Hsif Rehtona Tsuj Ton : 2# Noitatidem Aidem

Media Meditation #2 : Not Just Another Fish

Later on that same week that I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, I was introduced to a band I'd never heard of before. My friend Matt had two extra tickets and offered to take me and my roommate down to Flynn Theatre to see Great Big Sea. My roommate Kit absolutely loved them, so taking her word and Matt's I trusted that it would be a fun little event and to the Flynn we went.

Great Big Sea has been together for nearly eighteen years playing their own rendition of folk songs from Newfoundland, their home. They have been described as a band that reflects Newfoundland's energetic spirit with songs that range from lovesick soldiers to dreaming of meeting a mermaid.
Image from Snob's Music

A video recording of one of the songs performed at the Flynn.

I was pretty happy I was invited to go see them even though I'd never before heard of them. Their music was amazing. I'm not a huge fan of folk music, usually it depends on the topic at hand, but their songs we're really amazing. Behind them while they performed they had three screens that occasionally flashed either their band name, images related to the song, just images of water, or close ups of the band playing, courtesy of their drummer.

Besides playing with instruments they did quite a bit with just their voices that was amazing. Their second encore was completely a cappella - they didn't even use microphones. It was simply mind blowing.

Their songs were more addicting than I thought they'd be. While walking home from the concert the three of us were singing random bits of all different songs, unable to get them out of our heads. It was definitely an event I would have regretted missing. I can't wait for them to be in the area again now.

Neercs Gib eht no Sbmo-bob Xes Eht : 1# Noitatidem Aidem

Media Meditation #1 : The Sex Bob-ombs on the Big Screen

About two weeks ago, a group of friends and I decided to grab (read as: chase down) a bus and take it out to the Palace 9, a movie theatre down on Shelburne, to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.



One of the several movie trailers found online for the film.

I have to say, the movie had an interesting convergence of different forms of media. Not only was it a movie that had at one point been a graphic novel, both available online and in print, it retained a lot of the graphic novel aspects and fused film with music and videogames.

The film is set in modern day Canada, and while the world appears relatively normal, certain characters are bestowed with abilities never quite explained in the film. Ramona Flower's - the female lead - Seven Evil Exs are all super powered, as is the protagonist Scott Pilgrim to an extent and even his own ex, Knives.

The image above (from a XBOX Game Review) and the image below (from a Film Review) show
the evil exs of the story in both a graphic and cinematic form.

While there is no explanation for this the characters move with very comic like effects (classical 'jabs' and 'pows') in a very videogame like manner, especially seen when Scott finds an extra 'life' after defeating two exs at once.

But even as things are blowing up around them and evil exs are reduced to piles of gold coins, nobody ever seems to take notice of the abnormality of it all or even really comments on it. When Scott defeated one of the exs, a famous movie star and skater, who his gay best friend and roommate had been crushing on, Wallace just shrugged it off and acted like actors being blasted away and reduced to coins was a perfectly normal event in Canada.

The music of the movie was more than just for background purposes. With Scott being apart of a band titled the Sex Bob-ombs, the battle of the bands that took place throughout the movie added another level of converging media.

All in all it was a pretty interesting movie with characters that always kept you guessing and with a new take on media convergence. I'm curious to see what will come next.

Elat S'remag A

I am recently from Tom's River, New Jersey but I grew up in Saddle Brook, New Jersey and graduated high school in Wayne, New Jersey. I went from a little town with three elementary schools and a middle school that shared a building with the high school, to a town with over nine elementary schools, three middle schools, and two very competative high schools. It was a culture shock and I loved every moment of it. After graduating, we moved to Tom's River, a fairly large town, right on the shore. A perfect way to spend the summer before treking up to frigid Vermont.

This summer my friends and I got together for one massive good bye before college. During this little gathering we held a gaming tournament with all of our latest games and consoles on hand and at the ready. Mainly we played Super Smash Brothers: Brawl, button smashing our way to victories, but it was absolutely the best thing I did all summer, regardless of it's relation to current media.

The thing I hate about today's media is that everything is living by the phrase "sex sells". It seems just about every project is trying to base its ads off of sex appeal even when the product is completely unrelated.
The thing I like would have to be music and how it reaches out to everyone. With other amazing media souces like the internet and tvs you can reach out to the music of other cultures and learn a great deal.

I would like to one day be able to look at my ickle grandchildren and tell them that I sold a bestseller or ten, that I've been compared to the greats like Poe, Rowling, or King, and that I've lived in a foreign city for most of my life, studying the culture for one of those masterpieces.