USA: Flight delayed.

I’m back in Pelicanville.

All classes, all sections, should be prepared for a test on Thursday.  We will review on Tuesday.

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One of the topics discussed at the DiGRA2007 conference was transgressive play.  I usually call it play of destruction, or, more generically, bad play.

As an example, consider the classic Marmalade song, Refections of My Life, with a backwards guitar solo.  And then consider the 80s pop star Kevin Rowland, lead figure in Dexy’s Midnight Runners, as representing some Nietzschean urge to play destructively.  And then fast forward to the 1990s and this…

…which is often labeled as the worst album cover of all time.  (Japanese promotional version show in honor of the moment.)  Some people do seem to really like the album, though.  And I would very much like to hear Rowland’s iconoclastic play on Reflections of my Life.  (Apparently, for instance, he turns "Cheer up, Sleepy Jean" — from the Monkee’s Daydream Believer — to "Cheer up, Little G").  But, alas, I cannot find a copy of the song online.

This is an equivalent disappointment to the realization that the status quo in Mynamar can potentially cut off the Internet to 40+ million people under the guise of technical difficulties — a story that the current global news media prefer to ignore in favor of incessantly showing the blood and guts inside those one or two images they already have.  Cause, after all, the news media really only need a few images, don’t they?  Everything else can really just be graphics and talk show hosts.  Cheaper, quicker, easier.

Population of Japan:  127 mil.  I couldn’t use my cell phone, because it wasn’t a G3.

Population of USA:  260 mil.  I don’t use the city wireless, because it sucks.

"Louisiana is one of those states, prohibiting any locality from offering Internet connection speeds of more than 144 kilobits per second, about twice the speed of dial-up but one-tenth to one-twentieth of what is typically provided via digital subscriber line (DSL) or cable-modem services." from here.

Population of China: 1.3 BILLION

Google says, "Big market, dude!" 

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So, if I can’t depend on Japan, or the US, or China, or Mynamar, to let me listen to Kevin Rowland, then here’s what’s left.

日本語「よく」話せません。

Things are winding down for me in Japan.  No more conference after today; I leave for home tomorrow.  My sightseeing recommendations are Harajaku and the Ameyokocho section of Ueno.  Too many gaijin in Akihabara, too much flash in Shibayu, and too much walking in Shinjinku.  Too much walking, as a matter of fact, everywhere.  I’m pooped.

CMMNA400 reminder.

CMMNA400 is meeting on Tuesday in the Monroe Library.  See the information in your current online schedule.

Yes, they do have Monday Night Football in Japan.  It comes on Tuesday nights.  And the Saints still lose.

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Random pic:  Tokyo Station outside my hotel window. (Kinda dark.)

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And, the University of Tokyo toilet command panel.  (Actually, this may be somewhat Saints related.)

CMMNA100 post assignment –>

I’d like a brief report from each of my CMMNA100 students concerning what was covered in Dr. Alexander’s media law lecture.  Post your reports/summaries here.  150 words or so should do it.

It’s 11:15pm on Monday in New Orleans, and, currently 1:15pm on Tuesday in Tokyo.  I am listening to a presentation on "game literacy" in Koshiba Hall on the University of Tokyo campus, learning that the Saints lost miserably, and, fairly simultaneously, sending you this backchannel missive.

There are three English-speaking channels available on the Sharp flat-screen television in my hotel room:  CNN, BBC World, and Bloomberg.  We’ve talked about agenda-setting in class and how the same stories and topics often appear on several different USA-based channels and networks.  Do CNN/BBC/Bloomberg have a similar agenda of stories as well?  In fact, of course, they do.  See also, in your text, the so-called "CNN effect."

Photos of the day.

For some reason, I find these photos — particularly the first series of portraits — extremely engaging.  Like, for instance, I want them on my living room wall.  I don’t know that I will fully articulate this finding at this moment, but see what you think.

CMMNA100 lecture.

Download alexander_talk.pdf

Backup.

http://www.loyno.edu/~dmyers/F99%20classes/DiGRA2007_Presentation1b.ppt

http://www.loyno.edu/~dmyers/F99%20classes/DiGRA2007_Jun_07_6K.doc

Ramping up for Tokyo. Youtubey.

Here’s what Rheingold was talking about –>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2uoBhHvSrM&mode=related&search=

Supposed to go shopping here –>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hglhGiozYlU&mode=related&search=

The conference website –>

http://www.digra2007.jp/

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Meanwhile, in reference to the below post, note that the City of New Orleans is taking over house demolitions.  Which means we were lucky to get ours done before that happened.  Or it probably wouldn’t have happened, circa what isn’t currently happening with the Road Home program.

Speaking of which, remember when Garland Robinette of "think tank" WWL fame was refusing to allow FEMA spokespeople to appear on his talk radio show because of their, according to Garland (and actually, according to me as well) irrepressible incompetence?  Or when he was reading the names of the members of LA legislative committees that were rubber stamping this and that pork-barrel budget item?

Now, in between the Viva Viagra (some Milli-Vanilly lip synching going on there) spots on WWL, Garland hosts Walter Leger, the Road Home’s locally-culturally-connected-hired-gun mouthpiece.  Of course, Garland’s has always been partial to this or that female corporate spokesperson (circa Entergy during and immediately after Katrina).  Maybe they show up in his paintings — I have no idea.

Don’t get me wrong:  I like Garland’s art – though way over-priced for my pedestrian tastes.  (See Phillip Sage.)  And don’t get me wrong on this either:  I very much dislike his self-serving role as what passes for a journalist deeply embedded within New Orleans and southern Louisiana politics, culture, and society.

But what you gonna do when all the same old politicians on watch prior to Katrina get re-elected and put on watch for the next and sure-to-be-upcoming Katrina?  And ditto for all the same old news, er, talk radio hosts.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Just like yesterday.