Take a look at Phil Hansen’s fourth piece in his Goodbye to Art series.

Witness the Rinpa Eshidan crew transform a simple room into something living.

Performance Art is certainly nothing new. But before the viral generation, performance art was that dirty little secret that you heard sophisticated art snobs whisper in between bouts of sneering at the general public. Now everyone can experience the transitive and transforming nature of performance art. Viral video allows such artists to reach audiences that would never ever consider attending a live performance. It gives new viewers a safe environment in which to experience the work.

The future of viral performance art is a bright one. Viral video is spreading faster and influencing more people than any other phenomenon in the digital age. YouTube’s Presidential candidate questions are ample proof of viral video’s importance in our pop culture. More artists are able to reach more people at exponential rates. I have a feeling that this is just the beginning.

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So, once again, IE decided not to play nice with us.  That’s the problem with developing on a Mac I guess.  No IE to test in.  I’ll be styling this theme a bit to make it mesh with our color scheme and all.  Hopefully I’ll manage not to break it for IE.  Poopy.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about great toys lately. I realize that this might be something odd for a 24 year old chef to do; but you should never really grow out of loving toys. With any luck though you’re taste in them will just become more sophisticated. Long since have the days of pining for Megazords passed onto an irrational love of cute anime girls with large weapons, great movement, and an abundance of ego. But where to start? There is a literal pantheon of figures out there and browsing a figure vendor’s site would cause immediate bankruptcy as you would buy every lovely thing you see. Might I suggest that you start with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya?

Not only is this a lovely and brilliant anime, it also confused television viewers worldwide by intentionally airing episodes out of sequence. What is shown as Episode 01 is actually Episode 11. Causing further confusion, in the ‘coming soon’ blurb at the end of each episode, Haruhi Suzumiya gives the chronologically correct number of the next episode and Kyon “corrects” her by giving the episode that corresponds to the order it is being shown in.

Back to the matter at hand though. There are many lovely Haruhi figures to choose from because making them is more legal than printing money and has the same effect. I suggest that you begin your collection with this one.

Not only is it full of action and beautifully crafted and painted; but it is also on its third printing. I don’t know how many runs will be done before the figure it is retired; but I personally did not want to take any chances and have snatched up one from its second printing.

Display this proudly on your desk at work or home to the envy of fellow employees/roommates and enjoy Haruhi telling you every day that today will be an “Adventure, right? Right?” or she’ll put you in a bunny outfit.

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I’m a big fan of comic books. I have been since I was about eight years old. I was ensnared by the realms of endless adventure, larger-than-life perils, shining heroes and dastardly villains. Every comic book was a new adventure, and the variety of stories being told was enough to kick my imagination into high gear. Every superhero was on a different world, or a different quest, or facing a different danger, and every so often there would be a crisis so great that every single superhero would have to join forces to fight it.

Every so often.

Marvel and DC have been doing that a lot lately. Major crisis after major crisis so large that everyone in the universe needs to get involved to stop it. I like those epic crossover tales as much as the next guy, but I wish they would slow down a bit! It’s getting to be like the boy who cried wolf for some of us! The first time we’re all worried. The second time we’re a little less freaked out. By the sixth or seventh time, the shock and surprise are lost.

But it’s not the number of crossovers that’s bothering me. It’s their effect on the variety of stories being told. Marvel and DC have vast universes. DC has fifty-two of them, to be exact! There’s so much potential for so many adventures to be had, so many dangers to overcome and so many perils to be faced! With a major crossover, we the readers get ONE story to read. ONE danger to overcome. ONE peril to face. You don’t like that story? Too bad. Everyone in that universe is involved in it.

I sincerely hope there’s a backlash coming from all these perpetual crossovers and tie-ins. I hope there’s a return to that variety of storytelling that I grew up with. I hope that “big events” become rare and special again, so when they do come and affect every superhero in the universe it’s a treat for us to get swept up in that epic battle!

Nowadays, when we’re on Epic Superhero World-Shattering Struggle Number Eight in a Row, the effect is lost on me.

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“You’re not a REAL fan.”

I’ve often heard this said at fan gatherings of all sizes and types, and it’s always made me wonder:

What IS a ‘real fan’?

Is it the person that spends all of their money and time on the object of their fandom?

Is it the person that enjoys a particular subject once in a while, spending more than one might normally on that particular subject?

Is it the person who just says, “I’m a fan of such-and-such”?

Which is it?

I get the distinct impression that when someone says, “You’re not a real fan,” they’re implying that the person being spoken to does not share their level of fandom, be it in level of time spent in the fandom, the amount of money spent on the fandom, or the level of knowledge devoted to the fandom.

Do we have a set range for what makes a person a certain kind of fan?

Is there a scale that we can use, that we can take a measurement from to state what kind of fan we are?

If, for example, we go with a one to one-hundred scale, with one being ‘minimum level of interest’ and one-hundred being ‘absolute and utterly devoted fan’, what would fifty be? Twenty? Ninety-nine?

Taking this further, how would we gauge this number? Amount of time spent involved with it? Amount of money spent on it? A mix of both?

What about involvement in the industry that promotes/creates a particular fandom? Would that take away from your ‘fan cred’? Would it bolster it?

By now, you’re probably tired of all the questions. You might be asking yourself, “well, buddy, what do YOU think a real fan is?”

In my opinion, and this just that, MY opinion, is that a real fan is one that truly enjoys whatever the fandom may be about. Maybe they don’t spend half of their paycheck on merchandise related to the fandom. Maybe they don’t watch videos related to their fandom every day. But when they DO buy something, or watch something in their fandom, they truly enjoy it, even if only for a short while.

That is what I think a real fan is.

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Once upon a time, in college, I started hanging out with a fairly cool group of guys. I’d just gotten out of a kinda stifling relationship with a guy who only watched the occasional Bugs Bunny cartoon and disdained video games, so my geek muscles were weak and flabby. These guys, however, had tons of video games in their dorm room, and several systems. I could walk in and they could be playing anything from a Final Fantasy to Samba de Amigo. They also had anime. Lots of anime. And comic books everywhere. And they were social!!

It was a revelation. I started to relax, and remember my geek roots. Then, disaster! I had picked up a game- I don’t even remember which one. It was an RPG of some sort, and I had just named my character, cheerfully enjoying my newfound freedom to play. One of the guys got home from classes and stopped to watch me for a moment, when he spoke.

“You’re not naming him that are you? That’s not a guy’s name.”

The casual scorn stung. I’m sure he was just teasing in his own way. I got to know him better later, and realized his dry delivery was just how he was, but that one comment had been enough. I stopped playing where anyone but my nearest and dearest could see.

In hindsight I should have probably just laughed it off, and played on, but my courage was so new that it was fragile and I let it fail. Even now, I have a tough time playing with others, but I know now that either they aren’t worth my energy worrying about, or they’re merely jealous. Either way, I feel that my Adult Wisdom has begun to serve me well, to allow me to simply be who I am, and it is telling me to play more video games.

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