Interlude 0: Time & Turning

New Year:

It’s a poem about the coming of the new year, which is described as a visitor, but eventually brings us closer to our death. The writer of the poem is Bei Dao, a modern Chinese poet who writes in Chinese. He used to be an extreme Maoist but then rejected those ideas as the CCP betrayed him during the cultural revolution. He left China in the ’80s but returned to Hong Kong in 2007.

Praise Song for the Day:

This poem is about Barack Obama’s inauguration, and she describes the world as thorns and noises, but that noise and those thorns are getting repaired and built better. It’s about how life is moving towards a safe place. The song ends with gratitude to all those who died so we could live as we do, those who laid the tracks (probably Asians), picked the cotton (African-Americans), raised the bridges, and then comes to talk about how love is the greatest thing of all. Elizabeth Alexander is an African-American poet, her brother was a senior advisor of Barack Obama (פרוטקציות), and she’s descended from the logan family, a wealthy African-American family whose roots begin just from the end of the American Civil War.

Burning the Old Year:

The poem talks about the fragility of the old and the past, and how the sentimental eventually die off (letters getting easily burned). The poet is a half south levantine half German born in the US. Her poetry is about the mixing of different cultures.

Urban Renewal:

The poem talks about the brutality of urban renewal, the process of destroying what was once built and transforming the place into something new, as well as gentrification (which is the process where rich people move to a place that was inhabited by poor people, thus changing its culture, living costs and aesthetic). “The big iron ball sweeping, keeping time” almost talks about how the destruction of the old is as much a natural process of time as it is the artificial creation of man. The poet is Yusef Komunyakaa, an African-American poet born in Louisiana. He was deeply influenced by the old testament and served in Vietnam. He wrote a lot of war poetry about Vietnam from the side of American soldiers, African-American soldiers, and Vietnamese soldiers.

Beginning with Part 2: The Paradox of Sequels

Terms and definitions:

Sequel: The canonical continuation of another piece of media in that timeline.

Prequel: The canonical precursor of another piece of media in that timeline.

Midquel: A sequel that occurs within the same canonical timeframe of the original, a different perspective.

Sidequel: a midquel, but with different characters and a different event.

Reboot: The same story and characters as the original, but with a different cast or technique (like live-action instead of animation).

Trilogy: Three pieces of media that are in the same story and canon timeline.

Paraquel: Exact same story and characters from a different point of view/vantage point.

Franchise: Every piece of media that belongs to the same story.

Retcon: A change done to the plot of the original story after it was made inside the canon

The Road Not Taken:

The Road Not Taken is a well-known poem about the decisions we make in our life. The poem describes two roads that diverge in a yellow wood, which symbolises the paths of his life, and how he cannot take back his decision. The poet took the less traveled one (i.e being a poet), and ends the poem talking about how it made a substantial difference in his life.

Robert Frost, writer of the poem, is a poet from New England who lived during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “The Road Not Taken” was written in 1915. At that time, Frost and one of his friends, Edward Thomas, traveled in the English woods. They saw 2 roads there, and Thomas was indecisive about which road to take (much like the narrator is in the poem). The poem influenced Thomas to enlist in WW1, where he died in battle.

Homer’s Iliad:

Homer, the writer of the Iliad, is the most known ancient Greek poet and writer. He compiled the ancient myths of Greece and wrote them down.

The Iliad is a 2500-year-old story of an ancient war between the Greek city states and Troy (or Ilium, as the Greeks called it) in the ”Heroic Age”, when men could speak to the gods. The war broke out because Paris, prince of Troy, kidnapped Queen Helena of Sparta (or she ran away with him, depending on the version). The story begins with King Agamemnon refusing to return his captive Chryseis, the daughter of a priest of Apollo. This enrages Apollo, who sends a plague upon the Greeks. Achilles forces Agamemnon to return Chryseis back to Troy, but Agamemnon takes Achilles’s war concubine Briseis instead. Following this, Achilles leaves the war altogether. Agamemnon tries to test the loyalty of the remaining Greeks by telling them to abandon the war, but Odysseus encourages them to keep fighting. Paris and Meneleus (the king of Sparta) fight over Helena. Meneleus wins and the war continues. Diomedes, a Greek hero kills a lot of trojans but then injures Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Hector, the brother of Paris, decides to fight against the Greek warrior Ajax and almost gets killed. The Greek gods are fighting between which side to support in this war, even though Zeus tells both sides in the divine conflict to not intervene. Patroclus, achilles’ lover, convinces Achilles to dress in his armor and lead the fight against the trojans. Patroclus becomes too prideful and pursues the trojans into their city, but Apollo prevents Patroclus from capturing it and kills him. Achilles, now mad that his lover died, unleashes his fury onto the trojans and kills Hector. The Iliad ends with Hector’s funeral and a 12 day truce to collect the dead. The poem centers around the theme of war, peace and our losses in those wars. The Trojan Horse is in the Aeneid, not here. The Iliad ends before the end of the war.

Homer’s Odyssey:

the sequel to the Iliad, 10 years after troy has been defeated,odysseus the king of ithaca hasn’t returned to his home yet, and so suitors try to court his wife penelope who has still remained faithful to him after all of those years.odysseus is still alive, but his imprisoned by the nymph calypso,who fell in love with our hero.athena decides to help odysseus’s son telemachus. disguised as his friend ,convinces him to prepare for a journey to sparta. There, the kings of Sparta, Menelaus and Nestor tell him that his father is still alive. Meanwhile the suitors plan to kill Odysseus. Zeus sends Hermes to convince Calypso to let Odysseus leave, but when Poseidon sees Odysseus in his oceans, he sends him a storm. Odysseus and Poseidon weren’t on good terms because Odysseus blinded Poseidon's son, Polyphemus the cyclop. Athena saves Odysseus, and he makes it to scheria. there, he tells the king and queen about his journey. he talks about his trip to the land of the lotus eaters, the battle with the cyclop, the story with the sirens, his love affair with the witch goddess Circe, his journey to hades to talk with the prophet tiresias (who’s also the prophet in the story of Oedipus).than, the people of scheria, the Phaeacians bring him back to ithaca where he kills the suitors and regroup with his wife.

The Aeneid:

Unlike the Odyssey and the Iliad which were written in ancient Greece, most likely by Homer, The Aeneid was written in Rome by Virgil, during the times of Julius caesar. It's a midquel made from the perspective of the Trojans and specifically Aeneas.

