But I know he’s not the only one so let’s get to it. OK, I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THINKING: “But the outfits, the music, the dramatic arms movements and the gay guys for heaven’s sake!” and “How can 4 minutes of someone dancing around to ‘Carmen’ be considered an Olympic sport?!” and “Not saying it looks easy but still…”. Yes, I’ve heard it all before. I think of it sometimes when I punch the heavy bag (yup, just pointing out that I’m a badass). Some people just don’t like the showy aspects of skating and that’s their prerogative. But just because the competition element of it includes some stage makeup doesn’t mean that that the other 95% of what goes into the sport should be negated…it’s like saying that the iceberg hidden below the water doesn’t exist.

 

So here’s what I’m going to offer you, the disbeliever, A Question: when a snowboarder pulls a bunch of Backside 720s on a half pipe during a 2 minute run, THAT’S a sport right? The boarder traverses back and forth on the half pipe, sets up and pulls a trick at each pass…and then gets judged for the level of difficulty and execution. Well that’s funny, because that’s what skaters do. They perform two different programs, with at least 20 elements in it (jumps, spins, footwork) and then get judged on it based on the difficulty (technical merit) and execution (artistic merit). So that sounds a lot like snowboarding, except as opposed to snowsuits, skaters wear spandex and put everything to music. Oh and they ‘perform’ the program to the audience, weaving a suspension of disbelief that their every thought isn’t about the next upcoming element that could make or break their career, but instead about the story that they are telling on the ice. Maybe, if skaters were more like snowboarders, (or gymnasts for that matter), and took out the artistic expression, making it very apparent with both the set up and determined facial expression, that a triple axle or an intricate footwork sequence was about to be performed, more people would take it seriously as a sport. 

Grunt, focused look, skate skate skate, jump, skate skate skate, brow furrow, grunt, spin…skate skate jump…is this a more Olympic worthy picture?

 

If so, that’s pretty sad. Because art and athleticism can go hand in hand and one shouldn’t let a little flamboyant behavior and poor choice of Broadway music mask the truly spectacular nature of this sport. Sure there is corrupt judging but whenever you have humans judging an event and not a time clock, you will have flaws. I’ll be writing more skating commentary over the next two weeks but I just wanted to get my rant over and done with. I’ll gladly take on anyone who wants to argue Skating’s legitimate place at the Olympics, either here on the site…or in the boxing ring. :)

Oh and by the way…a 720 for an Olympic skater is friggin’ easy. Those boarders should try a 1440 (aka The Quad) and then land it on a steel blade an 1/8 of an inch thick. Just saying.

Ok- I have no doubt there are countless other writers out there putting forth this same romantic, symbolic observation. The weathered dust jacket of a spine ravaged, hard backed novel as a metaphor for our past and the sleek eco-friendly aluminum casing of the iPad as our future. What I wish to think on, however, is how will we find the next Salinger, when the consumption of the written word transitions into the digital era? The past is full of rich stories about how our idolized writers ended up reaching the masses. I am half way through a biography on Max Perkins, the revered editor from Scribners deemed responsible for finding and shepherding the careers of Fitzgerald and Hemingway. I have little doubt, after reading this book, that Fitzgerald (especially) would never have succeeded as a published writer, had it not been for the supportive, guiding hand (and early monetary advances) of Perkins. A publishing house, both then and now, invests much in its writers, as printing, marketing and shipping, let alone the creative guidance, all come at a high price...so finding that one editor to champion your storytelling is and was paramount. But this fiscal reality also reflects the essential barriers to entry. How many gifted writers never made it past those hallowed walls of Scribners, Random House or DoubleDay? What if Shane Leslie had never sent 'The Romantic Egoist' manuscript to Perkins? We may never have read Fitzgerald. Ever. His typed manuscript pages would have faded and wrinkled with time, lost forever. (Don't I sound dramatic??) But that is no longer the case- those barriers to entry have come tumbling down (and virtualized content storage prevents the page deterioration thing), especially after yesterday.

