Penning Our Stories

My most recent op-ed in the Jewish Standard  was published on May 29th, and entitled Penning Our Stories. And as is the custom here on Blog Time Passing, you can click on the old link to read it over there, or stick around and read it here:

“The last time I got a fountain pen was for my bar mitzvah.”

That line was uttered during the two-part season finale of the ABC television network’s popular series Once Upon a Time, which aired on May 10. It was a little inside joke inserted by series creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, who co-wrote the episode; both of them may well have received fountain pens as gifts for their own bar mitzvahs. There was a time when a fancy fountain pen was as commonplace a gift as savings bonds for bar mitzvah boys, so much so that an often repeated bar mitzvah joke was, “Today I am a fountain pen.” (This was a play on the cliché declaration “Today I am a man,” this being a time before the bat mitzvah was fully instituted as an egalitarian religious practice.) Michael Hilton, in his book Bar Mitzvah: A History, reports that “in July 1946, Barry Vine of New Haven Connecticut, received sixteen fountain pens as gifts”! Now that’s the write stuff!

Fischler as Jimmy Barrett

Once Upon a Time’s bar mitzvah boy was played by the actor Patrick Fischler, who perhaps is best known for his role as the Jewish comedian Jimmy Barrett on the recently concluded AMC series Mad Men, and who also appeared on the series Lost, a series that Kitsis and Horowitz previously had worked on as writers. Fischler’s character was introduced in March, during the final story arc of the series’ fourth season, first through references to a mysterious “Author” whose writings set the course of the series’ storybook characters, such as Snow White, Prince Charming, Rumpelstiltskin, Captain Hook, Robin Hood, Maleficent, and Regina (aka the Evil Queen, Snow White’s nemesis); as “The Author” he also had the power to rewrite their stories, and change their fate.

Fischler as Phil from Lost

By the end of the season, we learned that the “Author” is a title and status that has been bestowed upon many different people, that this particular Author is named Isaac, that his last name is Heller (possibly a tribute to Jewish novelist Joseph Heller of Catch-22 fame), that he was from Brooklyn, and that back in 1966 he was a novelist who was having great difficulty getting anything published, working to support himself selling television sets, a job at which he was also unsuccessful. Selected to become the next in a long line of magical authors, he is asked to select a pen to use, prompting his remark about his bar mitzvah. Although that comment was the only instance in which the character was directly identified as Jewish, his name, voice, place of birth, look, and manner all allude to his ethnicity, and presumably his religion.

Part of the humor of the bar mitzvah comment comes from the incongruity of inserting a bit of Yiddishkeit into a series that remixes characters from Disney’s animated films, most of whom are derived from European fairytales and folklore. (Disney owns Once Upon a Time’s television network, ABC.) After all, even during the two decades that Michael Eisner was CEO of the Walt Disney Company, the film studio added no characters to its pantheon like Fievel Mousekewitz of Stephen Spielberg’s An American Tail. And we certainly don’t expect to see anyone named Cohen or Levy in Cinderella, Peter Pan, Beauty and the Beast, or Frozen.

Fischler as "The Author"

There is, however, a long tradition of inserting inside jokes that only Jews could appreciate fully into Hollywood films. My all-time favorite is in the 1936 Marx Brother movie Animal Crackers, when the cast sings, “Hooray for Captain Spaulding, the African explorer,” and Groucho responds, “Did someone call me schnorrer?” I also love the subtle jab in the 1930 science fiction musical Just Imagine, in which characters from the future explain that people drive planes instead of cars, planes with names like Rosenblatt, Pinkus, and Goldfarb. In response, the distinctly Jewish character from 1930 remarks (in reference to the automaker’s anti-Semitism), “It looks like someone got even with Henry Ford!”

No doubt there also was a degree of identification between Kitsis and Horowitz, as the creators of Once Upon a Time, and their character, Isaac Heller, as “The Author” of the storybook tales that seal the fate of the series’ heroes and villains. And perhaps making Heller a villain involved a bit of self-deprecating humor. Certainly, it was ironic that Isaac’s status as “The Author” is revoked for changing the heroes’ and villains’ stories. That is exactly what Kitsis and Horowitz have done in the series, not the least by making both types of characters less black and white, more morally ambiguous, and therefore more realistic.


Still, portraying Once Upon a Time’s only Jewish character as a villain is more than a little problematic. There are echoes of Shakespeare’s Shylock in the explanation that Isaac gives to Snow White and Prince Charming, that it was “a lifetime of bad bosses” who “fancy themselves heroes, pushing around people like me,” that led him to resent the heroes and identify with the villains. The problem with having only one Jewish character in a popular narrative is that the character’s Jewishness becomes more than an individual attribute. Instead, the character becomes a representation of the Jewish people as a whole, in this case a negative representation, indeed, a negative stereotype.