The Trojan war ends in a greek victory thanks to the Trojan horse thing.

 Aeneas is a trojan war hero, but unlike odysseus who wanted to return home, aeneas fled the ruins of Troy to found a new city, Rome. in the beginning, his ship gets stranded on the African coast, where he meets Dido, the queen of Carthage. Dido confesses her love to him, but as he leaves she kills herself. Eventually the Trojans manage to makes it to the area near the tiber, where they encounter the latin tribes, lead by latinus. the latins are encouraged by the gods to try to fight against the trojans, but in the end the trojans win and found the city of alba longa. the story was written to increase ceasar’s prestige and rome’s prestige, since he claimed descent from the gods and rome claimed descent from troy. virgil is a roman poet who lived during the times of augustus and caesar.

dido also appears in sid meier’s civilisation series as the leader of carthage.

Henry IV part 1:

These dialogues and monologues were written by William Shakespeare, the most influential English playwright. He lived during Elizabeth I’s reign.

The narrator of the first monologue is Henry V.  Henry talks about his desire to imitate the sun, his indulgences with loose behavior, and the fact he doesn’t pay his debts. In this monologue, we see a decadent teenage prince who is unprepared to rule.

Henry IV Part 2:

In this part we see a dialogue between Warwick and the chief justice. They talk about the death of king Henry IV, and then proceed to talk about the new king, Henry V from the last part. A day passes, and we see Warwick, the chief justice, Lancaster, Gloucester and clearance talk about the new events.Warwick talks about the terrible temper of Henry V, they mourn the death of their king, and then Henry V enters the play. He’s mad at their “scheming” and tells them that it’s not the Turkish court and that he’ll treat the other princes fairly  (he mentions the Turkish court because it’s the Ottoman tradition for the heir of the throne to kill all of the other heirs). He then shares their sorrow and gets approval from the princes. He asks the chief justice why he thinks he doesn’t love him. To which he answers that he’s assured of that, despite him thinking that Henry doesn’t have a reason to hate him. to which Henry asks him about the time he got imprisoned by the chief justice. But the chief justice tells him that it was his job to put Henry in prison, because he is a representative of the King, and because Henry IV boxed him, it was like him boxing his father, and that the only reason he jailed him was his loyalty to the throne, and so he will be a loyal to henry V as well. Henry then disregards the problems he had with the chief justice and promises him to keep his place in the court, and that he hopes the chief justice will see Henry’s kids as well. Everyone is shocked by that statement, but Henry is still impressed by the chief justice’s impartial spirit and embraces him as a mentor and a spiritual father. Henry then promises that his rowdy behavior belongs to his past and that he’s now a changed, more virtuous man, since he needs to rule a kingdom now. Henry then calls his parliament to choose a counselor, and he promises no one will regret his rule.

In this part we see the full transformation of Henry V. He's no longer a rowdy boy, but a powerful king that can be trusted. He doesn’t hold grudges to those who judge his past, and he treats his fellow prince brothers fairly.

Henry V Part 3:

Here we see another monologue of Henry V, now as a war speech. He calls his fellow Englishmen to fight and defend the motherland. He calls to his men to prove their noble ancestry in the battles, to hide their fair nature in the brutality of the fight.

That's the changed Henry V talking. no more the small decadent teenager, but an experienced man of war.

Henry V Part 4:

Henry here talks about the feast of crispian, an english holiday at that time dedicated to remembering those who died in the war. his father, Warwick, Gloucester, all the people who didn’t trust him and those who did. He mourns them and hopes for a better future.

Here we see an old and experienced Henry who tasted the bitter taste of war. He talks about wanting life to be peaceful, and mourns all those who died.

also i’d recommend watching netflix’s movie “the king”, which is a modern reinterpretation of shakespeare’s henriad.

King Midas:

The story is from ancient Greece. Midas was the king of Phrygia, a Greek city on the coast of modern day Turkey. he was well known for his greed, so much so that he wished for everything he touched to be turned into gold. After Midas treated well the satyr, silenus got treated well under midas, Dionyssus had decided to gift him a wish. midas, ruled by greed has decided to wish that everything he touched would become gold. midas woke up the next day to see that everything he touched really became gold. than he ate a grape ,and it became gold too. than, his daughter came into the room and hugged midas. and she became a golden statue.Dionyssus heard about the misery of midas and has given him a chance for atonement. and so midas went to the pactolus river and washed his hands, and everything that become gold returned to normal. midas than decided to share his wealth with his subjects,and a happy ending happened. the story teaches us to not be ruled by greed.

Mrs. Midas:

The poem begins with reciting the time the change happened. Then, the speaker describes how everything turned into gold at Midas’ touch. Like King Midas in the original tale, she thought this was good, but then she became frightened at the change that had happened to her husband. He has now closed himself in a room so he won’t be a danger to his wife. In the end, she leaves him and drives the car, talking about how she misses his touch the most.

Nikos Kazantzakis’s Odyssey:

I can't find an English version of it, so let’s talk about the poet. He's an incredibly influential Greek writer, who wrote books such as Zorba the Greek (that Greek song you know was influenced by that book).

the bed that is a tree:

 the name is a reference to Odysseus's palace, which was carved from a tree. Odysseus and Penelope's bed was carved from that tree, and so cannot move. That bed symbolises the sanctity and the ever lasting power of his dynasty and his marriage to penelope. that poem talks about penelope’s feeling of waiting for her husband to come, that poem as well as ms midas are attempts at hearing female voices in our history and mythology, and could be seen as a part of a “her-story” movement (which is history that attempts to be specific on women).  The bed that is a tree is also seen as a deathbed, as that poem talks about Penelope's misery in loneliness.

Ulysses:

Ulysses is also the Roman name for Odysseus, who’s the narrator of this poem. Odysseus summarises his life, and talks about the people, kingdoms, cities and islands he met and explored, and then introduces Telemachus, his son who will continue his work. The poem ends with him going to the port, and how his long journey came to an end.

