this comment approaches art, but doesn’t…quite…make it.”

Lujo’s comment may represent an extreme, but the insults and disrespect aren’t limited to anonymous commenters on Mr. Ebert’s blog. Jerry “Tycho” Holkins, writer of the immensely popular webcomic, Penny Arcade, referred to the article as “reeking ejaculate,” and then proceeded to call Mr. Ebert to the mat on his approach to the fine art of arguing.³ Rather than following with an intelligent, coherent response that encourages discourse, Holkins dismisses Mr. Ebert’s opinion as “generational bullshit”, which is both ironic and telling, as it demonstrates perfectly that the generation Holkins calls his own lacks respect and class.

When did a simple difference of opinion about something so trivial become grounds for a personal attack? At what point did “I don’t agree with you, thus you are pond scum” become a standard tool of debate? Are polite disagreement and rational discourse fated to be extinguished by the meteor that will ultimately mean the extinction of “dinosaurs” like Roger Ebert?⁴

1. Thus, I have no issue with Subway employing “Sandwich Artists”. [↩]
2. I will say that I’m not certain he selected the best point to his counterpoint in Kellee Santiago, whose TED talk provided the framework upon which the argument against video games as art was built; Ms. Santiago admits as much in  her response to Mr. Ebert’s article. [↩]
3. Nowhere does Holkins mention that proper form demands the flinging of personal insults as an opening gambit. [↩]
4. So-called by no less than seven people in the comments on “Video games will never be art”. [↩]