The theory goes like this: Nolan’s films and Kubrick’s films are alike primarily because before we see the actors playing the roles, we see the director lording over them. Very few directors exert control over their films like Kubrick and Nolan. They themselves are the stars, and their names are used to not only to promote but also to define the film and the experience of seeing the film. They go beyond being simple marketing tools and become promises: you are about to see a Christopher Nolan film. And that means something based on our previous experiences with Christopher Nolan films. It was the same with Kubrick.

But the more I think about it, the more I suspect that this may be an illusion. I suspect this because it is important to ask: what defines a film as a Christopher Nolan film? They all share some visual similarities, as did Kubrick’s. They sometimes feature either the same stars or supporting players, as did Kubrick’s on occasion (a stretch, I’ll admit, but Peter Sellers, Kirk Douglas, Sterling Hayden, and many supporting players featured in multiple Kubrick films). But those are almost superficial when one tries to get to the core of a Christopher Nolan film.

What is a Christopher Nolan film? Some people like to compare it to a puzzle, but I’ve started to think that the puzzle aspect of Nolan’s films is simply misdirection. He tells us as much in The Prestige, both through words (“Now you’re looking for the secret, but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled.”) and through direction (the men in the boxes). No matter how we examine his puzzles, we’ll never solve them, so why are they there? My personal belief is that they serve as misdirection, to distract our minds long enough to allow for maximum emotional impact, rather intellectual impact. (In this respect, I believe that Inception may be his masterpiece – I was openly weeping at the end.) But Nolan’s Batman films aren’t puzzles. They’re remarkably straightforward and accessible. Yet as you watch them, you don’t feel like he’s lost any of his artistic sense or “sold out.” They are Christopher Nolan films as much as his others.

Nor are his films unified by subject matter. In fact, they cover a very wide range of settings, themes, and ideas. Following has something in common with Memento, but little in common with The Dark Knight or The Prestige. Similarly, The Prestige doesn’t connect with either Batman film (except for casting) or Inception in style or story. Again, Kubrick was similar here. Dr. Strangelove had nothing in common with 2001: A Space Odyssey, which had nothing in common with any of his work in the seventies or eighties. The Shining and Lolita aren’t connected by anything except the force of Kubrick’s personality. There’s nothing in those stories that link them as Kubrick films. There’s no Tim Burton-like fascination with social outcasts, no George Lucas-like lust for escapism or nostalgia, no Tarantino-esque fascination with cinema as a reflection of society. Each of Kubrick’s and Nolan’s films has nothing to do with the rest of each man’s catalog (with the unique and insignificant exception of Nolan’s two Batman films, which also cover wildly different ground from each other).

So what links them?

My theory – and I’m not sure how much of this I  actually believe – is that there actually is very little connecting these films. There is not a definitive Christopher Nolan style or Stanley Kubrick style. Their works span a huge range of subjects, themes, etc. But because the men themselves are such huge personalities, such iconic filmmakers, we go into their films expecting that we will see “A Christopher Nolan film” or “A Stanley Kubrick film” without knowing what that means. In effect, we in the audience are responsible for linking these films to one another, because we expect that a director will conform to a particular set of expectations based on previous works. We are responsible for creating the notion of “A Christopher Nolan film” or “A Stanley Kubrick film,” but if you ask each of us what that means, you’ll probably get wildly varying answers. And what that indicates to me is that what defines these men as artists is not the unity of their catalog, but the diversity of them. Christopher Nolan has made very different films about wildly varying characters in wildly varying settings, just as Kubrick did. They bring their sensibilities to their work, but the piece itself and the way it is treated is unique from film to film. The fact is that there is no definitive Christopher Nolan film. There is no definitive Stanley Kubrick film. There is not that one defining work that tells you everything you need to know about the artist at his best. There is no Star Wars, no Pulp Fiction, no one film that is going to stick in the public’s consciousness and define the filmmaker.

So when we see “A Christopher Nolan” film, we think that we know what to expect, but we actually don’t. It’s the same thing with a Kubrick film. We are constantly off-balance, never quite sure what we are getting, and if what we get doesn’t match up with our expectations – what we bring into the theater with us – then it’s sometimes tough for us to swallow. What can we do then? As with Kubrick, we should go into Nolan’s films with an open mind and leave our expectations at the door.

You know, exactly the thing that is next-to impossible for we human begins to do when evaluating any artistic endeavor.

