I never really used the Genius feature in iTunes much since I pretty much have all of my shuffling goodness taken care of by a bunch of Smart Playlists.  But I was pretty intrigued by the new Genius Mixes – 12 auto-generated radio station-like mixes derived from your library and Genius information.  So I decided to give it a spin because it does sound pretty fun if it works.

The one that first jumped out as me was a mix based on Electric Light Orchestra, Steely Dan and Suga Shikao – a Japanese singer-songwriter that I like.  I thought that this was an intriguing and eclectic starting spot for a mix.  I also had them filed in different genres, so Genius was clearly not doing simple genre-matching.  And hey, it seemed like it would work.  So while I was working, I fired that one up to see what it came up with.  Turns out that it would have been a good mix had I wanted to listen to an ELO song, followed by a Steely Dan song, followed by a Suga Shikao song, followed by an ELO song, lather, rinse, and repeat.  Not so awesome.

Went back to the selection screen to seek a different mix.  Perhaps the first one was a little too eclectic for the Genius algorithm.  Ah-ha – one based on Queen, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Tom Petty.  Certainly they can manage to toss together a serviceable classic rock mix.  That one got off to a decent start with Honky Tonk Women, but in a couple moves I was getting Roxy Music ballads and some crappy NeoProg I didn’t know I even had.  Now, while I realize having the crappy NeoProg was indeed my fault, in my defense I had forgotten about it, and either way, it really had no business being in that mix.

So I punted and went back to classic Genius configuration – select a specific tune and then hit the Genius button.  At least that way you can see what is in the generated mix.  I started off with Tempted by Squeeze – expecting a peppering of 80’s New Wave, assorted Power Pop and perhaps some other British singer-songwriters like Graham Parker or Richard Thompson.  Instead it coughed up some Rush and pulled tracks from the single Grateful Dead album I have.  Strike three.

Another flaw of note: it seems to completely ignore user ratings.  I know not everyone rates all their stuff since it can be a pain.  However, I would expect that it would prioritize on higher-rated stuff if someone had rated everything as I have.  Apparently not.

I really like the Genius/Genius Mix idea, but sadly it still seems to be pretty half-baked.  Time to go back to the good old Smart Playlists.

Headed up to the Sundance Kabuki theatre (which is, incidentally, the most enjoyable, fun and civilized place to see a movie in San Francisco) to catch an matinee of Watchmen before the entire Internet spoiled it for me. And overall, I really have to give it a thumbs up. With a story of that scope, things simply need to get cut and I think they did a good job deciding what needed to stay and what had to go. And while some have expressed their disapproval of decisions like substituting the faux Dr. Manhattan attack for the Giant Squid, in the end, it still retained the “point” of the story. And while it enraged the purists to rename the group The Watchmen, I will assert without hesitation that it’s better than a sophomoric name like Crimebusters.

Moreover, at the risk of committing blasphemy against a bit of geek canon, I can’t say that the source material was without chaff in the first place. The Silk Spectre I and II backstory got way too much page time as far as I was concerned, and the point that Dr. Manhattan experiences time in a quantum fashion was nailed home a bit too much as well. I’ll probably commit the biggest heresy by saying that I thought that the whole Black Freighter story was pretty redundant as well. I didn’t require an analogy to the story I was already reading while I was reading it. So I was glad that all of those got pared down. And while I thought the Black Freighter bit was overdone, I think that the way they are releasing it as a separate direct-to-video release is a smart and intriguing move.

Random observations…

Stuff that was categorically good:

• The opening credits. Not only were they visually interesting, but that was a really smart way to touch on the backstories of the first generation of masked adventurers. They obviously could not spend too much screen time on that and I thought that handing it that way was smart and very interesting from a narrative point of view.
• Casting and performances for Rorschach and The Comedian. Jeffrey Dean Morgan really brought the character of The Comedian alive for me, and I enjoyed the cinematic performance much more than the portrayal in the source material. In the novel he was just a pig, but in the movie he was pure psychotic misanthropy. And holy crap, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach was dead on (masked and otherwise).
• New looks for Nite Owl II and Ozymandias. I think that the “darker” looks of both of their costumes worked really well, especially in the case of Nite Owl. Additionally, I really liked the “more Bowie and less Prince Valiant” look that actor Matthew Goode brought to Ozymandias too. Made him a touch more sinister.
• It was amazingly well-paced. Two and three-quarters of an hour is a pretty long movie. But unlike other recent longish movies (like The Dark Knight), I never had a sense of “sitting through a long movie”. Takes a good touch to pull that off.
• Violence. Watchmen is a dark and violent story and that was going to be reflected in the movie. While some of the violent scenes were pretty cringe-worthy (and I’m not really a shrinking violet on that mark), I don’t think that it ever strayed into the realm of “gratuitous”.
• Fight scenes. The murder of The Comedian, Nite Owl/Silk Spectre vs. The Street Punks and the Ozymandias/Nite Owl/Rorschach three-way were all really well choreographed.  Rorschach continuing to put his hat back on while getting his ass handed to him during that last fight scene tickled me.  I love that crazy guy.