But there is nothing negative about the Jewish connection to the role of “The Author” after all. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we pray that we may be inscribed in the Book of Life for a good year, and we wish the same for others. In our tradition, God is an author, indeed, The Author, an understanding that has been adopted by the other Abrahamic religions. Of course Moses, our greatest prophet, was also a writer, and through the Torah and the Tanach, we became the first people to write our own historical narrative. And the stories our ancestors wrote have changed the course of history for the entire world, and continue to capture the imagination of billions of people.


Upon doing a search for “Jewish authors” via Google, a listing of “authors frequently mentioned on the web” appeared, and cited 50 names, including Phillip Roth, Saul Bellow, Franz Kafka, Bernard Malamud, Sholem Aleichem, Anne Frank, Joseph Heller, Isaac Asimov, J. D. Salinger, Elie Wiesel, Isaak Babel, Ayn Rand, Primo Levi, Marcel Proust, E. L. Doctorow, Amos Oz, Arthur Koestler, Leonard Cohen, Theodor Herzl, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Gertrude Stein, Emma Lazarus, Art Spiegelman, Tony Kushner, and Boris Pasternak. No doubt a full listing of every Jewish novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, screenwriter, comics writer, and writer of nonfiction would strain even the Google search engine’s enormous capabilities. Interestingly enough, Google’s list also included King David, Josephus, Maimonides, and Paul the Apostle, and it is certainly worth noting in this context that the Christian Gospels are to a large extent the product of Jewish authors, their impact immeasurable.

So maybe a fountain pen isn’t all that terrible a gift to give on the occasion of a bar or bat mitzvah? Certainly, research indicates that in the classroom, learning and retention is greater for students who take notes by hand as opposed to on laptops and tablets, and there is much to be said for taking pen in hand in regard to creativity. Our tradition of writing extends from Torah and Tanach to Talmud and Zohar, from Maimonides and Karo to the writings of our modern rabbis and lay leaders, from the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist branches as well as the Orthodox, and to the secular, scholarly, popular, and artistic works of Jewish authors all around the world. With the magic of the pen, we can continue to be authors of our own history as a people. And with the magic of the pen, we can inscribe our own names into a personal book of life that we each can write for ourselves.

The Moses Motif

Back on October 30th, the Jewish Standard published another one of my op-ed pieces (in case you're wondering, I write them on their request), and with the film that I use as my jumping off point now out in the theaters, it seems as good a time as any to share it here on Blog Time Passing. The title of the piece is The Moses Motif, the subtitle being, "The savior theme in modern TV series," and here's how it goes:



Ridley Scott’s latest film, Exodus: Gods and Kings, won’t be in theaters until December, but it already has generated a bit of controversy.





According to Christianity Today, the actor who portrays Moses in the film, Christian Bale, had this to say about the dominant figure in Jewish religious tradition: “I think the man was likely schizophrenic, and was one of the most barbaric individuals that I ever read about in my life. He’s a very troubled and tumultuous man who fought greatly against God, against his calling.”

Living in a free and open society, Mr. Bale is free to express his opinion, and to do so safe from the fear of any punishment or persecution. The biggest fear that his remarks have generated is the potential effect they may have on the movie’s box office returns, especially among the large Christian market in the United States. Of course, we in turn are free to characterize his statements as ignorant and erroneous. We also are free to express our doubts about whether he has any chance of displacing Charlton Heston as the personification of Moses, especially since Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 epic “The Ten Commandments” has been broadcast on ABC every year around Easter for the last four decades. And we are also free to say that Mr. Bale should go back to playing Batman, a character better suited to his temperament.



And speaking of comic book superheroes, we might recall that the first of this genre, Superman, was the creation of two Jewish teenagers, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, back in 1938. As an answer to the idea of the Aryan “superman” trumpeted by Nazi ideology, their Superman was the ultimate immigrant, born on another planet but raised as an American. He was the ultimate orphan, too; his home world, Krypton, was destroyed, mirroring the Jewish immigrants who came to the United States to escape the destructive forces of discrimination and anti-Semitism, the arrests and expulsions, not to mention the pogroms, putsches, and purges. This was not an exclusively Jewish story, but one shared by many immigrant groups during the 19th and 20th centuries. This no doubt had much to do with the character’s popularity in the United States.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

The immigrant experience is reflected in the depiction of the character’s double life, as well. Unlike Batman, whose real identity is Bruce Wayne, Superman doesn’t wear a mask, but instead puts on glasses to masquerade as Clark Kent, the Anglo-Saxon name he uses as he tries to blend in with humanity. And although he is never entirely outed, he often comes across as awkward, shy, and clumsy in his attempt to pass as an ordinary man. As Superman, however, his Kryptonian ethnicity is openly on display. He is in his own element, set apart from the mainstream, which is the way that immigrants and their children might feel in the privacy of their own homes, or at shul, or safely tucked away in their own community or ethnic enclave.

