I Just Read About That…

  SOUNDTRACK: THE DUCKWORTH LEWIS METHOD-Sticky Wickets (2013).

The cricket-loving songwriters are back with their second disc.  Although I bought their first disc because I love Neil Hannon, I found myself enjoying the songs by Pugwash’s Thomas Walsh even more.  (Which led me to get some discs by Pugwash, a great, sadly unknown band).

I’m inclined to say I like Walsh’s songs better on this disc as well–his title track has a groovy classic ELO-inspired guitar riff and Walsh’s great falsetto vocals.  But I also love the bouncy fun of “Boom Boom Afridi” (written by Neil Hannon). So maybe I just like the two of them together.

These are followed by the amusing “It’s Just Not Cricket” which features a group of rowdy indignant cricket fans singing along. See the awesome accompanying picture below which shows the kind of sort of naughty but not really way the sport is portrayed on the disc.  “The Umpire” gives some real sympathy to the Cricket umpire (who eats his eggs and soldiers) as his position is taken over by machines.

I don’t know much about cricket, so I don’t claim understand what most of these songs are about, but the awesomely bouncy and catchy “Third Man” is a total mystery to me.  But that doesn’t stop me from singing along. It’s like a classic lost Pugwash song.  It even has a (weird) narration from Daniel Radcliffe.  “Chin Music” is a pretty, carnivalesque instrumental.

“Out in the Middle” is a slower Walsh song which is also very pretty.  “Line and Length” is a silly song which (in spoken word) explains how line and length are used in cricket. It has a very discoey chorus which differs nicely from the formality of the verse. “The Laughing Cavaliers” is a march with a big choral vocal line. “Judd’s Paradox” has a lengthy spoken section by Stephen Fry (at his most formal). It’s a very enjoyable song with an interesting perspective on cricket and history.

“Mystery Man” is a pretty, sixties-sounding song with bouncy jaunty keyboards and a catchy chorus–except that the verses are all about how he’s a tough bowler.  It’s also got a hilarious spoken word section read by Matt Berry “trod on wicket.”

“Nudging and Nurdling” ends the disc and is more or less 5 minutes of people saying the words “Nudging and Nurdling” set to a boppy silly melody.  The list of contributors is extensive, although I’ve only heard of Daniel Radcliffe, Neil Finn, Joe Elliott, Matt Berry, Graham Linehan, an Michael Penn (!) who sounds so American. I love they way they build something so simple (and kinda dumb) into such a big song by the end.

Hannon and Walsh know how to write gorgeous songs (even if they can be rather silly).  This is a great collection–even if you don’t know anything about cricket.  You too will soon be shouting along with the Laughing Cavaliers.

[READ: November 9, 2014] In Real Life

I was pretty excited when I saw this book.  I really like Cory Doctorow and here was a comic of his published by First Second, one of my favorite graphic novel publishers (I need to make a category for them…there, done).  I didn’t know Jen Wang’s artwork, but that hardly mattered as the cover was gorgeous.

So the story is an interesting one.  It begins simply enough with Anda, a young girl who has moved from San Diego to Flagstaff (of course, we don’t learn that she moved to Flagstaff for a few pages, so the fact that we are introduced to Flagstaff by a snowfall was confusing to me–I assumed she was on the East Coast).  However, this was not as confusing to me as the other character in the book who doesn’t know where Flagstaff is.  What high school aged person doesn’t know that Flagstaff is in Arizona?

Anyhow, we see Anda in school and her class is given a presentation by Liza the Organiza, a woman who is introducing the class to an online virtual game called Coarsegold (I’m also confused as to why this woman would be allowed to give this presentation in school, but maybe I’m too nitpicky here?).  Incidentally, I really enjoyed most of the art in the book, but the picture of Liza the Organiza on this same page is quite disturbing to me.  In fact, a few pictures in “real life” seem a little “off” to me, and I was worried that I wouldn’t enjoy the visual aspect of the book.  But when we get into the game, the pictures are simply fantastic, so I don’t know what that’s all about.

Okay, back to Coarsegold.  Liz invites all the gamer girls in the class to play the game but only if they play as girl avatars (all of them admit that they only play as boy avatars).  (Do the boys in the class not get to play this game?).  Anda is excited to join and agrees to play as a girl (her mom is skeptical, but eventually agrees to pay the monthly fee–again, this seems unlikely to be done via the school).

Anda proves to be great in the game and “Sarge,” the leader of their troupe compliments her on her skills.  Then Sarge invites her to go hunting for “gold farmers.”  In the game, the gold farmers are small, cute troll like creatures who are apparently indeed farming for gold.  Sarge says that they dig up gold and then sell it to players for some game thing blah blah.  And that they are bad.  And there are other people who will pay to see the gold farmers killed.  Anda doesn’t know much about this so she decides to help Sarge, and she succeeds and makes some cash at the same time.

Now, I was uneasy about her killing these people, but then I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be.  Is gold farming a thing?  I have no idea.  I am not a gamer, but I’m not unaware of gamer culture.  But I’m not sure if I’m supposed to know that they are bad or if I’m just supposed to be kind of confused like Anda is.

Later Sarge explains that they are all bots created to steal gold in the game, to sell it to blah blah blah.  But if Anda talks to them in English and they don’t respond, they are bots.  So kill ’em.  Okay.

Obviously this leads to an issue later–Anda actually speaks to and befriends a gold farmer named “Raymond.”  She learns that he is a 16 year old Chinese boy who works as a gold farmer (and other jobs as well) in China.  After meeting with him and talking (in the game), he reveals that he is sick and has no health insurance.  Anda encourages him to take action (like they are doing at her father’s company) and to stand up for his rights.  She tells him to strike and to get the other workers to join him.

Anyone who knows anything about China knows this can’t end well, and it doesn’t.  And soon, Raymond’s friends come after Anda to yell at her for getting him fired.  And then her mom sees that people have been sending her money and she freaks out on her as well.  She refuses to let Anda play again.

After a few days Anda goes to an internet cafe (do those still exist?) and logs in.  Her online friends are psyched she is back.  But when Sarge sees her talking to a gold farmer she freaks out.  Soon Anda and Sarge are engaged in a violent battle.  They are both suspended from the game primarily for doing this gold farmer stuff which is not part of the game itself.

Eventually the girls chat and the truth is revealed.  And with a little help from Raymond’s Chinese friends they try to get other Chinese employees to protest their working conditions (using technology in the game).  Can that possibly work out well?

After finishing the book I read that this book was adapted from a Doctorow story called “Anda’s Game” (ha).  I haven’t read the story (but I’m going to look for it), so I don’t know this for sure, but I sense that the graphic novel feels like it was adapted from a more complicated, more dense work.  What I mean is that there are a lot of things that come up in the story but not all of them seem to be fully explored.  There were times when I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to know more about what was happening than I did.  And I have to assume that there would be more information about gold farming and conditions in China and even her relationship with her parents.

There’s a subplot a bout a girl who wants to start a board game club.  There’s a weird little section about Anda being overweight which is mentioned only once.  Anda is drawn curvy, which I rather liked (even if she selects a more “pretty” avatar) but it was weird the way her weight was only mentioned in one ice cream scene–is it an issue or not?

Although I was unclear if anything like what happened could really happen in China (I know I’m propagandized as well, but I believe  there are no workers right at all there), I still enjoyed the premise and the end of the story.  It also achieved Doctorow’s goal (as stated in the introduction) that the book is about games and economics.  He talks about how the net can help people to organize (see the Occupy Movement) and this is his way of demonstrating that.  I’m curious if any non-cynical teens will be more inspired by the book than I was.