Criticisms and questions:

• Nixon overdose. Don’t you just briefly glimpse him on a single page of the novel? I really can’t quite figure out why that change was made. I think that the more subtle handling of the political climate in the source material was much better. And while I think that Nixon was a total rat bastard, his nose was never that goofy looking.
• Bungling Rorschach’s backstory. In a general sense, I don’t think they spent enough time on the brutality of Rorschach’s early life. It’s a big key to why he is the way he is. Additionally the change to the “Birth Of Rorschach” flashback was stupid. Pouring kerosine all over the place, offering the child murderer a “difficult choice” and then watching the place burn was more interesting and metaphorically rich than just cleavering the guy in the head a couple of times.
• Nite Owl I and II plot hole. I recall the vigilante murder of Nite Owl I being a pretty salient part of the Nite Owl II story. Excluding that left a pretty big loose end in the narrative. Since they chose to omit that part, they may as well have left all out the content with Nite Owl I since it sort of goes nowhere without the bitter end.
• Surprised they omitted the party scene where Silk Spectre II confronts The Comedian about the attempted rape of her mother. Wouldn’t have required much screen time and I thought that part really ratcheted up the tension between those characters. I would have included that and was surprised that it got cut. Same deal with skipping over the pressure Laurie was under to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Sort of a salient point.
• Something was missing in the final scenes at Karnak II. I can’t totally put my finger on it, and the events follow the source material for the most part. But it was just missing a certain je ne sais quoi. It was not a deal breaker but it still felt lacking. Perhaps because it didn’t want to go all the way with the “this is not exactly a happy ending” vibe.

So that’s an additional two cents in the ever-filling “Internet Watchmen change jar”. Looking forward to a second watch sometime in the next week or so with someone who has not read the source yet. Screw the purists. This was a really good movie.  Looking forward to the inevitable extended dance remix DVD.

The Graveyard Book

Just listened through Neil Gaiman’s new offering The Graveyard Book and I must say, if any of his fans (or fans of speculative fiction in general) are avoiding picking it up because it is ostensibly a “children’s book” – you are doing yourself a disservice.  This is a book that anyone (including children obviously) could read and enjoy, not a “book for children”.  There is a difference.

The premise is simple enough: this is basically a riff on the Mowgli stories from Kipling’s The Jungle Book (and other literature with similar themes).  But rather than having a character raised by animals and learning their ways, the protagonist “Bod” (a toddler as the story beings) is taken in and cared for by dead people.  In a graveyard.  Great seed idea really.  I’ve always loved when this author, generally in his short stories, plays with themes and styles of other kinds of literature and this experiment is no exception.

The narrative style has a cool structure: the entire eight chapter book defines a complete story.  However, every chapter is essentially a self-contained short story, each taking place approximately 2 years apart.  The only thing that really jumped out at me about this being accessible for younger audiences is the prose he chose.  I once heard an interview with Mr. Gaiman and when asked how he approached writing children’s books versus his regular output, he said (me paraphrasing) that when writing children’s books, every word was there for a reason, whereas in his other books (he used American Gods as an example), there were plenty of words included just because he wanted them there.  So yes, the prose in The Graveyard Book is very focused and compact, but it is still descriptive and playful and the self-contained chapters keep things fresh and interesting.

Even with its accessibility to younger readers with it’s compact prose and smaller cast of characters, it can still be pretty dark in places.  Bod is being raised by dead people after all, and some of the characters, like his not-dead yet not-alive guardian Silas, definitely have a sinister edge.  Plus (this is not a spoiler as it happens on the first page), the book begins by the toddler Bod wandering out of his house at the exact moment that the rest of his family is being murdered by a knife-wielding intruder who likes his work a little too much.  And unlike most children’s books (I would imagine) this actually has a rather melancholic ending.  Made me a little sad at least.

The audiobook was a real treat as well.  As with the audiobook releases of his short story collections, this is narrated by Neil himself.  I understand why they get “professional narrators” to do his longer and more complex works like American Gods and Neverwhere, but there is a certain delight in listening to a storyteller read their own story.  While not a professional voice actor, he assuredly brings a certain additional charm to his own work. The audiobook is just under eight hours long and the chaptering style makes it really easy to manage.  Each chapter is perfect for a train ride or a run.