Ellis Island was notorious for changing immigrant’s names, and immigrants themselves commonly changed their names to Americanize them. They often gave their children Anglo-Saxon names like Clark Kent. And just as Jews often have Hebrew names that differ from their official given names, Superman has a Kryptonian name: he is Kal-El, son of Jor-El. The last name, El, is a common element of Hebrew names, translated as God, while Kal might be taken for the Hebrew word for all, or for voice. Perhaps there is also a connection to the name of the biblical hero Caleb, which also can be transliterated as Kaleb, one of the 12 spies sent by Moses, and the only one, aside from Joshua, to act with courage, loyalty, and integrity. The important point, however, is not the specific translation, but rather the way in which the idea of Superman’s Kryptonian name is drawn from Jewish experience.

But Superman’s origin also was clearly inspired by the story of how Moses was saved from the Egyptian edict that all male children born to the Israelites should be killed, how he was put into a basket to float on the Nile River, where he was found and adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter. The story of Superman begins when he is an infant. His parents place him in a small rocket, just the size of a cradle, and send him to the planet earth just before his planet is destroyed. Although Siegel and Shuster drew on science fiction themes rather than myth, fantasy, or allegory in telling this story, there is no denying the seemingly supernatural quality of the hero, or his role as a hero and a savior.

The same Moses motif is apparent in the ABC television series Once Upon a Time, created by two Jewish writers, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, and now into its fourth season. The ABC network is owned by Disney, and Once Upon a Time draws on Disney’s long history of fantasy and fairy tale films, reworking and merging the characters and plots, and giving it all a twist. This is along the lines of the popular TV series Lost, for which both Kitsis and Horowitz wrote.


As the series opens, all the fairytale characters are under a spell cast by the Evil Queen (the one from Snow White), living ordinary, unchanging lives in the real world in a small town called Storybrooke. They have forgotten their true identities and earlier existence in another realm called the Enchanted Forest. Just before the curse took hold, however, Snow White and Prince Charming placed their infant daughter in a magic wardrobe, which transported her to our world, free of the Evil Queen’s curse. She grows up as an orphan, ignorant of her origins. The series opens with the daughter, now an adult named Emma Swan, arriving at Storybrooke, where she eventually is identified as the Savior. This makes it possible to reverse the spell and rouse the inhabitants from their fantasy of assimilation.


A darker version of the Moses motif appears in the HBO series Game of Thrones, adapted from George R. R. Martin’s series of fantasy novels by two Jewish writers, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. Here too the motif is applied to a female character, Daenerys Targaryen. As the young daughter of a deposed king, she is saved from being slaughtered, exiled to a part of the world that resembles the middle east, and forced into an arranged marriage with the leader of a nomadic tribe. Rescued and adopted into royalty, she loses everything when her husband is wounded and dies. But, like Moses, she has a supernatural encounter with fire (becoming “mother” to three newly hatched dragons) that sets her on the path to becoming a leader in her own right, and a redeemer. During the series’ fourth season this spring, her liberation of slaves was shown to great dramatic effect. It is also clear, however, that she is a flawed savior, and her dragons are a dangerous weapon that can cause harm to the innocent.



Superman, Emma Swan, and Daenerys Targaryen all draw upon the powerful story of Moses in different ways. But they all convey the same profound theme of the Moses motif. That’s unconditional love, as parents sacrifice everything to save their children. (How many times has that story been enacted in real life?) As Neil Postman so eloquently put it, “children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” And what the Moses motif reminds us of is that children are the saviors who will liberate us from the tyranny of the past, and lead us into the freedom of the future.





And that's the end of the op-ed, but as a bit of an epilogue, I was in the audience for a taping of the Late Show with David Letterman last month (and it is sad to see that come to an end), and as part of the warm up before the show began, he told the following joke: What do you call a Batman who stops attending church? The answer was, Christian Bale...

 

Hey! Hey! Baba!

I can't really explain it, it's just that the word "baba" was an inside joke among my group of friends when I was a teenager and young adult, one of those things where you just had to be there, and be a part of it.  It was used as a form of address, e.g., "and how are you, baba?" or more directly, as in "Yo, baba!" And also used as an exclamation, as in just simply, "baba!"  

As I said, I can't really explain it, except to say that within my peer group there was a great deal of linguistic playfulness present, which of course is great preparation for being a media ecologist.

So, okay, having said that, on another, unrelated topic, the music from Disney's The Lion King holds a special place in my heart, as we used to listen to it all the time, when my son Benjamin was still a baby and I'd be feeding him the highchair, and when he was older as we watched the movie on video many times, saw it in Imax, and went to the Broadway show, not to mention seeing the Lion King attractions and parade elements at Walt Disney World and Disneyland.