 The writer is lord alfred tennyson, an english poet who lived in the victorian era.most of his writing is about classical stories, and he’s heavily quoted, with quotes such as “Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all”. he has also written the poem “charge of the light brigade”, based on the actual battle (for more information look at the special area section)

Rupi Kaur:

rupi is an indian-canadian poet ,who publishes her poems on instagram. Her poems centre on themes such as female empowerment, the lives of immigrants, and the ordinary life. Her poems are very short in comparison with other poets we’ve seen, and some of them resemble tweets in their structure (“i’ll be quiet when /we can say assault/and they/stop screaming liar”), and also other poems which are quite long. She also performs her poems in public, and she got a show on amazon prime. She’s also considered “writer of the decade”, her language uses themes seen from the self help community, and she adds line drawing to her poems on instagram. Her critics claim that she’s commodifying the marginalisation of her culture, and that her poetry is simply boring. Ironically, the way she presents herself goes against south asian beauty standards, which shows a desire to rebel not only from the marginalisation of the west but also from the oppression of the east.

rupi kaur’s poetry is also feminist in nature, and one of its main themes is female empowerment (which is also a theme that can be seen across several poems here).

Pace Yourself:

The poem is incredibly short and borrows from self help language. “the road to changing the world/is never-ending/pace yourself”. built like a tweet, but carries a meaning for those who struggle to make the world a better place.

The Year Is Done:

This is built more like a prose, a lot longer and structured more freely. In the poem she summarises her year, talking about how she refused to simply pity and doubt herself, danced and became free from her worries, lost her need to feel seen, got rid of the useless things she had, and became a better woman overall. in the poem she also talks about how the memories of the past are like paper and wood, easily burnt and forgotten , and how so little of the world is like stone, permanent and set in stone while being hard to burn and forget.

Interlude I: Words Renewed

Poetry:

“Poetry” is Marianne Moore’s most famous poem, and not just because of its artistic brilliance. It is also infamous for being rewritten and revised many times after its release - more specifically, it was reprinted 27 times over the course of 48 years, and has at least 6 variants. As for the poem itself (the most recent version of it, that is), it seems very clear that it is a criticism of the very art form it belongs to - poetry. In the first line, Moore states that she “dislikes” poetry and refuses to elaborate further. In the second and third lines, however, she says poetry does have “a place for the genuine” - a true way for people to speak their mind honestly and passionately.

marianne moore was born in 1887 and died in 1972. she was deeply involved in the american suffrage movement and helped write poems anonymously to the cause. she recieved the national medal for literature in 1968 and she was never married.

An Essay on Criticism:

alexander pope was a british poet and translator. he was born in 1688, and because he caught Tuberculosis of the bone, he was only 137cm tall. He was a Catholic, which during that time made him ineligible for a lot of government jobs. He was friends with a lot of british poets and writers at that time,such as Jonathan Swift (who wrote works such as A Modest Proposal). in this poem, pope talks about how to make a great poem, how to prevent criticism from destroying a poem, how to criticise a poem well. according to pope, a good critique should come from humbleness and carefulness, for bad criticism can ruin poetry more than bad poetry can,since a bad critique can destroy the self esteem of a talented poet, or atleast one with quite a lot of potential, and thus prevent us from seeing more beautiful art. But if a critic is honest, isn’t envious or prideful,and listens to the seeds of understanding, both sides can learn from the interaction. The critic who gives such critique can be considered a wise critic according to Pope. The Greeks built their poetry on the laws of nature, and poets should do the same. Then Pope describes the reasons critics make but critiques, the main reason is pride, and so the cure is to know your own faults. critics should learn of the convetions of poetry, but to not become slaves to such rules . and not let the poet’s popularity misguide the appreciation of the poem. the critic and the poet shouldn’t delve into extremes.

Fledgling:

The poem is composed of instructions that you supposedly should follow. The poem talks about the physicality of the objects.most of the advice boild down to “live the moment to your fullest, because the future is uncertain”, as well as not touching yourself in the shower.  the poem was written based on a real life story, where kevin went to a shrine under construction, and the construction workers and the guru gave him advice to manage his life.

kevin phan is a poet in our era who got into poetry following the death of his mother.

In The Library:

the poem talks about a library, where the narrator found a book. the book details how angels used to be plentiful, but have long since died. but the secret of these angels is in a book the librarian,ms jones ,takes with her all the time. and only ms jones can understand what these books mean. the angels are an allegory to books, and as those pesky zoomers are in the screen all day, only the wise librarians can truly understand the knowledge and beauty in the stories of old, buried in the books.

charles simic is a poet living in our era. he was born in serbia.  he writes about jazz,philosophy and art,and he was on last year’s WSC material.

Echeverria:

It's a story originally written in Spanish about a Mayan guy who left his village, his wife and children, in hope of finding a good job and a future for those he cared for. As he moved to the majority mestizo city, he left his traditions behind and assimilated. he started wearing glasses and western clothing. but that didn’t make him fit in. his mestizo co-workers called him “Echeverría” because he tried to be like the president of mexico at that time.he returned to his home village, but since he was so deep in the culture that he adopted, he forgot to enjoy the culture of his own home. when he got drunk he exclaimed he was president , but when people asked what was his deal, it was understood that it was just some mayan guy who got western clothing. and so he was called Echeverría by his village as well.he eventually left the village again never to return. now in the “big city”, he became more and more drunk,until he eventually died. moral of the story: never lie, don’t abandon your culture, and don’t interact with white people

the writer is enrique perez lopez, a mexican writer who worked with indeginous cultures in mexico and researched their diffusion into general mexican society for 27 years.he’s the director of the Centro Estatal de Lenguas, Arte y Literatura indígenas,or in english, the national center of indeginous art,literature and language.

Beginning with Part 2: The Paradox of Sequels: Part 2

Ms. Pac-Man:

The story of pacman started in 1980, when it was released by Konami. The game was a success and the gameplay is very simple! You control Pac Man, a yellow half circle, and get him to eat all of the points, all while avoiding ghosts that are running around. In 1982, two MIT students made a knock off version of that game, now with the option to add Ms Pac Man, Pac Man's wife. Despite being a knock off, the game ended up being the most popular arcade game in America.