The other awesome thing he did was how they did the book tour for the release.  At each consecutive stop, he read a chapter from the book – they videotaped the reading and made the videos available for free online.  It seems that Neil in cooperation with his publisher Harper Collins has been showing that you can actually increase sales by giving away content.  I wish more companies would get on board with this.  If they spent as much time trying to find new and inventive ways to market their product as they do lobbying Congress, they might move some more units.  I discovered Gaiman’s oeuvre from one of these giveaways and that certainly got him a fan and his publisher a new customer.

So, I need to give this one a thumbs-up.  In either audio or written form, this is a compelling and inventive story that just about anyone can enjoy.  Unless you’re a jerk.  If you do have a child, then read it to them and you’ll both have a blast.  And hey, Halloween is almost upon us so everyone can use a creepy story right about now!

I happened across an interesting iPhone App today that integrates with/enhances the built-in camera.  It is called CameraBag and it purports to emulate other camera formats/film sizes/effects.  You can use it “live” while taking pictures or doctor already taken pictures on your iPhone, and I must say, it’s pretty cool.  It won’t replace Photoshop, but for on-the-fly pix to be posted to the cloud, it has it’s uses.  And at a current price of $2.99, one could do worse.

The app mimics various cameras lens/exposure styles (apparently the preset names are changed for copyright reasons), border styles and aspect ratios:

1. Helga: An old toy square format camera with vignetting. Square format.
2. Lolo: Not sure of the vintage, but makes very vivid shots. Square format w/borders.
3. Cinema: Dramatic contrast-y shots with the appropriate 16:9 aspect ratio.
4. Ansel: Mister Adams style smooth silvery B/W gradients.  Original aspect.
5. 1962: Old style contrast-y B/W. Original aspect.
6. 1974: Washed out color photos.  3:2 bordered aspect (Polaroid?).
7. Infrared: For infrared landscapes shots.  Original aspect.

Here are comparison shots based on one picture – click on the thumbs for larger pix (the thumbnails don’t represent the aspect ratio of the final shots):

This is the original shot from my iPhone.  Predictably, it’s a crappy shot.  A no flash indoor/incandescent light/no ambient light shot, so it is fuzzy and has the horrible indoor white balancing issues you would see in such a snap.  Not to mention, the iPhone is not the best camera on the planet.

The orginal shot

This is the Helga tweek: all nicely washed out and vignetted.  It has charm.

Helga preset

This is the Lolo shot: it boosted the shitty indoor “gold bloom” white balance issues, but amped up the colors and contrast.  I’ll say more about this preset later since this is a bad example of this preset.  Note the stylistic thick border around this one – kind of cool, no?

Lolo preset

The Cinema shot: the aspect of this shot is all wrong (since it is applying a 16:9 landscape aspect to a portrait aspect shot), but it’s nicely touched up the contrast and colors of the shot.  Probably want to shoot “live” through the CameraBag when using this one rather than post-processing (it gives you a mask to aim off of when you are shooting “live”).

Cinema preset

The Ansel shot: very nice smooth greyscaling.  This will work nicely if one wants a good B/W shot.

Ansel preset

The 1962 shot: cool, constrasty and grainy.  I like this one.  One could get all dramatic with this one.

1962 preset

The 1974 shot: normally I like more saturated photos but I like the somewhat washed out version here and the interesting aspect ratio/bordering. Plus, Bethany likes it, so it’s gotta be good.

1974 preset

The Infrared shot: probably a bad example since I think this is mostly for outdoor nature shots.

Infrared preset

One can either post-process shots taken with the internal camera – in which case it creates a new processed copy – or “shoot directly” from the plugin where it just saves the doctored version. As noted above, it’s probably a good idea to shoot “live” through the app when using one of the square-ish or cinema presets.

I wanted to give another quick look at one of the presets that looks useful: the Lolo preset.  It seems to make things really vivid.  Consider the following:

Bad light Lolo test

This is a prety banal shot really.  Just an uninteresting tester picture of some junk on my back porch.  However, this was taken on one of those horrible San Fransicso days where the light, the air, and everything else was basically the color of dirty dishwater.  The light was low, the focus is lame, and there was no flash.  But everything with color, including the cherry tomatoes on our dying vines, has some snap.  So that’s sort of cool.

All told, CameraBag is no substitute for lovingly post-processing your shots in Photoshop/Pixelmator/whatever.  Then again, the iPhone is not really a substitute for a proper point and shoot (or better).  Since more and more photos from sketchy “cameras” like the iPhone are getting put online via social networking sites/apps without intervention, I think that CameraBag is not a bad way to touch up an iPhone photo or front-load a little artistic touch before doing something with it.

Final verdict: check it out!