So, I was quite tickled to have stumbled upon a YouTube video where the still frame displayed the words "Hey! Hey Baba!" and the images were from The Lion King film.  The name of the video says it all:  Soramimi (misheard foreign lyrics)-Lion King, Circle of Life.  So, here now--should I say hear now?--is the video and misinterpreted lyrics:

I was further delighted to see in the very brief write-up of the video the following statement:  "Project for The Cultural Nature of Language with Professor Bambi Schieffelin."  And no, it's not what you think, not because the name Bambi suggests another Disney connection (or sounds a little like baba).  It's just that I had met Professor Schieffelin, who teaches anthropology at New York University,  a couple of years ago when we were on a panel discussion together on the subject of literacy at the now defunct Philoctetes Center in Manhattan.  I wrote about the panel in two posts here on Blog Time Passing:  Literacy and Imagination and More on Literacy and Imagination (admittedly, not very imaginative titles for the posts).  

You might also contrast this English misinterpretation of lyrics in a foreign language with an example from another previous post of mine, Phony English, where there is a meaningless play with lyrics meant to sound like the English language.

And when you come down to it, after all that, is there anything left to say, except for...

Hey Hey Baba! 

The New Hyperreality

Back in the 80s, postmodernists like Jean Baudrillard and Umberto Eco introduced the term hyperreality to refer to our ability to create simulations that go beyond imitation to become more real than real, copies without originals to refer to (so that they are not actually copies of anything), maps that contain more than any territory (to touch upon the favorite metaphor of general semantics), artificial products of artifice that we then try to remake the real world in the image of (oh, that sounded a bit awkward, didn't it?).  The preeminent example was Disneyland, where Main Street USA constituted an archetype born out of a cliché, to use one of McLuhan's lesser known oppositions (i.e., From Cliché to Archetype).

To be frank, what the postmodernists meant by hyperreality had been earlier expressed with less hyperbole, and much more clarity, by Daniel Boorstin in his classic work, The Image, especially in regard to Boorstin's discussion of pseudo-events.  To some extent, the idea can be traced back even further to Walter Benjamin's classic essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (originally in German, reproduced in English translation in Illuminations, and more recently in a new translation in The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media), which Boorstin draws upon in The Image. 

Postmodernist hyperreality was pure theory, a form of Continental cultural theory to be exact, but it had its parallels in computing as a form of simulation, for example in ideas about artificial intelligence.  In the 1982 film Blade Runner, the android replicants are described as more human than human, although in the movie they appear to be the product of biotechnology rather than silicon engineering.  But the notion of hyperreality also dovetailed nicely with the  the concept of virtual reality that became a popular obsession for a while back in the early 90s, and Baudrillard's famous work in this area, Simularcra and Simulation, inspired and actually appears as a book on Neo's shelf in the 1999 film, The Matrix (although Baudrillard felt the filmmakers did not understand what his work was really about).

Back in the real world, the fit with hyperreality was a bit awkward, because virtual reality was not more real than real, given the state of computer graphics back then.  And even now. On the other hand, the expanded concept of virtuality gets at the fact that the human imagination allows us to experience any simulation as virtually real, even one composed only of words.  What is a novel, after all, if not a simulation of reality?  What is fiction if not a simulation of real life?  What is a story, if not a simulation of a sequence of events?

But all this has to do with the old hyperreality.  So, what then is the new hyperreality, you might ask?  And I'm glad you did.  Rather than use hyper in the sense of more real than real, I want to suggest a new meaning of hyperreality as reality plus (to play off of the Google+ formation).  Like hypercube and hyperspace, I want to talk about reality with an added dimension.  And like hypertext, hypermedia, and especially hyperlinks, I want to refer to reality that is networked and connected, that has an overlay of data and interactivity.

But ok, I'm not talking about anything entirely new here. I'm just saying that the term hyperreality would be a useful one to use in reference, not to virtual reality, but to the more modest phenomenon of augmented reality.

Augmented reality is nothing new, if you've been into new media for a while now, and it's becoming increasingly more a part of our popular culture.  I mentioned it in a previous post Ad-ding Interactivity, and here's a news segment from New Zealand, circa 2007, on AR:

I find the augmented books a bit pointless, I mean, why do you need a book at all with this technology?  But here's a more practical use from 2009, involving a cellphone app called Layar:

As you can see, the cellphone here is not even very sophisticated, compared to our current batch of smartphones.  But it's very nice if you're looking for a new place to live, or in need of some other form of guidance as you move through a particular geographical location.  The key, obviously, is the combination of mobile devices and geolocation.  Anyway, now here is the new Layar video from earlier this year:

It certainly sounds very exciting, and I can only imagine that there will be a great need for media producers to provide content for this new medium.  

