Comments on: overgrown doorways https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways Lollards in the high church of low culture Sat, 17 Nov 2007 11:26:29 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: Pete https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/comment-page-1#comment-338760 Sat, 17 Nov 2007 11:26:29 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/#comment-338760 And of course it gives a journalist an interesting question to ask if they get it:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_2005_April_26/ai_n13798813

I’ve read that book too Tim (nicked it from Alan) and it is almost satisfying about these things when it comes to TV etc – but gives creators too much agency, in as much as it suggests they know what there doing much more than the actual evidence suggests. A good example would be Lost which has understood the multiple plot thread, self referential flashback while barely resolving anything. Characters do have easter egg names (John Locke being the most celebrated) but all of this is still written on the fly, and after three series feels it. But yes, clearly written for this kind of audience to talk about (because talking about it raises awareness and brings in advertisers).

Can’t talk about Pullman as I made decision a while back with this and Potter to do film only.

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By: Tim https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/comment-page-1#comment-338335 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:20:27 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/#comment-338335 I guess in a simple sense, which is to say a keep-em-coming-back way, it does.

Quick summary of economics as I remember from plane ride on which I read the book: cable TV arrives meaning sudden wide availability of repeats everyday PLUS rise to importance of DVD derived revenue PLUS da internet exists.

1. It’s desirable to create something which is as interesting (or more interesting) on the fifth viewing as it is on the first, so this Easter Egging is really important (I think he says this kind of telly is fractal at one point)
2. It’s desirable to give people stuff to spot, and obscure threads to pick up on, as grist to the mill for web talk
3. Other stuff I can’t remember right now.

All of which is true of “The Wasteland” (esp 3) but the target demographics are perhaps slightly different.

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By: mark sinker https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/comment-page-1#comment-338330 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:04:57 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/#comment-338330 do the economic drivers apply to eg “modernist lit”?

(i think i would imagine there was a clarity-of-cultural-microniche-identification-differentiation going on: which would have economic elements)

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By: Tim https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/comment-page-1#comment-338329 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:01:52 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/#comment-338329 I read this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Everything-Bad-Good-You-Popular/dp/0141018682/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195224063&sr=8-1

It’s a bit disappointing but it explains the economic drivers of the fashion for multi-layered telly with lots o’threads and lots of semi-buried references quite well.

With regards to Janis, I really enjoy speculating about what things like this might mean (I think it’s likely relevant to “At Seventeen” but what do I know?)

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By: mark sinker https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/comment-page-1#comment-338311 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:38:37 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/#comment-338311 the harris-balthus thing popped into my head last night, and seemed (is) germane: and of course i already knew (cz i already read) that baudelaire always a clever-chap link to eliot (the phrase “unreal city”, just before the wasteland talks abt the walking dead, is from immediately after “hypocrite lecteur”) —> and this sort of stuff is often a bit wanky, and i don’t think that harris got the snake’s tail back in its mouth for HANNIBAL, which has a lot of awesome ideas and somehow fails

anyway i was idly looking at the new copy of NORTHERN LIGHTS i just bought — with the special fancy “great art” cover (for discerning grown-ups) — and the painting they’ve used, “jeune fille en vert et rouge”, is by balthus!

no idea whose pick: maybe Pullman’s, maybe a VERY smart cover designer at “Scholastic Press”

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By: mark sinker https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/comment-page-1#comment-338307 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:32:18 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/#comment-338307 i think probably there’s a finegrained thing going on, with actually rather different intentions

i. the agatha-anstruther link is i suspect PURE CHANCE — agatha needs lots of plain-jane names which DON’T set off alarm bells; she’s not in the business of dog-whistling a more alert layer of readers (there may BE a more alert layer but she’s feeding them on have-they-haven’t-they got ahead of her CLUE-wise) (ie for all i know she got anstruther from the PHONEBOOK)
ii. what tom’s calling easter-egging (the thing RTD does in dr who) is a device to keep sweet a more learned tranche of reader-viewer-listener, who are there alongside essentially wide-eyed kids with no backstory awareness or referential skeez (i think this is a bit like the simpsons gag you onl spot on slo-mo playback really: it’s a value-added for a second- or third-level reader) (but it encompasses show-offy smugness also)
iii. there are private jokes (i slightly suspect the abbot thomas gag is this — viz sayers wanted to borrow the coding device, and popped in a little hat-tip to its source)
iv. there is simple device theft (a species of plagiarism)
v. there is straight-up pleased-with-itself “pomo” “hommage” (can be lame, cf midsommer murders; can be effective, cf buffy but also cf vi.)
vi. there is the fact that there are only 7 stories anyway so you might as well reuse-reinvent a great — this is a version of 5, but replacing “pleased-with-self” with an “anxiety-of-influence” oedipal challenge
vii. the thing that pullman-harris-eliot are all doing is more ambitious still (and risks being more tw@ty) — bcz it’s a deliberate parallelism of form and content, where moving between zones and territories and imaginary worlds is part of the project, a “magic” with its own ethics, perils and passions

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By: Tom https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/comment-page-1#comment-338289 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:59:43 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/#comment-338289 You need to judge this kind of easter-egging really finely I think. There’s some recent comic – totally forget which – where a group of minor characters (superheroes probably) are called something like Beckham, Rooney and Scholes. For the main US market this is a nice little gag which a few expats and anglophiles might get, but obviously for a British reader it’s really glaring and throws you entirely out of the story.

Of course that kind of borrowing isn’t a portal-between-worlds thing really, so as you were.

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By: Pete Baran https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/comment-page-1#comment-338281 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:29:10 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/#comment-338281 Oh no, not necessarily a bad thing, but the WHY thing is unclear. Its a ref going over 90% of the audience, and one which if you do get it, you still aren’t sure why (and no-one else in the cast has a similar name). If its just a shout out to Janis, fine, but then naming a character after someone semi-famous is and odd way to do this (esp as Janis is possibly the most unreal character in the film – the goodie goodie goth).

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By: Tim https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/comment-page-1#comment-338267 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:48:49 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/#comment-338267 Hold on Pete: you’re saying that that it’s a BAD thing that it’s not obvious why Janis Ian is called Janis Ian? Seems to me it’s entirely a good thing.

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By: Pete https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/comment-page-1#comment-337898 Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:20:41 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/wedge/2007/11/overgrown-doorways/#comment-337898 My version of this is needless pop references. I have little idea what Tiny Fey wanted to say by naming the goth in Mean Girls Janis Ian, as the glum acceptance of (the real) Ian seems completely at odds with the character. Equally there is a point in Buffalo 66 where Christina Ricci’s Layla, literally has Vincent Gallo on his knees – DO YOU SEE – but it means nothing to the actual plot.

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