The game was originally developed for the MIT arcade built for local students. The problem was that their sales declined, and so they got an atari machine. Since they would profit more if people played for less time (and thus need more quarters to pay) they tried to reduce the play time by making the games more and more difficult. They used enhancement kits to make the games harder to solve that problem-  developed enhancement kits for games such as missile command and made bank. and so they’ve decided to do the same for Pac Man, which just got released in the US. Their Pac Man enhancement kit included a lot more mazes, a lot more randomization, and they decided to call their version of the game “Crazy Otto”. Atari then sued them for copyright infringement, but since they wrote their own code, as it became harmful to Atari’s PR, both sides decided to reach an agreement where Atari would give each of them 50,000 bucks a month, and in return they would develop games with Atari while having no strings attached. They agreed, and started making games together. Crazy Otto was booming, and so they decided to turn it into a Pac Man sequel, originally titled Super Pac Man but than it was changed to Ms. Pac Man. Since they work now with Atari, they had no copyright problems with that. Because of the feminist message surfacing at that time, the fact that Ms Pac Man was a Ms increased sales. Ms Pac Man became an international hit. While the developers continued on for 4 years, Atari got sold and they lost their funding. Eventually the developers got into a copyright lawsuit over Ms Pac Man too, since merch was made off of it that they obviously wanted to profit from. They won the lawsuit and then Ms Pac Man had a reunion game with Pac Man, but Atari's current executives didn’t know that Pac Man was made by those guys.

Pac-Man 2:

that game is completely different from the original pacman, in it, pacman does ordinary jobs for his family, while you control a slingshot which can influence his behaviour. pacman has feelings, and you want him to feel good,so he’ll do his tasks better.you can use your slingshot to attack ghosts, which still harass pacman.

Pac-man TV series:

the series is about pacman,ms pacman and their son junior pacman. it’s story relates to the story of the video game. in the show , pacman and his wife lead a peaceful life but are harassed by the ghosts .it’s the first ever saturday morning cartoon about a video game. following this tv series ,other video game mascots got their cartoons as well. mario,sonic, and zelda all got their unique cartoons,some of of them airing to this day.  there are some differences between the series and the game, such as the main villain of the series was a ghost boss named mezmaron,pacman having a dog named chomp-chomp and a cat named sour-puss.

Ultima series:

ultima is an open world RPG video game series, much like other open worlds from that time like might and magic. ultima was rather unique in several aspects. the main one is their alignment system. richard garriott added the system after seeing how the players of his game treated the NPCs like absolute garbage.and so he decided to name the player’s character the avatar (which is sanskrit for someone’s incarnation,and the origin of the usage of that word in online spaces),than he added a gypsy which would ask the player ethical questions to see which type of character would be best for them (if the player saw honor as an important value, the gypsy advised him to pick paladin, if he saw compassion as an important value, she advised him to pick bard),than their avatar was a human,since the players are human as well in the real world.in order for the player to win,he had to master the 8 core virtues, which forced him to go to shrines and treat the NPCs well.if the player behaves well with NPCs,some of them will fight alongside him.the NPCs forgive,but never forget (an example for that would be a vendor getting their gold stolen. she wouldn’t scorn the player, but wouldn’t give him the password to her bunker with a lot more gold).in the final dungeon of the game,the players had to fight monsters, but then they still felt like they got tested (For example, they had to fight clones of their NPC allies and teammates, all while not knowing that they’re monster clones).that game became an instant success ,influencing other games in the genre.

Sid Meier’s Civilisation:

in the game, a player picks a historical civilisation with their leader, and tries to take the other civilisations by either conquering their cities, developing their own culture and science to a high level, spreading their religion, or becoming the richest on the map.each civilisation has their unique military unit  and some unique bonuses. the game invented the turn based genre, with every thing you do is based on turns. the game is quite similar to a tabletop game, since it was influenced by a british board game called civilisation,as well as railway tycoon and empire.

Centipede:

it’s a 1981 shooter game made by atari. it had a sequel named milipede.the player controlls an insect-like bug buster, who fires bullets into a centipede through a field of mushrooms.fleas also join the game and attack the bug blaster. if the bug blaster touches any of these objects he dies. the sequel had a lot more variety in the bugs getting killed and is more harder. it didn’t have any sequels after that and the franchise died.

Mario Bros:

originally mario bros is a sequel to donkey kong, now featuring luigi instead of just mario. this franchise had a (not so succesful) movie, and quite a lot of new games . from racing games like mario kart wii ,to more open world games like super mario odyssey to platform games like the original,such as super mario bros 2,3,DS,WII, and so on.it had a tv show, though the tv show only influenced youtube poops (old memes from 2009-2015 youtube,which were based on remixing childhood movies and tv series. in fact, youtube poops were heavily influenced by the saturday morning cartoons of sonic, mario and zelda). the mario bros games are based on one trope which tends to repeat itself: bowser, the king of the coopas kidnapps peach, the queen of the mushroom kingdom. mario,an italian plumber and his brother luigi are called to save her. they may save peach in a platformer game or an open world adventure, but the end result is always the same:mario gets a cake and the cycle continues, except in mario oddessy, where peach rejected both mario and bowser to become a strong independant woman.

Donkey Kong:

donkey kong became more and more part of the Mario franchise, with mario becoming more and more popular. despite that, even donkey kong got quite a lot of sequels,such as donkey kong country , donkey kong 2 and 3. donkey kong games center around Mario trying to get pauline, mario’s girlfriend that donkey kong kidnapped. pauline is in a cage and mario has to jump between platforms to get to that cage and defeat donkey kong. the “mario” shown in the original donkey kong isn’t actually named mario, but rather “jump man”, with some nintendo fans even theorizing that he’s actually the father of the mario brothers.

Simcity:

simcity is a game where you can simulate your own city. build it, treat its sewage and electricity problems,and assure everyone in the city has a good life and are happy, the game had several sequels,from simcity 2 and 3, to a spin-off called the sims, where you can control a small group of individuals by influencing them,from buying them an apartment and watching them finding jobs, love and fortune,to you torturing their miserable excuse of a life. simcity’s original franchise died though thanks to a terrible reboot that happened when the franchise was bought by EA.it was planned for the sims to have a movie title on disney in 2007, but it was cancelled in 2019.

Tetris:

tetris is the 2nd most popular game of all time, and in it you place groups of squares that you get in hope of not reaching the top of the screen,when you fill a horizontal line of squares, all of those squares disappear. there’s a syndrome named after tetris ,where a person would spend so much time on one activity, that his dreams and thoughts will imitate that activity. the game was originally published by mirrorsoft, but since they went bankrupt other companies such as bulletproof software, nintendo, atari,spectrum holobyte,sony and EA made their own versions of it, the latest one being tetris 99,whic is a tetris game but with a battle royale twist.the tons of different versions increased the game’s popularity. there isn’t a tetris movie or tv series,since how can you make a plot out of blocks?