Now, it is not my intent here to ignore the criticism that folks dazzled by this new hyperreality may lose sight of our everyday, unaugmented reality.  The postmodernists who introduced hyperrealtiy in the old sense were not necessarily celebrating the phenomenon--mostly they were not.  And when it comes to new technologies and media such as AR, there will always be negative effects, drawback, side effects, blowback, no question about it.  It's a cause for concern, especially as we move away from mobile phones that have to be held up to our eyes, and replace them with glasses or goggles that we look through at all times--believe me, that's the obvious next step.  But my aim in this post is to understand the phenomenon of AR and the new hyperreality, and I will leave the critical evaluation for another time.

One use that the Layar folks mention is tourism, and here's a rather dramatic way in which reality and fiction, new media and old media, the scenic and cinematic can merge:

The Augmented Reality Cinema app looks to be very entertaining, and this facet of tourism, going to visit places you've already seen in the movies or TV, has been going on for decades now, with increasing interest.  But for a much more practical approach, here's a 2007 video from BMW utilizing those goggles I mentioned before:

Goggles are a feature of classic virtual reality technology, of course, but in VR the goggle obscure the outside world and only show you the simulation, whereas in AR the whole point is to let you see the world, and provide an overlay on top of it.  It's pretty much the equivalent of McLuhan's light on vs. light through distinction.

And how often have you struggled with a poorly written and poorly illustrated printed manual or set of instructions?  How often have you looked at a diagram showing how to put something together, and wondered which end of the rod they're referring to, or whether one part is supposed to go in front of or behind another?  This takes the longstanding practice of technical writing into a new realm of technical media, and provides us with a truly functional expert system, one that goes beyond knowledge to know-how, and how-to.  Definitely a plus, however you look at it.

So, the new hyperreality is certainly a way to get attention in the world of marketing and promotion.  My colleague, Ed Wachtel, recently brought to my attention this campaign from St. Petersburg/Clearwater.  Here's a video of it:

But you can check it out for yourself by going to their website (click there or here), and following the instructions to print out the Augmented Reality marker and then go to the page for the hyperreal tour.

Or you can just go to Starbucks, provided you download the appropriate mobile app--this was brought to my attention by Holly Lemanowicz, one of the students in my Introduction to New Media class at Fordham University:

Much more ambitious and stunning, albeit a tad sexist, is this use of AR in the promotion of Axe deodorant body spray, known as Lynx in Great Britain, and thanks to another of my students, Stephanie Diller, who actually experienced this AR when she was studying abroad in England this past spring semester.  The location is Victoria Station in London, and here it is not the small screen of the computer monitor, or the very small screen of the cellphone, but the jumbo display where the hyperreality is seen:

But when it comes to taking the new hyperreality to the next level, who better than the folks most often associated with hyperreality in the 80s, Disney!  It was another of my Intro to New Media students, Alyssa Marino, who brought this one up.  First, here's Disney's official, slick video on the ambitious AR event that occurred over the past few days over at nearby Time Square:

And another, more naturalistic short recording:

And one that's a bit longer, not as good a view, but providing a much better sense of how it all worked:

Disney went further than anyone in operationalizing the older virtual reality kind of simulations in their DisneyQuest Interactive Theme Park, so it's not surprising to see them surpassing everyone else in regard to augmented reality.  They truly are the masters of hyperreality, and every student of media should spend some time at WaltDisneyWorld in particular to truly understand the potential of the hyperreal, and media as environments.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Everywhere a Sign, we previously used the written word to create a kind of overlay on top of our environment, largely through the use of signage, and we are now in the process of creating an electronic overlay.  More than ever before, we are living in a media environment, and that's why, more than ever before, we need media ecology, the study of media environments, to make sense of it all.

Jobs, Disney, and the Future of Apple

So, I was interviewed by Palash R. Ghosh of the International Business Times last week, and the result was an article published on October 6th entitled, Steve Jobs Dies: What Now Apple?  I've given you the link to the IBT site for your interest, convenience, and necessity, and I'll also give you the short item here as well.

Ghosh begins by stating the following:

The death of Apple Inc. founder Steve Jobs has dominated the news in a way that the passing of a celebrity rarely does. Jobs, who died just about month after he resigned as chief executive officer of Apple, has left behind a massive, perhaps incalculable legacy.

There's also a nice picture included with the article:

The rather substantial caption that goes with the image is the following:

Tributes to the late Steve Jobs are left outside the Apple Store in London October 6, 2011. Technology and design admirers flocked to Apple stores worldwide on Thursday to express their sorrow at the death of Steve Jobs, the visionary who transformed the daily lives of millions. The Apple co-founder who inspired the Macintosh computer, iPod, iPhone and iPad died on Wednesday at the age of 56 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He stepped down as Apple chief executive in August. 