Specifically, the shift in portrayals of religion in the novel is sloppy and poorly executed. Heinlein attempts to justify his sudden promotion of institutionalized religious dogma by explaining that he does not consider Valentine Michael Smith’s church to be a true religion as much as it is a spiritual movement. Yet he goes to great pains throughout the novel to draw explicit parallels between Mike’s church and that of the Fosterites, as well as to paint Foster himself as a huckster, only to suddenly reverse himself on both counts at the end of his story.

Worse, Heinlein’s shifts his writing style in the latter sections of the novel and commits the greatest sin a writer can commit: he starts telling us what is happening, rather than showing us. We hear a lot about Mike’s church and its impact on society and the way people react to it, but we don’t actually see any of this until the end, at which point it lacks the necessary emotional context to have a great impact. In addition, he begins to introduce new characters while downplaying established ones, to the determent of the story as a whole. The character of Jill, for instance, ultimately is a non-entity by the end of the story, despite being crucially important for the first three quarters. Did he stop liking her? Did he just not want to write her anymore? Why does he forget her so quickly?

Additionally, Heinlein’s theme has shifted profoundly by the end of the story. Initially promoting scientific reason, skepticism, and the foolishness of human culture, law, and institutions, he changes his tune and instead chooses to promote vague spiritualism and a survival-of-the-fittest mentality the belies not only previously developed ideas, but also the hitherto established Martian social structures which Mike’s character values. In the end, Heinlein tells us his message, but the way that it clashes with the themes developed throughout the story uncut its effectiveness.

I am being critical, I know, and I would recommend the book to anyone with an interest in science fiction. In the end, though, I couldn’t enjoy it on the same level I could some other sci-fi classics. It is guilty of too many of the things that it criticizes, and by its end, Heinlein has done what I considered impossible for him: he has stopped writing to the best of his abilities. That alone makes this novel a tragedy.

The monthly Hulu Plus fee unlocks back catalogs, meaning that you could theoretically stream any episode of any Hulu series anywhere. I like that arrangement quite a bit, especially since the cornerstone of the system is a new app released for the iPhone and iPad, in addition to upcoming applications for the PS3 and Xbox 360.

The only hitch, I think, is that a lot of people aren’t going to see why they should pay for Hulu Plus. This goes back to web entitlement issues – because everything has been free up until this point, people think they will always be free. I’m not sure how the service will fare, and the potential for a public backlash is there, but I’m more optimistic about it as its being implemented than I was a few months ago.

I’m ready to cancel my cable. Release this thing and let me justify it!

I think that the first issue is that my web consumption habits have radically changed, beginning with my return from China in 2007. The allure of Facebook was always in that it facilitated connectivity and gave communication a much-needed speed-boost. The problem is that the Facebook experience is one that almost demands that you be tethered to a computer at all times in order to really get the most of it. Four years ago that was perfectly acceptable because compelling mobile communications devices were limited to BlackBerrys and dumbphones. But when the iPhone launched in 2007 and gave rise to the thriving smartphone industry, suddenly being a really good desktop communications network wasn’t good enough for me anymore. Add to that the fact that my time in China was functionally spent in semi-isolation, and it becomes obvious that I wasn’t really in the mood to having the vast majority of my social interactions through a website that require me to sit at my desk.

When I got my iPhone after graduation, everything changed. Suddenly I was untethered from my computer and constantly accompanied by a powerful internet communications device at all times. And the fact of the matter is that despite a few promising iterations, the Facebook apps for the iPhone just aren’t what they should be. They’re slow, buggy, and generally not pleasant to use. Even the official Facebook app doesn’t do the job. Facebook’s presence in the mobile space is just not very fulfilling.

Twitter, on the other hand, is perfect for mobile. I’ve alternated between Tweetie (now Twitter for iPhone), Seesmic, Echofon, and Twitterrific over the last year. They’re all spectacular, and they all let me do everything that Twitter is about: post quick updates, read what other interesting people are saying, and converse. Converse. That’s it. The apps work, and they bring a service perfect for on-the-go communication to devices perfect for the service. And for a young man on the go, that’s hugely important.

The second issues is that as my consumption habits have changed, the way I view technology has changed as well. One look at this web site will tell you that I’ve entered something of  a minimalist phase. I’ve become fascinated by the idea of stripping things down so that I have exactly enough tools at my disposal to do exactly what I want to do and nothing more. The problem I’m having with Facebook is that it doesn’t conform to that philosophy. No matter how hard I try to cut it down, there will always be significantly more of Facebook than I want to use. I’m left with the choice then of either putting a lot of effort into parts of the system that I don’t care about, or neglecting duties to the system that are expected of me.

