Norlos

These shirts popped in Hong Kong about two months ago. Any clue what they refer to? Google tells me there’s a “Smoking Crows” KC barbecue team, but I have no idea whether they’re connected.

Community — “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons”

Not ashamed to say I’ve watched this episode six or seven times now, as a stress reliever when I get home at 3 a.m. I’ve given it what’s probably an inappropriate amount of thought. Conclusion: It’s my favorite 21 minutes of the sacred art of television. Unless you click yourself elsewhere, I’m going to tell you why.

Dr. No and I already use “Community” to fill the hole left by the dearly departed “Arrested Development,” and the show already has aired some classic episodes, like the paintball episode, the zombie episode and the stop-motion Christmas special. But to me, “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” stands out, and not just because I’m a gigantic drooling nerd.

First, a bit about the show. “Community” is a sitcom about seven students at a sad-sack community college. It forgets about this central plot about six episodes into the first season. “Community” is really a referential, post-modern, pop-culture nerdfest. In one episode, the college acquires a Kentucky Fried Chicken-themed space simulator just so the writers can do scene-for-scene reenactments from “The Right Stuff” and “Apollo 13.” In another, they tell the plot of “GoodFellas” through cafeteria chicken strips. Last week’s episode managed to pay tribute to both “Pulp Fiction” and “My Dinner with Andre.” It’s the kind of show in which the TV-mad character Abed interrupts his own narration to describe voice-overs as a crutch, and who matter-of-factly declares “it’s a bottle episode!”

When they tackle Dungeons & Dragons, they tackle it with a hefty dose of nerdy love. The books and modules look like the game I remember as a kid — O.K., and in college, assholes — and while they make a lot of fun of it they also make it meaningful by putting something real at stake.

That would be Neil. The overweight nerd usually gets played for laughs. The writers and the actor play him straight. That means who have to take him at face value when the narrator — yeah, dig the “Lord of the Rings” gag — darkly says in so many words that Neil wants to kill himself. I think the show’s hilarious, but we need a reason to believe why characters who don’t really give a shit about the game suddenly want to play it.

We also need a reason why they suddenly want to win it, and that’s Pierce. If there’s something unbelievable about the episode, it’s that Pierce, played by Chevy Chase, suddenly becomes a bad guy. But the format requires a source of neverending evil for a hero to vanquish. He becomes the Joseph Campbell father/trial/challenge. Without him, there’s no hero.

It’s a tightly written 21 minutes in other ways. If you watch the show, you know the idea that Jeff is the one to suggest they all play Dungeons and Dragon to help Neil is… odd. The plot twist brings us full circle, right back to the very first scene, and then a lot of it makes sense.

There’s the production value. “It’s a bottle episode!” Yeah, but there’s the great sound effects of arrows hitting flesh, or the hawk calling into the distance when [SPOILER!] Chang buys it, and the Tolkien music cues. It’s all part of the meta-joke, but it’s done so well that it can’t help but heighten the tension when Pierce puts Neil’s ultimate fate at stake. And love the sound of wings as Draconis ambushes the party.

It’s a hero’s journey, and the hero’s a nerd.

So yeah, great show. Huzzah! (There are others who agree.)

Favorite lines:

• “It’s cool, and when you play it, it makes you happy, like a dragon!”
• “Shouldn’t there be a board or some pieces, or something to Jenga?”
• “You’re the AT&T of people!”
• “My name’s Bing-Bong the Archer. I’m an archer and such.”
• “In about 13 turns he will die of exposure. Jeff?” “I wait 14 turns.”
• “I can’t hear you over the sound of me rubbing my balls on his sword.” [Rolls dice] “You have successfully rubbed your balls on his sword.”
• “And this is a local elf tavern. But all races are welcome.” “Awww!”
• “If that’s sarcasm, I can’t tell, because everything in this game is silly.”
• “Hi. Hello. I’m Hector the Well-Endowed.” (The minute that follows is just amazing.)
• “Britta? He was an imaginary waiter.” “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
• “Riding atop his shoulders, naked as the day he was born… Pierce Hawthorne.”
• “He’s bald. He’s black!” “I don’t see the world through that lens.”
• “For my turn, I rape the Duquesne family. Again.”
• “I won Dungeons & Dragons, and it was advanced!”