Now, back to the article:

Now there are some questions about the future of the company he founded and nurtured.

International Business Times spoke to Professor Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University in The Bronx, N.Y. about Jobs' death and its potential impact on Apple.

And as is the case with all of these things, what appears is just a small portion of what was said during the actual interview. But I think Palash did a good job of selecting out some key points.  Here's the first round:

IBTIMES: Does Jobs' death put more pressure on Apple to keep trotting out more successful products?

STRATE: Absolutely. To most of us, Steve Jobs was Apple. It was his brainchild, his vision, his personality that made the company what it was. When he was forced out in 1985, the company floundered and all but foundered, and when he returned in 1996, he put Apple back on track and took it from a niche, boutique market to the dominant force that it is today. While it is a vast oversimplification to say that the company is nothing more than an extension of the individual, everyone will now be looking to see if Apple can continue to be innovative and, simply put, “cool,” without its guiding light, or will it go into decline, much as Disney did after Walt Disney died, and before Michael Eisner came along to revive the corporation? 

You know, we used to joke around, based on the rumor that Walt Disney had himself cryogenically frozen after death in the hopes of being revived someday, that the executives left to run the company were terrified of doing anything, fearing that when the founder returned, he would be angry and fire them all for making decisions that he didn't agree with it.  

But beyond that amusing recollection, I do think there is a certain common ground between Disney and Jobs--it's the better comparison than Edison and Jobs. We don't usually think of Disney as an inventor--he did invented the theme park--but both Disney and Jobs were media ecologists in understanding that they were not just working with content or products, but with environments. Disney did it on a macro scale with Disneyland and Walt Disney World, and with his creation of the Disney brand, the only movie studio with a clear identity (what, after all, constituted a Warner Bros., or MGM, or 20th Century Fox, or Paramount motion picture?).  

Jobs did it on a micro scale, with the idea of the computer interface, the GUI or graphical user interface of the Macintosh, and with the designs for the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, and iPad, understanding that he was in the business of creating environments for users to experience. And of course, he created a coherent brand identity for Apple that has been analogous to that of Disney, and distinct from the bland identity of Microsoft, or Dell, for example.

So, anyway, back to our Q&A:

IBTIMES: If iPhone 4S is less than successful, will the new chief executive officer Tim Cook be blamed?

STRATE: It's not so much that Tim Cook will be held personally responsible for the failure to live up to expectations, as it will be attributed to the absence of Steve Jobs, and the inspiration and genius he brought to Apple.

There already is a bit of disappointment about the 4S, considering that people were expecting an iPhone 5 instead.  But after this interview was published, I heard a rumor that Jobs had left four years worth of plans for the future of Apple, which may mitigate this whole scenario with Tim Cook.  But again, the parallel with Disney is striking, or at least strikes me as striking.  But Tim Cook is not in a good position, it's not a hard act to follow, it's an impossible act to follow, and it would not be a shock to find that he is blamed for the first downturn in Apple's fortunes, and replaced.

So, on to the next point:

IBTIMES: Can Apple keep growing, despite a worsening global economy?

STRATE : Yes. In every tide, there are cross-currents and counter-currents. The computer and new media sector remains vital, and will continue to grow. People will cut back on gasoline before they cut back on connectivity via computers and mobile devices.

Again, the electronic environment is the environment we live in.   Connectivity has evolved into a utility, and in that context, Apple will continue to appeal (get it, apple, a peel? ok, sorry), for the near future at least.  

And finally, we get into what appears to be an odd coincidence.

IBTIMES: Does it seem odd that his death was announced one day after the release of latest iPhone?

STRATE: Yes it is odd that his death came a day after the release. It seemed as if Tim Cook wanted to say something, and didn't when he presented the new iPhone. And while Jobs was known for his sense of timing, there will no doubt be conspiracy theories popping up, claiming, for example, that he actually died the day before but that [the news] was withheld so as to allow for the launch of the new product. But life is full of strange coincidences, and perhaps this is no stranger than the synchronicity that brought a couple of young computer hobbyists together in a garage in a way that would change the way the whole world communicates.

No doubt, rumor mongers and conspiracy theorists will have much to work with here, and it will be interesting to see what people come up with.  Again, there's the parallel to the rumor that Walt Disney had himself turned into a human popsicle, a rumor that is, simply put, not true.

In the end, Jobs very much fit in with Disney's character of Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio, singing, "When You Wish Upon a Star":

And the parallel between Jobs and Disney leaves me saying, "it's a small world, after all!"

The Lion Lies Down on Broadway for Autism

So, on this past Sunday, October 2nd, my wife took my daughter to see The Lion King on Broadway.  Now, there is nothing all that exceptional about that, except that this was a special showing of the play organized by the Theatre Development Fund, the folks who run the TKTS discount ticket booths in New York, which offer tickets to Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals and plays at up to 50% off. 