 

The stories, as we all know, are recycled: derivatives of 'Romeo and Juliet', 'David and Goliath', man against nature, man against machine; we've all seen the mash-up of the Avatar voiceover on the Pocahontas trailer. Avatar and Titanic couldn't be more basic in their character arc types and narratives. But what moved so many millions of people to go to the theatre and then go again, was that those tried and true love stories were presented in an immersive, yet awe inspiring fashion that compelled our complex neuro web to make us feel something new. In both cases we had NEVER seen that type of spectacle before in our lives.  Each movie may have told only a simple, universal love story, but it was nestled within a very un-simple, foreign yet believably tangible landscape. Hmmm. As human beings, are we becoming so desensitized to filmed entertainment that we need huge advances in technology to have the story affect our primal center for emotion? Do we need tech to feel more human?

I read a fascinating article in Wired the other day (what else is new) about a new company in San Diego called MindSign Neuromarketing. It uses brain scans to pin point when the amydala (the center for primal emotions and emotionally based memories) and other key regions of the brain activate in response to viewings of movies and trailers (apparently Jerry Bruckheimer used this fMRI technique to fine tune his last Pirates of the Caribbean trailer).  As I do quite a bit of neuro-research for different projects that I'm working on, I found this fascinating, yet very expected.  If a studio can craft a trailer that creates peak experiences in your emotional center, whether you want it to or not, they have you hooked. With regards to the draw of Avatar, mapping neuro responses to theatrical stimuli is the other side of the coin. What patterns will be discovered? What level of stimuli will we need to get our next 'hit'?

This topic is obviously a huge one and has far reaching ramifications, definitely beyond simple consumption of movies. The advent of Twitter and Facebook made us feel more connected; when someone adds you as a friend or replies to a tweet, the pleasure center of the brain activates (the folks at Twitter know this or why would they have put an exclamation mark after their email alert that someone new is following you!). But now these social media platforms are part of the more traditional landscape and in becoming part of the norm, what is them the future technology that will, for lack of a better phrase, give us our new hit of happy? It also brings forth something that I struggle with as a fledgling sci fi writer. The science and the fiction is important and the delicately constructed web that I weave to create my unique world is paramount to the genre, but the story has to be elevated by the it, not detracted (which is why I think most scifi films do poorly at the box office, District 9 being an exception for the obvious reason in that it connected on an emotional level).

I have so many more thoughts on these nebulous issues as I delve into what the future means to me and the technology I think that will define it, but I have to end this post for now.  I would love to hear your thoughts. In the mean time, I'm going to try to remember that a simple story, one that connects on a human level with the masses, is not something to discount...it just has to find it's way through our overloaded neural pathways and into our well-protected hearts.

       

We sat at the table in the corner.  The duck salad is a must!! We even stumbled upon a cafe later that night for dessert and were treated to a thought provoking but odd performance by a singer and her bass and piano player.  Ahh New York! Though I wasn't sold on the specific cast and performance of it, I enjoyed the overall theme and am interested to see what Roman Polanski does with the screen play adaptation.  I think heavy dramadies like this and 'August: Osage County' will benefit from the intimacy of the camera.  To do the story and characters of these 'peak experience' type plays justice, the actors must go to physical and emotional extremes...I don't know how that is physically possible eight times a week- you'd be a psychological mess after a two month run- some are able to do it but what I often see are the actors 'acting' a lot...you know what I mean, pushing and pretending, not experiencing in the moment.  Most of the audience eats it up, especially if voices are raised and things are thrown, but not me.  If it doesn't move me, if I don't feel that authentic moment happening on stage, it loses me.  But I'm a tough critic.  Film is about capturing that private, authentic moment and then elevating it even more with editing, cinematography and the score.  I'm hoping that some of the moments that fell flat to me during this play will be resuscitated by the upcomng film.