Maybe it’s the fact that I had to wake up at 4 a.m. to catch the final minutes. Maybe the answer to soul-crushing losses is a little sleep before and after?

So on Friday afternoon last week I looked at my Blackberry and said, “uh oh. I have to go to the office.” A week later, I’m still here, and I look to be here for the foreseeable future.

Yes, Dr. No, aka the Honey Badger, is a vicious beast who mustn’t be trifled with. But she’s also been patient and understanding. Thanks, girlfriend.

Warm ray of sunshine and kickass rocker chick Maggie Chang died yesterday of leukemia. She’s playing bass in the video below, for Hong Kong’s El Destroyo. The world already feels a little colder and and little less rock ‘n’ roll without her.

This interview with The Gang of Four‘s Andy Gill at the Onion’s AV Club — hey, DoubleOh’s a reader too! — has this exchange:

AVC: On the Gang Of Four website, there’s a statement that’s kind of along these lines. Talking about the title, Content, you define the word as “the obligatory filling for the advertising sandwich.” An Xbox commercial used your song “Natural’s Not In It” late last year, and while most of us are past the point where “selling out” is something that really matters anymore, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect there between your words and your actions.

AG: I mean, I’m not quite sure what the disconnect is. Advertising, is that what you mean?

AVC: Well, it seems like you’re poking fun at that but also playing the game as well.

AG: I think Gang Of Four has always been throughout the years and continues to be observational, critical of everything that we’re all involved in, and I think one of the things about Gang Of Four is that we’re aware that all of us are complicit in various ways in this age of Western capitalism. You, me, we’re all involved to one extent or another. We’re all cogs in the wheel of Western capitalism. And that’s something we’ve noted on many occasions and continue to note. I remember when Gang Of Four chose to sign to EMI, which in the late ’70s was one of the biggest companies in the world. It kind of defined the term “multinational.” It was a huge, multinational company which reached absolutely every territory in the world, and we signed to that company in order to release our first album, Entertainment!, and I had quite a few people saying, “What have you done now? Why haven’t you signed to Rough Trade?” You know, an ideologically pure indie label, in some people’s eyes. We said, “Well, the reason we’ve done that is we are very interested in—you know, Gang Of Four’s always been about pop culture.” It’s not about being artistically pure. It’s about being a success of pop culture with several radical ideas. That’s all we’re about, musically and lyrically. We always wanted to reach as many people as we could. We always wanted to be rubbing shoulders with, like, Kate Bush, and whoever else the huge stars were. Our music is not easily consumable, commercial music. It’s very adventurous, very authentic music. We need any help we can get in terms of reaching the public. Apart from anything else, me and Jon love those computer games, video games, you know? We love that stuff. We play it ourselves, so we’re very happy, delighted, to have our music used in that context and to reach a worldwide audience there.

Which gets me wondering: Is the interviewer right? It’s true that I don’t care about use of my favorite songs in advertising — when I run across it, I either think to myself “you go, girl!” or try to figure out when the advertising people stopped to listen to the lyrics. At the same time, if you click on the link above to the Gang of Four’s “Natural’s Not In It,” the first commenter seems to feel betrayed that Microsoft used the song to sell Xboxes.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article in December that I meant to mention around here, by a member of OK Go. You know, the treadmill guys? No, Norlos isn’t immune to their charms. Singer Damian Kulash argued that they are the future of the music industry in the days of downloads, and in fact the era of recorded music is over. Yeah, he said it, sort of. Call it ultra old school, Bach n’ Leopold style:

So if vanishing record revenue isn’t being replaced by touring income, how are musicians feeding themselves? For moderately well established artists, the answer is increasingly corporate sponsorship and licensing—a return, in a sense, to the centuries-old logic of patronage. In 1995, it was rare for musicians to partner with corporations; in most corners of the music industry, it was seen as the ultimate sell-out. But with investments from labels harder to come by, attitudes towards outside corporate deals have changed…

Now when we need funding for a large project, we look for a sponsor. A couple weeks ago, my band held an eight-mile musical street parade through Los Angeles, courtesy of Range Rover. They brought no cars, signage or branding; they just asked that we credit them in the documentation of it. A few weeks earlier, we released a music video made in partnership with Samsung, and in February, one was underwritten by State Farm.

via OK Go’s Damian Kulash on the Future of the Music Business – WSJ.com.

Happy boy

Marco and I are thrilled by this!

It’s a little like Christmas here in Hong Kong today — all the businesses are closed but the streets and train stations are teeming with people heading off to family banquets.

We gave our doorman, Mr. Lao, his laisee today. Laisee is a Cantonese word. In the mainland they call it hong bao, or “red envelope,” and it’s typically full of money. But the envelope we gave Mr. Lao was yellow — huang bao? — though I presume it was still a New Year’s envelope because it had illustrations of fuzzy bunnies. (We like Mr. Lao, even though we don’t speak Canto and he doesn’t speak English. Mostly me makes Marco smile by pulling his toes and growling, “Hey baby!”)

What do you get people for Chinese New Year? You give ‘em laisee if you’re married, because single people just get laisee. You give it to employees. For others you give them cute little orange trees, or puddings.

Happy Year of Rabbit, folks.

Welcome to Norlos 4.Whatever. This is our biggest overhaul yet as we now using software called WordPress to run the show instead of Movable Type. Back when we started this thing in the strange days of 2002, Movable Type was the best thing around. Since then, the people who put together the software have focused on well-heeled corporate clients unlike ourselves, while WordPress has surged ahead in terms of usability.

Few things are different:

First off — you’ll have to reset your password. I didn’t know everybody’s, so it’s your first name. And yes, case sensitive. Please change it!

Second, once you get to your log-in screen, there’s a link on the upper left of your admin screen for posting. But see that QuickPress box on the right with fill-in boxes for headline and content? That should be just fine for everything you want to do. (Also notice you have a list of your in-progress posts that only you and I can see.)

Third, we now have a more reliable feed from other blogs on the right — see the entries from Plantnerd and Mrs. ThinMan? I’m eager to add other blogs but don’t know who is still in business. So please let me know about your non-Norlos blogs.

Finally, take a look at the photo section to the right. This now picks up photos from the new Norlos Flickr group. If you’re on Flickr I strongly encourage you to join the group and post your photos there. The software takes care of itself.

You’ll see a little bit of continued tinkering in coming days as I try to square the addresses of the old posts with the new ones, so please be patient.

Holler at me with questions, problems logging in, or your general anger about life’s circumstances.

Paradise Lost in North Point from Varsity CUHK on Vimeo.

A few weeks ago a group of fresh-faced high-school students stopped Dr. No after the strenuous walk up our hill and badgered her to talk about the neighborhood. She gave them a quick interview and went on her way.

Now the kids are done, and the project turned out to be all sorts of cool. Kai Yuen Street — say it like the locals do and it sounds Kai! Yuuuen Gai! — doesn’t look much like the rest of the city. It probably looks like most Westerners think Hong Kong looks, with cracked old buildings with iron balconies following the curves of narrow streets. (Most of Hong Kong looks like a very narrow, very Chinese Dallas — all glassy skyscrapers and neon.) Our elevator looks like something out of a Wong Kar-Wai film. The neighborhood ends abruptly at the foot of a lush mountainside, with a Buddhist temple peeking out at us. We love the place, unreservedly.

We like how, when the video shows a photo of Dr. No and Marco, the voiceover tells us that “around here there are foreigners, ordinary people.”

Read the article.