It’s been some time in coming, but the burgeoning digital revolution as pertains to the written word is now fully upon us. We’ve seen the forerunners, to be sure, but Amazon has now released what I can only describe as the new benchmark in digital text transmission, The Kindle. Sony, of course, is trying its best to compete, with an updated reading device of its own.

There are differences between the two, and those differences may or may not be significant. That delineation ultimately, I think, will rest in the hands of each consumer as he (or she) decides what is of utmost importance.

The main differences, initially, are that the Sony Reader can play mp3’s and view PDF’s, while the Kindle does neither of those. The Kindle, however, is wirelessly synced to a “virtual” bookstore and that connectivity is always on, and you never pay for it. To get e-books to the Reader, you have to connect through a portal similar to ITunes and download them to your computer before transferring to the Reader.

Each allows access to blogs and newspapers. I’m sure there are some minor differences here, but I doubt they are of much significance. The size and weight dimensions are essentially the same, though the Kindle boasts a “keyboard” with many more keys.

Ultimately, what concerns me is not that these devices exist. To be honest, I have decided that I really want a Kindle…or I want one for a month to test drive (now if only I was a critically acclaimed best selling author…). Nevertheless, I am concerned about where this may lead.

As you all know, I hope one day to make a meager living as a writer. I’ve spent a number of years retailing books, and I’m pursuing both an MA in English and MFA in Creative Writing. Words are less something I’m concerned with, and more a considerable part of how I define myself. And so, I think I cannot be faulted too greatly for being concerned with how these devices will impact the way in which reading (and more importantly, in my mind) and writing are digested and created in our society.

I can already hear your rebuttal…something along the lines of, what about the IPod? As much as the record companies want you to believe otherwise, digital music has, in many ways, been very good for the music industry. Sure, the recording industry hasn’t yet figured out how to really deal with people who download music illegally (though, I might humbly suggest not suing housewives for hundreds of thousands of dollars as, you know, a gesture of good will…), but eventually the corporations will embrace the technology, instead of trying to prevent it and most everyone on both sides will be happy (I say most because, someone, somewhere will want to steal just for the fun of it…).

The fundamental difference, I think, is that music hasn’t really ever had a set mode of transmission. In my lifetime I have owned (or my family has, when I was just a nipper) record players, cassette players, 8-track players, CD players, and digital players (I love you WinAmp!) . Other than issues with convenience, there really isn’t much difference between the different medias. Unless you’re a total nutjob and have thousands of dollars, a CD isn’t all that better than a cassette, than a record (and some would argue that analog sound BETTER for certain types of music), etc. Don’t get me wrong, I love music. I have just under 200 hours of music on my laptop, and that’s about half the total CD’s laying around my house, not counting classical (of which, I have an assload thanks to years of free promos…). But when it comes right down to it, the specific player I am utilizing at any given time is of little importance to me.

Such can not be said about the written word, but more specifically about books. It’s been 600 years since there’s been any real innovation when it comes to transmitting the written word. Sure, newspapers and magazines are not the same as books, but they are produced in similar manners, and they present a tactile experience on par with books.

A book is something that you necessarily interact with. In his endorsement of Amazon’s product, Neil Gaiman (not a man I usually disagree with) states that it makes no difference to him whether he is flipping a page or clicking a button, and that the device is so intuitive that you hardly notice the difference. I haven’t used it, obviously, but I find this a bit disingenuous. Maybe I’m a poor reader, but I often find myself flipping back through pages of a book to revisit passages from earlier after I’ve come across something intriguing or important later on. I don’t think any flat screened device, no matter how intuitive, can make that particularly easy. And on a similar point, I can’t be the only person to write notes in margins or underline important passages…

I’m also quite curious to see how digital transmission of writing will affect poetry. I’ve waxed philosophic on a similar topic in the past, but the impact of digitized content seriously concerns me in regards to a form of art that can have as much depth visually as it does linguistically.

On some level, I realize all of this stems from the fact that I have the soul of a 60 year old. I like my personal library (no matter how much it annoys my wife). It’s taken me, literally, years to collect all the books that I have, and there is something very unsettling about thinking that one day, all of it could be stored within a device that fits easily in a small bag. I really do believe that digitizing the written word will, in some way, degrade the regard we have for it. Book reading is on the decline, and I have a suspicion that these devices might inadvertently contribute to this even more, what with there online newspaper and “blog” reading functionality.

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe people will get enthused about fiction once it’s so easily accessible, but at a the current price tag of around 400 bones, I seriously doubt it.

