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	11 November 2004 PHOTO DIARY. Nicki got a little box from CapitalOne Credit Cards the other day. Once opened, it turned out to contain both a party whistle and a simple notification that her credit line had been increased. I haven't seen a marketing gimmick this joyful since 1999!   Back to main PHOTO DIARY. Here's a nice hedge in the shape of the letter N.   Back to main MOVIE: FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (2004). A Texas high school football team struggles to win its way to the state championships. This movie got great reviews, and from the first frame to the last I can see why: it's intensely acted, and filmed in a gritty, confident documentary style that effectively depicts the bleak brutality of West Texas with a deft economy. Its youthful and impressively talented ensemble cast deals with a good range of drama: the son who can't meet his father's expectations, the black kid hoping for a shot at the big time, the poor white kid who wants a scholarship. But take a step back from the glitzy execution, and you see a script that covers very well-tread turf while refusing to venture any new insights. Like, why is football so big in Texas? Why does the sport bring out so much of the worst in people? What's life like outside the world of football? None of these questions are even hinted at, and in the end we're left with more of the same: a sampling of admirable performances wasted on trite ideas. A Grammy-worthy, MTV-produced after school special. Or, a Gen-Y "me too" response to Oliver Stone's clanging bruisefest Any Given Sunday. Winning and losing, there ain't much difference between the two. Except for how the outside world perceives you.   Back to main 10 November 2004 GAME: GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDREAS (2004). An ex-gang member returns to his west coast 'hood to avenge the death of his mother. So, okay. All the stuff I loved about the original GTA III is here: running around, jacking a mind-boggling variety of vehicles, causing mayhem in the street, and stunt-jumping, stunt-jumping, stunt-jumping! Graphics? Eerily realistic. Damage effects? Immediately gratifying. Environment? Even bigger than before, and all based on local Los Angeles landmarks. But other stuff? N-n-not so much. Maybe it's just me and my fundamentally anti-RPG beliefs, but I really don't give a rat's ass about mundane busywork like buying property, eating (wha--?), or working out at the gym (double wha--?), even if it's all to build such amusing new character attributes as "Respect" and "Sex Appeal." The combat interface is still clunky and academic (why not just adapt a Max Payne-style third-person shooter setup?), cutscenes still take forever to load and play, and proven, basic game conventions are still just not there. Seriously, when I switch weapons, let me know with a clackity sound. Quit rationing out basic elements like running or strafing. And when I'm changing character outfits, let me preview clothes first, and keep the animation bloat to a minimum. Strangely, the game's overall tone is pretty damn serious. Where the first two installments teemed with silly mafiosos and '80's kitsch, San Andreas unsmilingly wears its gritty, gangbanger colors while swearing up a storm. I get the feeling that Rockstar Games is resting on its substantial laurels in its failure to bring some true game polish a generally clunky and hacked-together experience. It's this lack of refinement that forever keeps the GTA franchise at the brink of novelty in my mind--are the games merely vehicles for a violent & outrageous spectacle (shooting basehead slaves), or are they actually a game-games? Don't get me wrong: I'll play San Andreas, especially now that Andrew's back from Spain, but it won't give me the same rush that GTA III once did. GAMEPLAY: Run 'n' gun tempered with periods of drudgery. REMINISCENT OF: All the other GTAs. LIBRARY WORTHY? What you goin' to the library fo, bitch?   Back to main GAME: X-MEN LEGENDS (2004). Oh, it's a never-ending quest: to find a fun multiplayer co-op game that Nicki and I can play in bed before falling asleep at night. X-Men offered promise: a four-person brawler with X Power attacks (read: magic spells) and the standard set of attribute/skill trees, all rendered with a comic book aesthetic. So we pop the game in, play for a bit, and begin discovering everything that is wrong with it. Not that there are deep flaws to the game. Instead, it dies a death by a thousand cuts: an infuriatingly byzantine menu interface; cryptic, unsatisfying powerups; an attack strategy that's about as complicated as chopping carrots; little variation in weapons effects; characters that too often get lost in the shuffle; and worst of all, long-winded "game extras" that only the most devoted fan boy would have the patience to sift through. That said, me & Nicki will still play it. But only because there really aren't any alternatives. Something tells me that X-Men will have to take a step back to allow other games to pass, like, oh, Ratchet & Clank 3, or the new Metroid, or (gasp!) Halo 2. In the meantime it'll do as a nightcap, but just barely. GAMEPLAY: Mindless button mashing coupled with lots of superboring backstory. REMINISCENT OF: Champions of Norrath, Gauntlet Legends. Apparently, the word "legends" equals "four-player co-op" in the world of game marketing. LIBRARY WORTHY? Not even worth donating to the Xavier Institute.   Back to main MOVIE: RIVERS & TIDES (2001). Artist Andy Goldsworthy works outdoors with natural, found materials to create sculptures. This contemplative, slow-moving film documents Goldsworthy's works: autumn leaves arranged into a gradient of color; ice sheets piled neatly into four-foot-high, egg-shaped sentinels; bright yellow dandelions crowded into a rock pool by a river. There's something so compelling about seeing such stunning and enigmatic arrangements miraculously sitting in the middle of nowhere, like natural monuments in miniature. There's also something Blair Witch about it too, since Goldsworthy's compositions frequently involve wavy or round forms which, at first blush, seem to indicate some sort of talismanic meaning. But like the title says, Goldsworthy is primarily interested in the flows of nature. He operates by heading out into the wilderness (be it in his native Scotland, Nova Scotia, or wherever), spending all day crafting, say, an assemblage of icicle segments which appear to wind through a thrusting rock, and photographing the finished work. Then he documents its eventual disintegration: the sun rises, blazing through the tenuous thread of ice until it collapses and is claimed by the rising nearby tide. I love the feeling of discovery so inherent in his work (an igloo-like dome made of driftwood fragments off into the ocean) as well as its ephemeral nature. But I don't think his point is to say that all is impermanent; rather, he celebrates time, change, and mutation as having beauty in and of itself. The quiet bravado with which he allows his works to run their course (i.e., fall apart) is also inspiring contrast to an artistic world that operates under the more formal process of preparation, deployment, reception, and preservation. While his sculptures are ultimately archived as photographs, what endures in my mind is his easygoing, habitual creative stance. Artists everywhere who agonize over their respective blank canvasses would do well to go for a walk with Mr. Goldsworthy. When I make a work, I bring it to the very brink of collapse. And there's a beautiful balance.   Back to main 08 November 2004 PHOTO DIARY. Ads on airplane tray tables. They really put the bus in AirBus.   Back to main PHOTO DIARY. You're welcome, America!   Back to main PHOTO DIARY. After Josh & Christina's wedding, we took the Charles River Bridge, a.k.a. the Bill Buckner Bridge. Will Bostonians call it that now that the Curse has been reversed? Many of the cars on the road had those ribbon-shaped bumper stickers that seem to be everywhere these days. The yellow one (left), I believe, says Support Our Troops. The red, white and blue one says God Bless America.. Like those bizarre "Euro" badges, ribbon stickers have multiplied into a kaliedoscope of interest-driven varieties: pink for breast cancer, black for POW-MIA, red for AIDS, and, as we see here on the left, green for Irish Pride.   Back to main PHOTO DIARY. Went to Josh & Christina's wedding over the weekend, a couple hours west of Boston. Josh spent hours and hours making caramel apples as wedding favors. Check out the happy couple! We danced and danced and danced. 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