All the important news from the last week, I read so you don’t have to!

Obama wins Guam by seven votes. Seven, that’s is seven Guamanese… Guamos, Guamatanomos… people from Guam that made a difference, even though they can’t vote in November!

Iron Man the Movie comes out. Fanboys think it’s the “best comic book movie ever,” sorta-fanboys say, “It was pretty alright, better than Spiderman 3,” non-fanboys say, ‘Why did they base a movie off a Black Sabbath Song? Bah bah bah bah bah, bona bona bona bona bona DUN DUN DUN!”

Let’s Yoga is released for Nintendo DS. Girlfriends everywhere hijack DS for a week, give up, tell their boyfriends they should start doing Yoga. “It’s only eight minutes a day, what the hell else do you do?” They say… “We do important things,” we say, “Like write about the news.”

Some website launches, wants to pay its writers peanuts. Sometimes people ask me questions about how much I get paid. I usually tell them. In this particular case, this website wants to pay its writer the equivilent of .012 cents per word. That’s about six dollars for a 500 word article. Let’s put it this way, even the Onion pays .10 cents a word.

Microsoft finally backs off the Yahoo bid.  Yahoo is like, sha’ like we’re totally worth more than that. OMG. We have the gayest, stupidest logo using the most god awful fucking font ever. Buy us at $37 a share!

Since Microsoft gives up, some type of merger has to happen, DT, known to Americans as T-Mobile is considering puting in a bid for Sprint/Nextel. That means it would be at least three companies rolled up into one. Firefighters wonder if they’ll still get a chance to balance the budget.

GKT levels up to 55 in COD4. Unemployment has allowed him to get pretty dang good.

Genetics found to be the cause of most problems. Now its oseoporosis and other bone fractures. Creationists and religious zealots insist, “It’s God’s fault your fucked up, not your parents.” 

Tecmo Bowl is announced for the Nintendo DS. GKT get’s super stoked.

NIN hops on the free train. Apperently Trent Reznor’s head isn’t as much like a hole as we’d all thought. Perhaps this is because of Radiohead’s success, perhaps it’s because NIN is indeed a progressive band. As long as there is a song with a vocoder and a theremin I’ll be happy.

Okay, so there are a lot of gimmicky things in the world, gimmick games, gimmick books, gimmick records. But sometimes the gimmicks work – which is why we all keep on trying (and for those that need the self-referential comment because you’re too fucking stupid ot get it: The Republic of Thoronia is totally legit and real). Anyway, some of my favorite gimmick’s (even the word “gimmick” seems a little off, I mean, why wouldn’t it be spelled “gimic” because you say it just like “mimic”)  are included below: 

 Books

An Ordinary Spy by Joseph Weisberg – An Ordinary Spy features tons of blacked out words to reflect what a CIA memo might look like to one of us normals. It’s a little silly, but the story works and the gimmick of blacked out words actually helps keep the story going and the reader guessing. Not suprisingly its a little annoying, but it makes the reader actually work at their job of reading, and sometimes, especially in genre fiction, that’s something to applaud the writer for.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski – To those who haven’t read House of Leaves and have just seen it – it looks and feels all gimmick. A muscle curdling 709 pages the novel follows several plotlines, from an annoying tattoo shop apprentice to the Navidson Record-a story written by a blind man named Zampano about a documentary film that chronicles the adventures of a few men as they travel deep into a house that doesn’t seem to end. Yeah, so now that the whole plot thing is out of the way and you totally understand what the book is about, we can move on the real gimmicky part of it all. Fake records, photos, typographical errors, mistakes, design, an appendix, a reference… the list goes on. Pick up a copy of House of Leaves and just sift through it. But the book, as a whole and as a vision for a budding author is remarkable. Danielewski’s scope and understanding of his own bizarre maze makes House of Leaves respectable in and of itself. 

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov – Calling anything by Nabokov a gimmick might get me shot-but if this novel had come out by anyone else at another period of time it would be termed gimmicky. So shut up. Anyway, the framing of the novel is simple enough: A fictional friend gives an introduction to a fictional poem by a fictional author. Simple enough right? Pale Fire is by far one of the best examples of metafiction that really works – others would include: 