Twitter, by contrast, strips out all of that profile and like and fan nonsense and lets me get to the core of what I want to do on a social network: communicate with people. The fact that Twitter does less than Facebook is its greatest strength, because it forces users to focus solely on what matters. And because all I have to do on Twitter is tweet, I can get involved in conversations much more easily, both with old friends and new ones, than I ever could on Facebook. Twitter’s limitations enable me to enjoy it more, because all I have to worry about is its core functionality.

And really, that’s what it’s all about. Facebook didn’t always have an open API with a gajillion connected applications. It didn’t always offer every possible tech solution under the sun. Once upon a time, it was just about communication. That’s changed now, and not necessarily for worse in a holistic sense. But it is a community that I’m less and less interested in being a party of, especially when Twitter is offering a simpler solution that enables easier, more mobile, and more direct communication. No futile and empty status updates. No meaningless “likes.” No FarmVille. Just a simple conversation with anyone. It’s a beautiful thing.

Why bother with Facebook?

(For more thoughts, check out what Nick Smith has to say on the subject.)

The demolition of Earth is not a grand tragedy. It is in fact a planned, controlled, perfectly safe event motivated largely by finance and viewed from a nearby satellite by a gathering of spectators, including the Doctor and Rose. It’s no different than knocking down a building. No lives are lost either, as the planet had been emptied long ago. Humanity has scattered among the stars, interbreeding with various alien species and integrating with the fabric of the universe. Even the trees have evolved, achieving sentience and leaving Earth behind for planets such as Cheem. What is the Earth, then, but an empty shell of its former glory, a habitat with no inhabitants? And what does the end of the world matter if its people have long since moved on?

“Moving on” is central here, and the demolition is significant in that it draws out how each of three characters handles doing so. The first is Cassandra. Surgically altered over the course of centuries, Cassandra is a sheet of skin with something vaguely resembling a face at its center. She is also a xenophobe, clinging bitterly to the notion that she herself is the only human remaining in existence, and that mankind’s descendants have become impure by intermingling with species from other worlds. Cassandra is, of course, the villainess of the episode – we aren’t yet at the point in the series where such traits can be applied to a potentially heroic figure – but in many ways she is reacting naturally to the sweeping change of the centuries: by denying it. How many of us, with our own paradigms of what is, isn’t, and should be, have ever ignored the realities of events that threaten to intrude upon our carefully constructed worldview? Cassandra believed that humanity was one particular thing, and when that thing changed, she refused to change with it. When her belief structure reached its logical end, she could not let go. She clung to it, demanding that it survive through her, because she couldn’t face the world without it. She couldn’t change, she couldn’t adapt, and because it, she allowed herself to become a monstrosity that parodied “pure” humanity. She didn’t want to know what happened after “the end.” She didn’t even acknowledge the end when it came.

Circumstances place Rose in opposition to Cassandra, both narratively and philosophically. Over the course of the episode, Rose – genuinely the last of the humans – comes to understand what happens after “the end,” although she can’t quite accept  that the end must come. When the planet is finally demolished, she can only mourn it. Rose, a woman of our time, says to the Doctor, “We were too busy saving ourselves, no one saw it go.” But when ever the trees have moved on, what’s left to hold onto but the memory of what once was? Rose can’t let go of the past in that sense, because she can’t understand that everything eventually has to end. But unlike Cassandra, Rose moves on. She makes herself better and gets on to the next thing. She accepts it. In many ways, Doctor Who is a series about humanity’s grand potential, and in Rose’s ability to move on to new things, we see that potential made manifest. It’s the same thing that enables the peoples of Earth to reach the stars, and it’s of the things that the Doctor admires about humanity.

The Doctor himself pretends to be able to move on. When Rose questions him about his past, he refuses to tell her anything. He tries to make it seem that his vision is fixed firmly on the future. But the Doctor understands endings. “Everything has its time and everything dies,” he says as he watches Cassandra’s gruesome death (or would-be death – more on that several episodes later). But he doesn’t understand moving on. He tries to block his past out, but instead can only relive it.

