Film Directing Slot by Slot, by Steven Katz is a rather straightforward guide to writing  your own storyboard based on the classics. One of the ultimate ways to learn almost anything is by studying the best of what the medium has to offer. My only issue with the reading is that I did not read it before Understanding Comics, because my mind was “McClouded,” if you will, by comic book style closure, and I was not able to draw a better shot for shot representation of how our film will play in the end.

I appreciate art forms with rules, because within these sets of rules there is a great opportunity for creativity. This is true of blues music. All blues music is essentially variations on a theme, but sometimes an artist comes along to give the form new life. Other artists add their interpretation of the form to give immense depth to the art form’s overall canon.

People are nostalgic, and they appreciate authenticity. Cheap reproductions of Munch’s The Scream cover dormitory walls across America, but these replicas allow entry level art lovers the opportunity to let the mind wander to Europe where this and other classics call home. Consider the pilgrimage to museums ‘trading up’ in the category of art appreciation.

Reproductions are essential to education as well. Without them we would be unable to gain advance knowledge of all the works we venture to appreciate in the presence of their aura. We imagine nuances in the works that the reproduction fails to recognize.

We are not mistaken about the authenticity of reproductions. It is interesting though, that in the age of the mp3, many of us are. Though recorded music in and of itself is a reproduction, it is also the work of art. A bitwise comparison of the CD to analog tape reveals that the CD is about 25% the size of tape. For 20 years we’ve been listening to compressed music without the dynamic frequency range of tape. When you also consider that a collection of mp3s is about 10% the size of the same songs on a CD, we realize that what we are listening to is just a fraction of what we should be listening to. Given the convenience of small files and the ability to carry thousands of them in the palm of your hand, they should not be overlooked, but similar appreciation should be had for the full experience that analog and high resolution digital music has to offer.

The idea that sound as an art form is unique in the way that it surrounds the user was one of the more ponderous points for me. When something sounds so good that you just want to hear it again and again, and the seminal version of the work is on some prerecorded media, you can feel free to enjoy it as often as you like. However, if possible you may need to experience the sound in person in the form of live performance, where an artist may be better known for his or her live interpretation than the recorded version. In this regard the oral tradition is still very much alive, because while the performance can be recorded with several types of media, the ultimate work of art is the experience itself, a unique piece of work that will never be identically duplicated.

Ong also discusses on page 51 the categorization of a hammer, log, saw, and hatchet by a 25 year old illiterate man. He grouped them all together, because all the tools could be used to cut a log.

Take an iPod, cell phone, digital camera, and an iPod charger. The first three are devices, and the last is merely a means to recharge the device. Being a 21st century literate but knowing that any device without its charger is basically useless, would you still categorize the phone, camera and iPod together?

Posing those kinds of questions to illiterates, while possibly worthy of study, and presenting it in a disparaging manner in print is perhaps a bit unfair because the immediacy and importance of objects like logs, hammers, saws, and hatchets to their lives. Log+saw+hammer+hatchet=house.

The Pirahã tribe of northwestern Brazil was the subject of a fascinating article published by the New Yorker on April 16, 2007. Dan Everett, the American Professor who lived with them, makes a strong argument that disproves Noam Chomsky‘s theory that recursion can be found in all spoken and documented languages, that it is a trait we are born with. In it, among other things, you will find examples of their peculiar language. For example, if you ask a member of this tribe how many sticks you are holding in your hand, the member might respond with confusion because their culture simply does not care how many of one object another posseses. Great read!

He grabbed a backpack and rummaged for clothes, but the clamor clouded his memory. With haste he packed the first garments in sight.

“Where are you going with a three piece suit?” she demanded.

“Straight to the top!”