Serial:

“Serial” is a true crime podcast that came out in 2014 and became a massive success. It was a podcast investigating an obscure murder case, basically a documentary in audio form. The first season may have been successful and ground-breaking, but the second season completely flopped due to many mistakes and misfortunes, none of which I understand.

One of the main complaints about the season is that it chose a topic that was already covered to death by everyone and their mother years ago. Another was that it had no cliffhangers, no tension or drama. People generally just found season 2 of “Serial” boring.

The WSC website asks us, “Are high expectations to blame?”, and I believe the answer is no. “Serial”’s second season seems to just be too slow-paced, too philosophical for the average person to listen to in their free time.

Another question on the site is “Is the best way for sequels to meet high expectations to continue doing what worked the first time, or to try something new?”. I think the answer to this question varies a lot. Every form of entertainment will become dull eventually, some faster than others. Some will return, some won’t, all at different times.

Radio Dramas:

Radio dramas were, as far as I could understand, basically no different than podcasts, except for the obvious difference - radio dramas were broadcast on radio.

Could [radio dramas] (or their podcast-equivalent) become popular again? I’m not so sure. In this world wide web, anything is within walking distance and ready to be binged. I just don’t think people would want to have to clear a specific time frame in their day to listen to a story. Podcasts, however, are accessible on mobile devices, can be downloaded ahead of time,  listened to at any time and are very binge-able. Combine that with podcasts being completely sound-based, and you can do anything you want while listening (for example: play video games, do the chores, complete homework, etc.), which works very well with our society’s need to be constantly doing something and its demand to be as productive as possible.

Are there stories that are better suited for [radio] than they would be for TV or the written word? I don’t see why not. Each form of art delivers its messages in its own way, and each one has stories better told through it than through any other medium. For example, Doki Doki Literature Club and Undertale are two story-based video games that definitely don’t belong in any other medium. Despite the radio’s shortcomings, the dramas could be easily converted to long podcast episodes the listeners could tune in to at their leisure.

investment in star wars:

star wars became a radio drama by npr, and it was incredibly successful. it took a lot of time to get darth vader’s breathing right, and a lot of scenes were added, since star wars IV only has 30 minutes of dialog. one such example of a cene was princess leia getting interrogated by darth vader. george lucas sold the radio rights of star wars to NPR for 1$.

Serialy released novels:

Despite modern society’s debatably unhealthy obsession with binging, I think novels might actually be more successful when released chapter-by-chapter. This is because novels - especially ones that were released serially in the past, such as Charles Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities” or H. G. Wells’s “The War of the Worlds” - require much more effort to read than a film does to watch (though the messages behind them could be equally puzzling). Being given small chunks of a novel that are meant to be read some time apart will make reading the whole thing much easier, especially considering humanity’s ever-shortening attention span.

the mystery of edwin drood:

the mystery of edwin drood is a novel written by charles dickens . in the novel, John jasper, a choirmaster in a victorian school maintains a secret double life that involves visiting an opium den. he falls in love with rosa bud, the fiance of his nephew, edwin drood.eventually nevile landless, the twin brother of helena who visits the boarding school rosa studies at takes interest in rosa too. eventually edwin,John and neville go to dinner to decide who gets rosa, but edwin disappears, and neville is accused of killing him. charles dickens released the novel serially on the newspaper, but he died before he could finish it,and so other people tried to finish it

the finished ending:

“ghost dickens” completed edwin drood. it was supposedly completed with the help
of a medium. ghost dickens keeps the same writing style as dickens he reassures the reader about the afterlife ,and assures that satan didn’t influence the work. edwin drood is alive but kept hidden.

the silmarillion:

it’s a book made by tolkien and completed by guy gavriel kay. he finished the book when he was 26, and he did so because he worked with tolkein’s son.the book is a prequel to the hobbit and includes short stories about the formation of middle earth and its history before bilbao.

the wheel of time:

a series of books made by robert jordan and completed by brandon sanderson. the setting is a fantasy world, that thanks to the repetitiveness of time ,is both the distant past and the distant future. so time is a wheel, it’s threads are the lives of the humans, the true power of the wheel is divided between male and female counterparts (saladin and saldar)  and the humans who can channel the force of time are called “channelers”. the creator of the universe has a dark counterpart called shait’an (like how muslims call satan) who he jailed. shaitan somehow managed to get his influence slipped into the real world, and so he called the crooks and the ambitious to help him take over the universe and free him from his prison. the prevent that the wheel spun a channeler called “the dragon” who can defeat the forces of evil.the first dragon was lews therin telamon. he led the forces of light to victory after a 10 year long struggle that ended with him throwing the forces of evil back to their prison and sealing it off. but then shaitan managed to corrupt the male true power ,which led to lews killing his family,friends and eventually himself all while every other male channeler does the same, leading to the almost destruction of mankind and to a world where only women can channel the true power. Since only women are channelers, society is quite equal between men and women, but the technology is on a medieval level, but with the knowledge of hygiene and anatomy,since the knowledge has kept itself during the apocalypse, but the institutions for that knowledge to spread and grow didn’t. mankind can’t rise to the technological level of the age of legends (the antediluvian times) because of wars and so society stagnates. the novel series expands greatly on the universe, to the point where the main cast simply has extended cameos.

doctor who:

doctor who is a time traveller,who travels through time with his machine that looks like a british telephone cell.since the actor who first played the doctor in the TV series was seriously ill, the producers decided to build a plot device that’s based on the idea that the doctor can regenerate his body and look like someone else, and they used that to replace the actor. now the doctor is played by jodie whittaker, a british actress,and it’s the first time the doctor is played by a woman. as of now, 13 actors played the doctor.

dax:

the dax is a symbiont that joins with a humanoid race named the trill.after each host dies, the symbiont passes on to the next one and effectively control him.the original host was named jadzia,a kind confident and pragmatic woman with a warrior spirit. she was happy to be the host. she was a commanding officer for the USS defiant, and married a klingon named worf,all while having some feelings for julian basheer. since the actress who played her,terry farrel cancelled the contract they killed jadzia and replaced her as the host for dax with ezri tigan, a trill officer on the USS destiny. ezri didn’t prepare to take dax as a symbiote because she didn’t desire it. only after dax had a medical emergency she volunteered for the job.in the series she evolved from a timid girl into a confident woman.  she recieved all of jadzia’s memories and now chose to be with basheer instead of worf. the dillema with the symbiote is that it’s like a worm inside your body,and every feeling you might have might arise from a past host.ezri didn’t train for taking the host, and so it was quite a burden for her to take.