The Doctor is the survivor of a war. He belongs to a race of people called the Time Lords, and he is the only one left. His planet burned. And now he is alone. He believes in consequences, and has no qualms about letting Cassandra die for her actions. He endangers innocent lives just as he saves them, and he inspires others to give their own to save his. Jabe of Cheem becomes the first in a long line of one-off characters to sacrifice herself to allow the Doctor to save others. He recruits Jabe to come with him at the end of his mission, and it is difficult to see what other purpose he would have for doing so. He seems to expect it. Is this a consequence of the war, or is this the core of the man?

And above all, the Doctor is lonely. Rose learned to move on to the next thing in life, but the Doctor is perpetually looking back at the war that left him alone, and at least subconsciously, he wanted Rose to know how he felt. And when he finally opens up at the end of the episode, we get another glimpse of who the Doctor is. There is a reason that the Doctor brought Rose to the point in time where her planet dies by fire – so that she can experience his pain without having to live it. He wanted her to see her planet burn, to be the last of her kind, to contemplate the end of her world, and perhaps to show him how to move on from it. But what kind of man exposes an innocent girl to that horror? What kind of man seeks to relieve himself of his own suffering by causing the same suffering in someone else, someone he professes to care for? As Rose notes early in the episode, she doesn’t know the Doctor or anything about him. Is he the kind of man genuinely worth knowing? Is the good that he does worth the darkness in his soul? Again, this is the central paradox of the Doctor’s existence – he performs grand universal feats of good, and destroys individual lives to do it.

And then goes and eats chips with his friend.

“The End of the World” says that endings are not in fact the end. Rose learns the lesson. The Doctor will learn it eventually, but he’ll do so at a terrible cost.

Equally ambitious is the package in which this bundle of questions is presented. “Freak Out!” was the first double album debut by a recording artist, and one of the first rock double albums of any significance. The album sleeve itself tells a remarkable story, and I highly recommend that prospective listeners track down a copy of the album on vinyl, if only to examine the beautiful exterior and interior artwork. The back cover delivers a special message from Suzy Creamcheese (more on her in a minute), and the interior presents a collections of quotes, comments, and miscellany that Zappa felt necessary to include. This information provides a keen insight into Zappa’s mindset at the time of the album’s release, none more so that the introductory passage under the heading “What is ‘Freaking Out’?”

“On a personal level, Freaking Out is a process whereby an individual casts off outmoded and restricting standards of thinking, dress, and social etiquette in order to express CREATIVELY his relationship to his immediate environment and the social structure as a whole.”

The inclusion of this passage both explains the central premise of the album and raises an important question about the structure of “packaged art” – does it begin and end with the music, or does the music work together with the packaging in a deliberate artistic function? Is the album packaging a piece of art in and of itself, a piece of a larger whole with the music, or a disposable delivery mechanism that has no relevance to the actual product? In the case of “Freak Out!”, the second option seems most correct (if not completely correct). But consider this: before a note has been heard, Zappa has already called into question basic assumptions we hold about music. A year before Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band hit stores, and months before recording on it began, Zappa had already profoundly called into question the relationship between music, packaging, and the listener.

“Freak Out!” contains fourteen tracks spread over four sides. On the original vinyl release, the listen went as follows:

Side One:

1. Hungry Freaks, Daddy
2. I Ain’t Got No Heart
3. Who Are The Brain Police?
4. Go Cry on Somebody Else’s Shoulder
5. Motherly Love
6. How Could I Be Such a Fool

Side Two:

1. Wowie Zowie
2. You Didn’t Try to Call Me
3. Any Way the Wind Blows
4. I’m Not Satisfied
5. You’re Probably Wondering Why I’m Here

Side Three:

1. Trouble Every Day
2. Help, I’m a Rock

Side Four:

1. The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet

Each side of the album is arranged to contribute to the larger theme . The first is a series of songs about society, and disenchantment with traditional social conventions. The second portrays the process of letting go of those social conventions, without an accompanying transformation or enlightenment. The third shows the process of transformation, driven by both larger cultural events and internal conflicts. The fourth delivers on the promised “freak out” in glorious fashion. Distributed throughout the album are also themes of lost love, romantic futility, individualism, invasions of privacy, personal regret, teenage angst, sexual posturing, racial unrest, “plastic people” and an primal, almost-Lovecraftian chaos, all layered over musical arrangements from bubblegum pop to classic doo wop to California rock to wild, chaotic, and structureless post-modernism.