This was completed last Thursday, and seems to have finally gone up today… all in all I was surprised by the cancellation of the series, but the reasons for the cancellation are, well, not evident at this time. However, I was lucky enough to be able to put together one final strip in order to say goodbye to all of the wonderful readers who stuck it out and came back week after week for the 30+ installments. To all that have been reading the series and allowed me, April, Wednesday and even our son, Salem, to be a part of your lives - and to all of those who enjoyed the strips, thank you, very, very much.

So here it is, the final installment of Megalo Life - for Trickster Online Revolution.

And so 2007 closes today, and with it this weekly webcomic serial. Thank you again to everyone who showed their support, if you would like to leave comments for the series itself, please do so in the actual comments section for the Megalo Life series at the bottom of the URL link as I will be reading them there.

See you all next year!

–Aleister

‘Allo Normalinauts! Sorry, I’m not sure what new moniker to give to our loyal, almost double digit readership here, but for now, I’m throwing Normalinaut into play to see how it fairs. Anyone else who has a better one they’d like to throw down, by all means, please do.

Ok, so we’ve been on a fairly serious bent it seems for the last couple of posts, and with good reason, as what’s currently going on with the Presidential race will certainly effect not just the US but peoples in any other country where our nation’s sticky tentacle pull any sort of influence. So thank you for indulging us (and specifically, the more activist minded Kilian).

Now I’m not saying that this trend of seriousness, when serious issues come up will not be coming back to the forefront here on the old Normality, but I did want to take a moment to touch on some of the not-quite-as-serious things that have also been going on. Not to bend this to a completely egotistical outing, but there it is anyway.

So firstly, for anyone interested, and I assume that we’re seeing some new faces around here from ye olde MyTrix community as well as from Trickster Online Revolution in general, let me take this opportunity to say thank you very, very, very much for all of the truly heart-string-strumming comments on the final Megalo Life that went up this last Monday on the official Trickster Online Revolution website. I meant every last word that typed out in the episode’s commentary and a lot more that would really not be appropriate or in anyway professional for me add as well. I really did love (and hate using the past-tense) working on the strip week after week, and it is my belief thatthe silly little comic outing worked great to promote not only the game, the company, the community and to shed some light on the fact that the game is brought to its loyal players by real people who are weird, wonderful, falable and overwhelmingly human. This was, to my thinking, something that really set us apart from other games and communities that are out there. Obviously, there are games with better graphics, mechanics, support or any other individual component that you could name, than TOR, but I always held the belief that the strength of the title despite the uphill climb against newer, flashier titles and the seemingly endless stream of even-newer-debuting titles, was the community and the way it could interact with the company behind the game.

For me, Megalo Life was one of our several pronged efforts to create and sustain that sort of unusual community/company involvement, and in the passing of the comic, I am bitterly happy to see that I wasn’t too far off the marks in my thoughts. As it turns out, the community does seem to have enjoyed the comic. I never made the thing to have people start clammering that it was the greatest thing to hit the internet since porn, or even the best webcomic out there. It really was, at its inception and at its core, a means for those of us behind TOR to pull back the OZ-like curtain and say, ‘No, it’s ok, there is a man back here, it’s cool,’ and then /wave in a friendly manner. For whatever reason, it was pulled, canceled or decidedly ended… however you want to put it, it doesn’t matter the ultimate outcome was/is the same: the series is no more.

But as I said, the one really positive thing to come out of all of this, especially as the title to this post might suggest, is that when the air started to clear and emotions could be stowed for a bit to re-asses the aftermath, there was nothing more evident than the fact that the fallout of the series has shown what I might humbly term as overwhelming community support for the strip and my efforts.

Again, for anyone interested, especially those from the TOR community, I am deeply thankful that you enjoyed the series, and I am very, truly moved by the outcries of support and even unhappiness to see it/me go. So thank you. I don’t know a better way to express it, than to just keep saying thank you over and over again.

I suppose that it was something of a pipe-dream to think that overwhelming outcries from the community would possibly spring some sort of rethinking to the cancellation decision as the evidence mounted to the fact that strip (like some of the other efforts, such as the now still missing GM Blog) actually did work. It did encourage interaction and involvement in the community and for the game itself. It was a useful effective tool to help set us and our collective efforts apart from the other, and oft-times behemoth-y-juggernaut-like competitors in the online gaming world who always have more money and resources to throw at things than we could dream of. Because of the players, the Tricksters, the community members and the readers of the Megalo Life series that returned week after week, and especially have been showing their support in the final installment, I think it is now assured that the points have been proven. There should no longer be a question as to whether or not it was effective, useful, and basically a good thing.

Doubt can no longer be attributed to the quantifying of the effort - and no question can reasonably be raised as to whether or not the series itself was a much needed bridge between players and corporation.