cgi reanimating the dead:

famous hollywood actor and “bad boy” james dean died 60 years ago on a car crash, but thanks to CGI tech,he can act as “rogan” the secondary leading role of the movie “finding jack”. the movie is about the abandonment of 10000 military dogs after the vietnam war. the directors thought james dean, the “bad boy of hollywood” (that was how he was nicknamed, i didn’t invent it.) was the perfect actor for the job, and so they bought the rights to dean’s image from his family,recreated his body with CGI tech and used a voice actor to record his lines. so now we’ll need actors less and less,and maybe acting will be one of the jobs more impacted by automation,we can’t truly know. also the movie eventually got canceled because of anti-dean backlash.

harry potter and the cursed child:

it’s the sequel to harry potter, and it’s a play. the play received some backlash from harry potter fans but it was generally well received. the setting is 20 years after the original harry potter, with harry potter’s child, who’s now at Slytherin. and he’s fighting off evil with Malfoy's son.

Interlude II: Worlds Renewed

create the future:

In the spoken word, the poet explains how old companies,owners and ideas die. because they simply do not allow themselves to be reinvented. He uses the example of the telephone and TV to show how the established industries don’t want competition and can’t handle technological innovation properly, simply because they’re stuck in the past. daryll calls for us to invent new technologies and make them change the world,follow what people call “illogical”, and allow people to disrupt fields of businesses. Every entrepreneur starts as “crazy” but starts to “stabilize “ and lose his spark. if you don’t change you don’t grow.

the poems of our climate:

in that poem ,stevens shows his desire for a perfect world,describing it in great detail in the 1st third of the poem, where he shows a perfect but simple world. he then explains how humanity can’t handle simplicity and always craves for more,and ends in how we crave the imperfect.it doesn’t elaborate why we do such thing.

wallace stevens wrote it in 1942.

today i dreamed all day:

the poem talks about how he had a dream of driving around bukhara (one of the most important cities in central asia) ,its minerates and roses and beauty. on beautiful blue stones (the color blue is a common theme in this poem) ,and how history is in front of him ,but than a skyblue flame runs (probably symbolizes modernity) and that the dream has took him for a long time,and blinded his senses. the poem talks about yearning for an old past and its beauty, but than “snapping back to reality” and realizing it was all a dream. the poem was written for a book called “the song atlas: a book fo world poetry” which featured poetry from all across the world and was an event called The Written world, where the BBC broadcasted a poem from every country in the world that competed in the london 2012 olympics.

Rauf Parfi is an uzbek poet born in 1942 who wrote mostly  during the soviet and post soviet era, and his songs describe the changes the lyrical hero faces.

a map to the next world:

in the poem, joy harjo shows her desire for the world to be rebuilt, for the person to break through the hole in the sky. how the only tools are the dreams of those who survived the war,how the fire of freedom must spread from one place to the next, and how the map , the instructions to get to the new world must be built on sand (and so,be temporary and eternally moving) ,how wealth must not be squandered. how the horizions will be expanded for growth, but at the cost of our parents’ misery .than they call to abandon the hole of shame,built by the traditions of the tribe, and how everyone must make their own map, their own method of escapade from our world and into a newer one. the poem also talks about “the fifth world”- the world of nomads such as native americans and the roma, and how the destruction of the fitfh world leads to us losing our touch with nature. and as we lose that we lose our planet, and so joy harjo tries to create a map to the next world, to prevent us from repeating our old mistakes. but the thing about said map is that it’s personal, and so it’s impossible to create a “one size fits all” map for that spiritual journey, which means the entire process detailed in the poem was in vain.

joy harjo is a native american poet , and part of the native american renaissance, a movement that expanded the number of literary works produced by native americans.

The Sliced-Crosswise Only-on-Tuesday World:

it’s a short story based on a dystopic future. in the year 2055, people only live in one day of the week,and in the rest of the week they’re frozen. our protagonist tom lives on Tuesday, but wants to move to wednesday because there’s a girl he is in love with who lives in wednesday in his home (because people share homes with people living in other days) and they communicate a lot with each other through letters and notes spread through the house. in the end he moves to Wednesday,but the girl moves to Tuesday, thus causing him an eternal life of misery.

sanctuary:

in the story, colonists prepare to colonize a planet, a super earth to be exact, but find out that the planet is inhabited with an indeginous alien civ. nethertheless, the colonists land in the planet ,on a volcanic island (much like the islands of hawaii and most of polynesia). the atmosphere is breathable, and the organic chemicals in the planet are not dangerous, and so the colonists could live there, but the gravity was a huge problem. since the gravity is a lot bigger, it takes much more force to do even normal tasks. meanwhile the leadership of the colonist group decides that it may take a generation to be accustomed to living in that planet.eventually the colonists find out that the natives are quite more advanced, and that they engage in sailcraft and use the power of the wind. the natives are now called “cetans”. the colonists notice that more and more of their equipment fails (a forshadowing) ,and that it fails because a micro organism eats through the plastic ,metal and even textile. there are even cases of people losing their pants while they stil wear them . that microorganism is called “the rot”. the rot causes a ship to fail, leading to the deaths of 1000 colonists,all while the planet is filled with the rot in its soil.the survivors of the rot try escape the planet, only to realize that they got it too,and so they are forced to stay there, hoping the cetans would treat them well. it connects to the science material, especially the part about colonizing new planets. eventually the new settlers have to co-exist with the native centans.

