Thursday, May 31, 2012

Essay: "The Difference Between Being Addictive and Good"


When people talk about the quality of a work of narrative art (whether a book, a show, a film or a video game) they often talk about how addictive or compulsive it is. I played it for 8 hours straight, they’ll say, or we watched a whole season over the weekend, or I couldn’t put it down. The recently released Diablo 3 has been called “the most addictive video game of all time.” This is meant as praise, I suppose, although it’s interesting that “addictive” is obviously not seen as being an attractive quality in most other circumstances.

Likewise, when people criticize a work of art, they often talk about how it lacked this quality, how it was boring or tedious. World-weary reviewers take pride in saying they found The Da Vinci Code dreadfully boring, that they were immune to its charms.  In other words, that it did not work on them.

There seem to be remarkably few people who believe that a work of art can be both addictive and dreadful, but that’s what I’ve come to believe.  Works of art aren’t addictive because they’re very good. They're addictive becasue they're designed to be that way.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Essay: "Avon contra Stringer - Part Two"

Last week we discussed Proposition Joe's arrangement with Marlo, where Marlo provided muscle and Joe hooked him up with good drugs.  Now just think, in the context of organized crime, how ridiculous that is.  What would be Joe's recourse if Marlo refused?  A lawsuit?  If you rely on the other guy for the muscle, then you will only have the “connect” as long as he lets you keep it.