So, this special showing was an autism friendly presentation, one that involved a number of accommodations and modifications for a very special audience.  Here is the report that aired on MSNBC, describing the event, and featuring one of my daughter's classmates, Evan:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

All told, four families from my daughter's school, and a great many more from the North Jersey area, were in attendance, and made up a very appreciative audience.  Much thanks goes out to the Theatre Development Fund for its progressive work towards inclusion, and for a truly gracious bit of noblesse oblige!

ABC You Later, Cablevision!

So, it's happening again, only this time, they went and did it.  They've gone nuclear, and it's the end of the world, at least in TV terms, which means going black, like the end of the movie Fail-Safe, or the series finale of The Sopranos.  

In broadcasting, death means going off the air, and I'm just thankful that I live outside of the blast radius, which is to say, that I am not a Cablevision subscriber, thank you very much.  As the New York Daily News put it in a headline (and you may recall their famous headline of the 70s, FORD TO CITY:  DROP DEAD):

Channel 7 ABC flashes angry message, then goes black for Cablevision customers at midnight

And here's a screen shot with the caption "Cablevision customers saw this message on Channel 7 ABC seconds after midnight, which quickly disappeared":

So, the article starts with a basic rundown of the situation:

ABC has gone dark.

Seconds after midnight, Channel 7 disappeared from the screens of customers right in the middle of a repeat episode of "Lost."

Moments later a white screen appeared with a defiant message from ABC, which pulled the signal over a contract dispute with Cablevision.

"Cablevision has betrayed you again," the message read. "First HGTV and Food Network, now you lost ABC-7. Enough is enough! Go to saveABC7.com to switch your service now."

Then, the screen went black again.

Now, on to the cause, the decision by Disney/ABC to cut off Cablevision:

The Disney Co., which owns the ABC network, cut off service to the city's 3.1 million Cablevision customers after the two sides failed to reach a deal.

ABC officials acted on their threat to pull the channel unless Cablevision agreed to pay a rights fee to offer the top-rated station to its subscribers.

"Cablevision has once again betrayed its subscribers by losing ABC7, the most popular station in the tri-state area," Channel 7 president Rebecca Campbell said in a statement.

But of course it takes two, to tango, or tangle in this way:

Cablevision blamed the stall in negotiations on Disney CEO Bob Iger.

"It is now painfully clear to millions of New York area households that Disney CEO Bob Iger will hold his own ABC viewers hostage in order to extract $40 million in new fees from Cablevision," said Charles Schueler, a Cablevision executive vice president.

But as always, it is the people, the innocent bystanders, who suffer:

The dramatic move left Oscar night fans scrambling to find a place to watch Sunday's show.

"I'm so upset. I think it's ridiculous," Dawn Bader, 41, a receptionist from Dyker Heights said earlier Saturday. "We're paying them for this service. If they drop Channel 7, then give us our money back."

Lisa Robinson, 47, said she's confident she'll be able to watch the Oscars online - but she wouldn't be happy about it.

"I think it's terrible," Robinson, also of Dyker Heights, said.

Victims, one and all, of corporate greed and malfeasance.  What is life without easy access to Hollywood stars congratulating one another and endlessly thanking all of the little people.  O-scarred for life, these people will be!  Oh, woe unto them...  

Oh, okay, I'll stop now.  Neil Postman and Amusing Ourselves to Death aside, the fact that less television is probably good for us is not really the point here.  The problem is that corporations, rather than being the capitalistic monolith that some portray them as, are at war with one another, and not in a naturally competitive sense.  Let's go back to the article:

Pulling Channel 7 from Cablevision subscribers came after two years of fruitless negotiations and a week of public mudslinging that involved both sides blaming the other for the mess.

Cablevision says Disney is asking for an additional $40 million a year in new fees, even though they already pay more than $200 million a year.

Disney disputes this figure, but will not reveal what the company is seeking. They argue that Cablevision charges customers $18 per month for its basic package but doesn't pass any of the profits on to ABC or Disney.

The current contract expired more than two years ago but has been maintained on a month-by-month basis since.

Cablevision viewers are essentially kidnapped in this situation, and held hostage.  While alternatives exist, it's a big deal to switch to a satellite or fiber optic service all of a sudden, and I suspect most of us are no long equipped to receive the free broadcast signal on our TV sets.  But there's always the option of going online to watch, as noted above, and to vent:

Upset fans started a Facebook group called "Cablevision, Enough is ENOUGH" and posted messages feverishly on Twitter to vent their frustrations.

"Someone needs to intervene and stop this nonsense," wrote one Facebook poster.

"Cablevision customers are already paying to have ALL the channels including ABC Channel 7. Where is our money going?"