• William Gass’s – Willie Master’s Lonely Wife 
  • In which Gass himself makes several appearences and the real hero of the novel is indeed not the author’s character but the reader him/herself. Essentially Gass gives the reader the very unusual feeling that we are indeed making love with the book, to put it nicely where Gass likely wouldn’t of.
• Robert Coover’s – “The Magic Poker” 
  • Oye. Coover’s “The Magic Poker” has been studied and studied again — and to really no end. What we know for sure is that the narrator is some sort of magical wizard pumping his ideas into the reader’s head as we all just do what he tells us to. Probably wouldn’t work as well in another country, I’d have to say. No, certainly they just wouldn’t stand for it.
• Kurt Vonnegut’s – Slaughterhouse 5 
  • “That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book.”
• Cervantes’ – Don Quixote
  • Crazed country gentleman occasionely confuses reality with fiction — just as perhaps the reader might do with this particular work. What’s real then?
• Italo Calvino’s – If On A Winter’s Night a Traveler
  • It’s a book about a reader that is reading the stories in the book. What is so hard to understand about that?
• John Barth’s – Lost in the Funhouse
  • A sort of literature 101 as Barth hops, skips and jumps through genre, title, plot and all the other conventions that we still see in modern literature.
• Paul Auster’s – New York Trilogy
  • Holy smokes. I don’t even fucking know anymore. Perhaps a mystery novel in which the character and author interact in ways that haven’t really been seen before? Or just a mystery novel? 
• Alasdair Gray’s – Lanark   
  • In which towards the end of the novel not only do we get a chance to meet the author with Lanark we are also treated to a massive list of supposed plagiarisms performed by the author. Aw, thanks Mr. Gray, not I remember where I thought I’d heard that before!

Movies 

Adaptation by Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman — Really, this is just a story about Kaufman writing the adaptation of a book that can’t be adapted into a film and struggling with it. So, maybe a little autobiographical eh? Whatever, the gimmick is really the absurdity of it all — and I’m okay with that. See also Being John Malkovich. 

“Duck Amuck” — By far my favorite cartoon of all time. If this isn’t some metacartoon gimmick I don’t know what is. 

Schizopolis by Steven Soderbergh — One of my favorite movies of all time, this bizarre romp through movie making showcases how a gimmick can quickly become movie making magic. 

F For Fake by Orson Welles — As Orson Welles tries to get to the bottom of an art mystery it turns out that perhaps we’ve all been had. Fucking Orson Welles. 

Music

Night Ripper by Girl Talk – Don’t fucking argue with me about this. Yeah, its a great, super-fun album that mashes together so many freaking songs that you’re never entirely sure what you’re hearing at any given moment, but its a solid, complete, gimmick. Tell me you’re going to look back in 50 years and say this is one of the greatest albums of all time, TELL ME THAT. 

 Yeah, this was probably worth the time and effort, I mean it takes every annoying sound from Windows and turns it into a “song.” Way to go bra’. 

Matmos A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure – All sounds from this record were taken from the operating table. And it sounds so pretty, and gross.   

Smurfs All Star Show  – What? This album is remarkable. Eat your heart out Devendra Banhart! This is real folk/disco/dance-punk.

Video Games 

Wii Sports Wii – Yeah, its gimmicky, stupid, silly, but a blast. I’m sorry, but bowling with a remote, playing tennis, awesome.  

Lobster Petting Mac OSX, iPhone – Yep. You pet a lobster with a mouse. Why do I enjoy this? Maybe I need an iPhone so I can actually pet a lobster. Anyone want to buy me an iPhone?  

Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS — You control Link with a stylus on a touch screen. Questions? The whole friggin’ system is a gimmick. 

 Technologies

iPhone by Apple – As of right now, Apple’s “Smartphone” is still one massive touchy feely gimmick. Yeah, its neat, its fun to touch, you can search the internet real neat like a absolutely horrendously slow speeds.  But soon enough, come June the iPhone is going to become a badass little miniature powerhouse. Think of the possibilities: A little recording studio, recording software, lobster petting, Word, Excel, Delicious Library — the possibilities are nearly endless provided Apple doesn’t lock it down too hard. Oh, and its a phone. 

Nintendo Wii/DS – Both systems are complete gimmicks and both are fun. One gives you motion sensors and IR and the other gives you two screens, once of which is handily waiting to be touched with a stylus. Yep, in other countries they get to learn to languages, study for exams, take tests — all on the DS, here we get Ninja Gaiden and Cooking Games. 

Korg Kaoss Pad  – This handy little device also features a touch screen… hmm… theme? Touch the music, make it do stuff. Yep.   

 Articles and Features

“Host” by David Foster Wallace 

 David Foster Wallace’s article about radio hosts gets the typical DFW treatment, it’s available with the above link in its internet form (not as neat) or available in “The Atlantic” or Consider the Lobster orThe New Kings of Nonfiction. 

Yahtzee hates everything. He makes a cute video every week where he makes fun of every video game that he hates — sometimes he likes them. Fun animation ensues!