Second Time’s the Charm | Reboots & Revisions

the witcher:

a fantasy book series made by polish writer andrej sapkowski, which got remade into a video game and a tv series. the story is about geralt of rivia, a man of many talents whose job is to defend cities. he researches the murders and solves them.the game was made by cd projekt red, who also made the game “cyberpunk”.the game is an open world RPG, where you are free to explore the land and find some side quests along the way. the game got so successful,netflix made a series out of it.

the netflix series:

the series is as successful as the book and the game, starring henry cavil, and it details how geralt is connected to crown princess ciril ,who he is supposed to protect. outside of that, the series follows a similar route as the book. the series was inspired by game of thrones, which too features a fantasy world based on a book series ,with a lead character being a princess.

jojo rabbit:

jojo rabbit was originally a novel which detailed a german teenager during the nazi era, who strongly believes in the german cause but than finds a jewish girl in his attic. he than proceed to abuse and sexually assault her for the duration of the war, and even some time after that. the movie however,was much more lighthearted. the teenager became an 11 year old kid, his mom hid the jewish girl (and was a resistance member), all while young jojo has an imaginary friend who represents hitler. unlike in the novel, the movie ends with a good ending, that being the girl getting freed from the nazis and surviving the war.

gone with the wind:

originally a novel about scarlet o’hara, a daughter of a plantation owner getting, obsessed with ashley wilkes, the introverted southern gentleman, all while ashley is getting married to his cousin (it was allowed and legitimate during that time) and scarlet getting married to rhett butler, the cynical and charming southern aristocrat. the book and the movie are about aristocrats surviving in a changing world where the cavaliers (the old southern aristocracy) lost all of their strength and power.

should hermione be black:

there’s a claim about a “white bias”-that characters are assumed to be white unless told otherwise,but hermione is regarded in the book as white looking girl with brown hair. the thing is that every non white character is said (or implied through their surnames) to be non white from specific cultures, but it doesn’t happen that way with hermione. rowling described the non-white characters ,because she knew everyone else would assume the white characters are white. the writer tells us to overcome our white bias in our stories.

diversity hire retcons:

in order to appear more progressive, movie characters are retconned into becoming a different race/gender than they originally were.

star wars is one example of that: non-white and women characters have more dialouges,now half of the dialouges were from a non white character.that’s not  a retcon, since they added more non-white characters,instead of replacing the white ones. there are some who don’t like the move, calling some of the non-white characters as shallow and one-dimensional characters. most movie critics disagree with that opinion though. retcons are quite older than simply diversity hiring, and the term originated in a 1973 book called “The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg”, and it’s an abbreviation of “retroactive continuity”.the usage of the term moved from books to the internet and from there it spread into the public

the new gulliver:

the first full length animated film was “the new gulliver”, a soviet film made by Aleksandr Ptushko about a young man named petya who fell asleep while reading “gulliver’s adventure” by Jonathan Swift, only to wake up in lilliput and find out that the midget proletariats are breaking their chains of oppression, built by the midget bourgeoisie. the film used stop motion animation and live-action footage.

fresh prince of bel air:

it was originally a sitcom about a young boy who was born and raised in the hoods of west philadelphia, but got in trouble with the local gangs and so left the area to bel air, since his wealthy uncle lives there. he learns how to adjust himself and work hard all while having lighthearted comedy fun. the series also has a catchy rap intro.

the drama mock trailer:

the concept is about telling the same story,but from a different angle. instead of the light hearted skits we see how wil grows and the emotional struggles each of the characters face,now in a more dramatic twist. while it’s a mock trailer (like a parody), it’s also an idea for a movie,and it’s executed really well. the movie was relasead on the streaming service “peacock” and it has mostly positive reviews

high school musical:

nerdy gabriella and athlete troy fall in love and decide to apply to the high school musical together, all while sharpay conspires to destroy their chance of doing so. and they have to make it to auditions all while doing the academic decathlon and the basketball competition.

high school musical: the musical: the series:

the school the original high school musical was played on never had a school play, and so the miss jenn the new drama teacher decides to air high school musical:the musical ,all while the students deal with their interpersonal relationships (like ricky who finds out his girlfriend nini is now dating E.J ,and so has to apply to high school musical to win her back).

the series isn’t a sequel nor is it a reboot (since it doesn’t happen in a universe where high school musical is real),it’s something else entirely.

thomas bowdler:

during victorian era britian, puritanism and social conservatism made a resurgance . thanks to that conservative movement, parents noticed that shakespeare isn’t really safe for children and contains quite a lot of violence,sex, curse words and so on. so thomas bowdler censored these works and published “family shakespeare” ,a waterd down version of shakespeare you could read to children. family shakespeare was a success.

steve jobs movie:

the movie is a biography of steve jobs, which portrays him as a genius ,yet would be hard to work with. steve jobs in the movie denies his own daughter, for example. the movie is filled with the word “shit” and “fuck” and so it’s PG-13.

censoring children’s books to not be racist:

in dr dolittle, the original version in 1920 had a lot of racist elements (people were called black man and white man, prince pumbo wants to become white and so he’s tricked),which got removed in the 1988 version (people weren’t referred by their race, and prince pumbo simply gets hypnotised). Meanwhile in charlie and the chocolate factory, the original oompa loompas were enslaved african pygmies, now they’re from oompaland. they used to be black and now they’re orange. even in the modern version, oompa loompas are a tribe from a land of deep junlges who get shipped of to england in massive containers, all while willy wonka doesn’t really care for their working conditions.

even in the modern version of dr dolittle,dolittle is a white european that goes to civilise the natives, who live in palaces made of mud ,constantly get duped by a bird,have childlike tantrums, don’t write their own history. but dr dolittle is now seen as a symbol of animal rights while charlie in the chokolate factory tried to replace africa with the nonsensical loompaland. So now we see a new type of bowlderisation, but instead of focusing on manners and curse words, it’s focusing on racism and prejudice, which indicates a recent change in morals and social values.

edits in star wars:

instead of han solo shooting first, now both greedo and han shoot at the same time, with greedo saying “maclunky” prior to that. prior to that change, no one noticed what it meant for han’s character, but now it has done a streisand effect of us realizing that han solo is a murderer (the streisand effect is when you try to censor something,only for that idea you censored to grow more popular, since there must be a reason for that censorship).

sonic movie:

in the original trailer of sonic, he looked ridiculosly anthropromorphic, which made the internet rage and make shitty memes about it, which led to sonic being changed, which delayed the creation of the movie. his original eyes looked quite horrendous and uncanny, but now he looks more like the original sonic.

red dawn 1984:

red dawn is an american film ,where the soviets,the cubans and the nicaraguans invade the US and an american high schooler group called “the wolverines” resist the occupation through guerilla warfare. in the end most of the wolverines die ,but america wins the war.

red dawn 2012:

after an economic crisis in the EU and the rise of an ultranationalist russia and north korea,america gets invaded by north koreans and russians. the plot is quite similar to the 1984 version, but now we don’t know if america won the war in the end, just that the wolverines have grown and became more and more powerful. this movie is related to the situation in the world right now, as ukraine is getting invaded by the russians, who use north korean weaponry to destroy the ukrainians. originally the movie was supposed to be about the chinese invading america, but since the movie producers feared that the CCP might censor the movie they switched it to russia, which is quite ironic.  