So, it may not be social media to the rescue, but they certainly have a role to play in all this (and that's not to mention all the blogging going on, er, um, like right here).   By the way, this brings us to the end of the article, which was written by Richard Huff and Christina Boyle, with Rich Shapiro and Ben Chapman, for our credit where credit is due department.


Now, oh no, I just discovered that the New York Post stole my title for this post.   Well, no, they came up with it first, I guess it's an astonishing case of parallel evolution (as they used to say on Star Trek), or a case of great minds think alike, or it's just that obvious of a pun.  

Anyway, their article is written by Tim Perone, Ed Robinson, and Taylor K. Vecsey, and is called "No ABC for Cablevision customers" (the pun comes in the first line of the article, which reads, "ABC ya later").  I'll skip over the basic information that we already covered, and just get to the comments from subscribers left out in the cold:

"I don't know what to say," said Plainview, LI, resident Stu Wolff.


"I can't watch the Oscars, it's the biggest show of the year and I'll have to drive to Queens to watch it at my father's," Wolff, 44, added.

Drive from Nassau to Queens???!!!  Traffic advisory!  Watch out for major delays on the Long Island Expressway, and the Grand Central Parkway, folks!  That quote comes early in the article, and here's how it ends:

Viewers, however, weren't interested in those details, only that they might be missing the Oscars and their favorite shows.


"The consumer is the one getting screwed," said Jim Medler, 43, of Bronxville, NY.

Well said, Mr. Medler, well said!  And dare I say it, this is by no means a matter of meddling in affairs that are none of our business!  There's no business like show business, and in the age of show business, television is everybody's business, including we the people, and the government that is an expression of our popular will.

So, let's turn to the Washington Post, which provides us with a policy angle.  This comes from a blog on their website called Post Tech written by Cecilia Kang, and the post is entitled, ABC goes dark for New York Cablevision subscribers.  By the way, let's clarify the fact that this affects Cablevision subscribers throughout the New York Metropolitan Area, which includes many of our friends in other parts of New Jersey.  

Anyway, let me skip past the summary of the situation, and get to the heart of the matter--what is the government going to do about this? Here's what she says:

The negotiation breakdown was the latest in a series of similar standoffs between broadcasters and paid television providers such as Time Warner Cable's dispute with New Corp.'s Fox last year. The Federal Communications Commission has largely stayed on the sidelines of such negotiations. But some lawmakers and consumer groups have urged greater involvement by the agency to prevent viewers from missing out.


"If negotiations break down to the point of intractability, the FCC should step in and facilitate fair arbitration," said Ben Scott, policy director of public interest group Free Press.

 Hear hear, Ben Scott, hear hear!  If ever there was a job for the FCC, this is!  Anyway, back to  Kang:

Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) said in a statement Sunday morning that he isn't picking sides in the dispute but is frustrated with negotiation breakdowns that trickle down to consumers.


"When pulling a signal becomes the nuclear option in negotiation, it inflicts collateral damage on consumers who pay their bills and have done nothing wrong," Kerry wrote. Last week, he urged the FCC to help the companies reach an agreement. "Someone needs to be speaking up for them in this dispute and those like them."


An FCC spokesperson didn't immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment.

Come on, Federal Communications Commissioners, let's get behind this, if there is any reason for the FCC to exist at all, this is it!  Now is the time for all good men and women to stand up and be counted!  And Senator Kerry, the proper response is, a pox on both your houses!

Anyway, I'll skip past Kang's rundown on the he said/she said arguments between ABC and Cablevision, and get to the end of her post, where she returns to politics:

Lawmakers got into the debate last week with U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) pushing the Federal Communications Commission to step in and stop the standoff. Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas) warned against the government getting involved in a private negotiation.

Private negotiation?  This has become very much a public matter, one that involves the public airwaves, and the public streets and roads that the actual coaxial cable of cable television are laid upon, underneath, or above.  This is a matter of public concern, Representative Barton!  Get the ideology out of your eyes, and see things for what they are!


President Obama, this goes out to you.  Forget health care, forget jobs and the economy, and forget about Iran going nuclear, Iraq, Afghanistan, et al, this requires your immediate attention, and intervention!


Sorry, I got carried away again.  Okay, is there any conclusion we can draw from all this?  Yes, in all seriousness, it is time to reform the system, as I've said in previous posts, specifically All Foxed Up, or Time(Warn'er) for Cable Neutrality,  Tell Old Pharaoh to Let My Channels Go!, and Ordering TV À La Carte.  As you may recall, this thread started with a conflict between Time Warner Cable and the Fox network, one that didn't quite go nuclear the way that Cablevision and Diseny/ABC have.


To summarize, what we need is cable neutrality, along the lines of net neutrality.  Cable providers should just be carriers, like internet providers and telephone companies.  And viewers should be freed to choose what channels and programs they want and don't want. 

Hey, ABC?  It's as easy as 1, 2, 3!