Thank you once more, sincerely and whole heartedly to every single one of you Tricksters who have come forward in the comment section on the final Megalo Life and in the My Trix thread to show your support and even your surprise at the sudden ending of the webcomic. My heart’ still heavy from the ending of it all, but I can watch now with a smile on my face because I know that I did make a difference, and I made that difference because you let me. Thank you.

The decision always has been and is still now, out of my hands. If I could change it, I would, and perhaps I thought naively that you could effect change as well. Maybe that will still happen, at this point my crystal ball can’t see quite that far into the future ^__^ but I’m glad to have your efforts behind it just the same.

As Megalo Life has ended, in a somewhat traumatic sort of way, suddenly, and without any real warning (announcements, or even being posted on the normal day of the week) I will be taking this week off to finish recuperating from what can only be described as a tumultuous, emotional, rollercoaster of crazy bat shit, and will not be posting a new strip for NR today. I should be able to return to form once more next week, and in the meantime I offer some other stimulus for visual trauma:

If you’ve noticed on the top right side of the NR site here, there is a new section added, along with the Comic Archive, and the Vote Campaign for TopWebComics, and other information, there is a new section (still being polished so be nice, please) titled Gilgrim’s Artwork. So if visual stimuli is what you crave, as they say, buy the ticket, take the ride.

Cheers,

–Aleister

KMFDM - Last Things

Well, I didn’t want to take down gilgrim’s post (since it is well written and heartfelt) for one quick thing…so anyway, read this and let your imagination pique at the possibility…

And I, for one, vote for Normalinauts!

–Kilian

Actually, if you wish to get technical, I’m very middenedly-buzzed off of Trader Joe’s 2 Buck Chuck! Sadly, I would have preferred a Merlot or Pinot, but this 25 proof grape juice, Sauvignon will have to do… by the way, this is entirely April’s fault.

And on we go to the Saturday embedded video post. I’m not saying this as some sort of homage or even copying in format of Ellis’ 4AM, because I really don’t know if this stunt will repeat itself anytime soon. But while we’re all here, and I have a captive audience, I will abuse it. And by abuse, I mean subject you to at least one video.

April found this video, as it is from a band that she at one time had a single album from, and has since lost it, or misplaced it, or simply had an extremely difficult time finding it ever again. While showing me the band in question, we had a discussion about what ‘type’ of music they would be categorized as in relation to the era in which they could’ve likely hit airwaves or mainstream media. Darkwave/Newwave seems to be the best fit, and in the search April found a connection between this weird musical troupe and one of my favorite movies of the 80’s/horror genre in general, which is Manhunter(!).

The band, Shriekback, did do at least one piece on the official OST for Manhunter, but it was not the video which will be posted below. And here is where you, hopefully far less drunk, Normalinauts, come into play: the following song from the band Skriekback, was hailed as their lead single from their album Oil&Gold, and both April and I are at least somewhat convinced that we’ve heard the damned thing in a film somewhere… yet Youube seems to be of no hope or help. So do you brave Normalinauts remember this song? Do you know where you might have heard it (aside from here of course)? Let us know!

Click-y Here For the Official Song In Question

SHRIEKBACK - NEMISIS

Help us please, where has this song been featured???

Thank you, I will continue to drink now,

–Aleister

Shriekback - Nemesis

Alan, over at the Newswire got to posting this before me, so I’m compelled to give him his due…

Basically, Nine Inch Nails purposely released to BitTorrent the first in a four part series of instrumental albums. You can download the whole four part series for a paltry 5 bucks right here, though the $300 Ultra Deluxe version (which I believe came with a naked picture of Trent Reznor, but I could be mistaken) is already sold out…

I’m not a huge fan of Radiohead, so I didn’t download their latest effort…but I AM a fan of NiN, so you can bet your sweet-ass I’m grabbing this tonight!

I like that we are seeing more artists embracing digital media and distribution and realizing that money (it’s an important piece of the equation, after all) does not necessarily have to be made in the same ways that it has been for the last 100 years. Certainly, bands like Radiohead and NiN can get away with stuff like this because of the large and loyal fanbases each band has. A new or up and coming band would be hard pressed to find success doing the same thing, and so I think we will see record labels (if they’re smart, which isn’t something we should assume…) start to be more of a vehicle to launch careers as opposed to being a vehicle to sustain careers. Larger acts will, I guarantee you, begin to take more control over the production and distribution of their content and the leverage that a record company has will only be applicable to a group who does not already have a large and dedicated audience…at least, that’s my theory…

And this is just a really good song (and interesting video) that I wanted to share…