George Orwell

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“Was George Orwell Right About 1984?”

January 24, 2014 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Orwell, of course, was the main inspiration for Apple’s “1984” Super Bowl ad by Ridley Scott, but it also riffed on Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, which is perhaps more influential from a visual perspective than any other work of art ever. Sure, Lang’s plot was overheated, but, my god, those images. You can’t truly be literate about media without having seen it.

The Apple spot “went viral” thirty years ago, even though it was shown only once, and there was yet no infrastructure for it to be propelled by person to person. What careered around the world wasn’t the actual spot but verbal descriptions of it. It was the collision of a new thing (computers) and an old thing (oral history). And soon enough, the centralized media was smashed, though that didn’t make the world perfect. Tyranny doesn’t disappear; it just attempts to reinvent itself.

Steve Jobs introduces the commercial at the 1984 Apple keynote.

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“George Orwell Thought Paperbacks Were Of So Much Better Value Than Hardbacks That They Spelled The Ruination Of Publishing”

July 11, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From a New York Times article by David Streitfeld, a reminder that paperback books, now endangered by digital books, were once themselves considered a disruptive technology:

“Penguin and Random House were innovators who made paperbacks into a disruptive force in the 1940s and ’50s. They were the Amazons of their era, making the traditional book business deeply uneasy. No less an authority than George Orwell thought paperbacks were of so much better value than hardbacks that they spelled the ruination of publishing and bookselling. ‘The cheaper books become,’ he wrote, ‘the less money is spent on books.’ Orwell was wrong, but the same arguments are being made against Amazon and e-books today. Amazon executives are not much for public debate, but they argue that all this disruption will ultimately give more money to more authors and make more books more widely available to more people at cheaper prices, and who could argue with any of that? This was not a prospect that many on Wednesday were putting much faith in.”

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“He Understood That The Natural World Is Rife With Curved Forms, Not Straight Lines”

June 25, 2013 in Film, Videos | Permalink

Gaudi, background, 1904.

Gaudi, background, 1904.

As you might have noticed from the Google Doodle, today is the 161st birthday of architect Antoni Gaudi, who designed buildings that often seem to be haunting, hiding, falling, melting–like old women weeping because they’ve been exposed to the sun for too long. And some of his other work looks like a future too good to ever arrive.

From National Geographic: “The Sagrada Família has always been revered and reviled. The surrealists claimed Gaudí as one of their own, while George Orwell called the church ‘one of the most hideous buildings in the world.’ As idiosyncratic as Gaudí himself, it is a vision inspired by the architect’s religious faith and love of nature. He understood that the natural world is rife with curved forms, not straight lines. And he noticed that natural construction tends to favor sinewy materials such as wood, muscle, and tendon. With these organic models in mind, Gaudí based his buildings on a simple premise: If nature is the work of God, and if architectural forms are derived from nature, then the best way to honor God is to design buildings based on his work.”

Here’s the “Casa Batlló” section from Antonio Gaudí, an almost wordless 1985 cine-essay by Hiroshi Teshigahara, who made several genius films, including this one.

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“In The Morning The Elephant Had Suddenly Reappeared In The Town”

April 5, 2011 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

Theodore Roosevelt, after bagging an elephant. Not even President Palin could get away with this today. (Image by Edward Van Altena.)

The Essayist posted a link to George Orwell’s classic 1936 essay, “Shooting an Elephant.” An excerpt:

“One day something happened which in a roundabout way was enlightening. It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism–the real motives for which despotic governments act. Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was happening and I got on to a pony and started out. I took my rifle, an old .44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful in terrorem. Various Burmans stopped me on the way and told me about the elephant’s doings. It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one which had gone ‘must.’ It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when their attack of ‘must’ is due, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped. Its mahout, the only person who could manage it when it was in that state, had set out in pursuit, but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours’ journey away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town. The Burmese population had no weapons and were quite helpless against it. It had already destroyed somebody’s bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock; also it had met the municipal rubbish van and, when the driver jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon it.”

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