yo soy betty la fea:

the series is about an “ugly duckling” who uses her wits to turn a fashion company into an empire, all while falling in love with the heir of the company.the show was so successful it had several remakes worrldwide

the indian version: instead of being called betty, the main lead is now jassi. the show ran for 2 years but eventually dipped low enough in ratings

germany: here betty is called elizabeth or liza, and the show had 364 episodes and another 284 about liza’s half-brother bruno.

mexico:this version was aired by televisa, one of the biggest telenovela producers. it ran for 13 months

usa: here the series is called ugly betty and it was made by ABC. this version focuses on latina independence and LGBT representation

spain:here betty is called bea, which is quite ironic since bea means beautiful in spanish,while fea means ugly (and the character bea is portrayed more as “fea” rather than “bea”)

philipines:here the series centers on the advertising industry instead of the fashion industry. same plot and names outside of that change.

poland:here the series is simply called “ugly” in polish,or BrzydUla ,which also incorporates the name of the main character (ula) ,here ula didn’t marry her boss marek

china: this version was aired with televisa’s help,and it got sponsored by unilever’s dove brand

brazil: here the series is called bela ,a feia (or ugly bela,also bela means beauty). it had a lot more sub-plots and character than the colombian version

georgia: this version was based on the american remake ,and it was the last betty show.

designated survivor:

in the original american series, all of the succesors for the american presidents were killed except for one, the independant minister of housing of development who was supposed to be fired before the attack that killed everyone in the government (which was the bombing of the capitol by an american ultranationalist organization) and now he’s supposed to lead the country now (it connects to the material in history very well). worst korea had a version of that series, but now instead of simply being an obscure minister, he’s an environmental studies teacher who became a minister of the environment.he decides to quit his job after seeing how he can’t change korea’s environment for the better , but then all of the other ministers and the president are found dead and so he has to lead the country. and now north koreans are planning to attack and he has to plan his steps carefully.

your name:

your name is the most succesful anime film as of yet, and it’s centered on a boy from tokyo named taki falling in love with a girl living in the mountainous countryside of gifu. the hollywood version ( 500 days of summer ) would center on a chicago boy and a native american girl. it’s a “cultural translation” of a japan-centered film into an american-centered film. also the american version will be live action. the racial diversity is a uniquely american aspect, since japan is quite homogenous.

Interlude III: Mistakes and Forgiveness

my apology:

in this poem, abe apologizes for him invading the land of the indigenous aborigines, australia. he was a refugee, but by moving to Australia he has become much like the white men who arrived in 1788, removing the lives of the aborigines and erasing their culture. abe ape is a melbourne poet.

for eons:

the poem is only 5 words long “i ignored reality for eons”.the “reality” is that sexual harassment is so common in hollywood, and that she has ignored it.

isobel o’hare is a non-binary feminist writer and poet, and she has done a lot of artwork surrounding sexual assault (such as editing the confessions to sexual assault by people like lewis CK to criticize them)

finale:

the poem talks about how life twists and changes and in the end, ends with death, or “the great sleep”.but the death brings out renewal ,and our writer still sleeps in a bluer earth.

pablo neruda is a chilean poet and diplomat who won the 1971 nobel prize for literature. he served a term as a senator in the chilean communist party and got allegedly killed by augusto pinochet for resisting his regime, however the official medical records stated by the chilean government claim he died thanks to a stroke. the rumor claims that as he recovered from his heart surgery, the doctors were forced to give him poison instead of pain medications.

one art:

the poem talks about loss, specifically losing your memories and the connection with the past. she gives examples of losing your mother’s watch or forgetting 2 cities you were at.

elizabeth bishop was an american poet who lived in the early 20th century. she only published 101 poems during her life, focusing on polishing and having a few high quality poems (much like marianne moore, which we’ve seen one of her poems here) .she worked with Marianne Moore and was deeply inspired by her works

whereas (except):

the poem describes the colonization of America by white people,about how supposedly there wasn’t any conflict between the europeans and the natives, even though there was. how the education system hid the truth about white people.

layli long soldier is a native american poet and a member of the lakota nation

we lived happily during the war:

the poem talks about how america is uninvolved in wars and isn’t attacked, and so it can allow itself to protest but not actually help those in trouble. the poem talks about how while other people’s houses were bombed, american homes weren’t. the poem talks about WWII,but can be connected with the current situation in  ukraine, about how the world watchs while no one does anything about it.

ilya kaminsky is a ukrainian american poet.he’s deaf and he’s quite influential among deaf circles. he co-founded “poets for peace” which is an organization centred about poetry reading across the world to promote relief work.

Concluding Questions

galaxy’s edge:

disney is planning to build a disney world attraction for star wars, set in the planet of batuu,in the outer rims of the star wars galaxy. the attraction will contain one of batuu’s spire’s ,called black spire where you can find a lot of the famous star wars characters.and they’re also planning to build a “star wars” land, much like disneyland, but in the UK.

star tours:

star tours was a motion simulator at several disney parks built at around 1980,where the tourist is on a trip to the planet endor, while encountering both imperial remnants and new republic starships.the attraction closed in 2010,but based on this attraction, a new attraction was built:star tours the adventures continue,which is a motion simulator set in the prequel times ,with droid C-3PO and R2D2 returning a spy to the rebel alliance with the help of the tourist.  

the polygon article:

galaxy’s edge is part of the star wars canon,and the tourists are a part of the story of star wars, fitting themselves inside it. while they’re not the center of it.while you can become the new skywalker, it’s most likely that you’ll be a random villager though

game of thrones:

G.R.R martin is getting old and the game of thrones book series isn’t over yet. as a result, there’s a huge chance it won’t be finished while martin is alive, which means it might not be finished at all. martin wouldn’t want another writer to continue his works, and he assures the readers that the ending is coming.

western religions through sequels:

the torah is the original (genesis, exodus ….) then the new testament is the sequel, and the quran is a retcon of the whole series.

fantastic beasts:

in the article,it explains how jk rowling had the same problem with prequels as george lukas. the prequels aren’t loved by the public that much, and their ratings flop, but since it’s a cash vow they still produce them. the article goes on to talk about how sequels are refreshing and prequels aren’t.