Songs on the album can be divided into roughly three categories: the anthems, the anti-love songs, and the experiments. The anthems include tracks such as “Hungry Freaks, Daddy,” “Motherly Love,” and “I’m Not Satisfied,” among others, and defiantly state a point of view, either seriously or mockingly. “Hungry Freaks, Daddy” portrays the reaction of average middle-class citizens to the so-called “freak” class of which Zappa was a member, while at the same time showcasing the “freak” perspective on middle-class bliss, the Great Society, and 1960s America in general. Punctuated by dreamy vibraphone tones and a ripping guitar solo that utilizes standard 1960s guitar tones in a structureless, freeform fashion, “Hungry Freaks, Daddy” is a statement of purpose, and explicitly calls out the collective societal tendency to neglect genius in favor of the common and the status quo. It is equal parts individualist and radical, both indicting the standard progression of American society while at the same time appealing to America’s history of individual excellence and opportunity. It, like the other anthems, employs standard rock-and-roll tones and meters, but pairs them with deliberately off-key vocalizations and cacophonous background noises (mostly provided by drummer Jimmy Carl Black) to create an unconventional yet recognizable sound. In these songs, Zappa is reaching out to people who may have already dabbled in “freaking out,” but who may need a little extra push.

The anti-love songs, on the other hand, are for those individuals still clinging to their 1960s version of the American dream – a monochromatic (figuratively and literalll) society that could only go up; a benevolent government capable of structuring society in the optimal way; and the sad, painful, empty emotion mistaken for love that leads to sad, painful, empty marriages and existences. These songs, which include “I Ain’t Got No Heart,” “Go Cry on Somebody Else’s Shoulder,” and “You Didn’t Try to Call Me,” among others, paint portraits of heartbreak coupled with angst and rage – in fact, each of them makes a point to make explicit the protagonist’s essential incompatibility with others, as though a meaningful romance that would not intrude on his individuality is utterly impossible given the context in which he exists.

The bridge between these two song styles is “Any Way the Wind Blows,” of which Zappa writes in the liner notes

“‘Any Way the Wind Blows’ is a song I wrote about three years ago when I was considering divorce. If I had never gotten divorce, this piece of trivial nonsense would never have been recorded. It is included in this collection because, in a nutshell, kids, it is… how shall I say it? … it is intellectually and emotionally accessible for you.”

In this song, the protagonist joyously lets go of his previous romantic troubles and takes a step forward intellectually and emotionally, which both gives a payoff to the prior anthems on the album and sets the stage for our journey into the experimental. When listened to in a single sitting, this song is the point in the album wherein our hero realizes that he is an individual and that he is self-sufficient… but he does not yet know how or why. It is interesting to consider the context in which Zappa wrote the song, as well as how his divorce might have impacted the album and his way of thinking in general. Later, he married Gail Sloatman in 1967 and remained with her for the rest of his life, and the number of songs that he wrote concerning romantic difficulties decreased dramatically (although the number of songs explicitly dealing with sex increased). It is an interesting context in which to view the album, and I will comment on the way that Gail might have influenced his work as I progress through this series.

That covers sides one and two. Sides three and four are composed entirely of experimental tracks, most notably “Trouble Every Day,” a song that explicitly recounts the events of the Watts Riots through the filter of media reporting, and serves as an indictment of media culture and, more subtly, passive existence. Throughout the song, we are told not what happened, but of the reports coming through of what happened, emphasizing the extent to which we are removed from reality in our daily lives. The question is raised: what is an existence of second-hand reports? You don’t want to be in the center of chaos, but is being completely removed from it any better? Is it worse? Questions, questions, questions in the mind of the impressionable young listener. Musically, the piece is also interesting and trendsetting for being arguably the first rap song. Spoken (rather than sung) over a repeating backdrop of sound (itself deliberately designed to be bluesy and “black”), it challenges the dominant musical structure of its time, as if to deliberately say, “THIS IS SOMETHING DIFFERENT.”

From here we progress into “Help, I’m a Rock,” which elaborates upon the idea of passive existence and musically takes us into darker, more experimental territory. Included in this song is a subsection entitled “It Can’t Happen Here,” deconstructing the notion of isolated social change. All of this builds to the finale on side four, “The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet,” introduced by the voice of Suzy Creamcheese and her conscience. Suzy, according to the album jacket, is from Salt Lake City and is the only person in her school who “gets” the Mothers’ music. (Demographically, that may be about right.) Suzy is perhaps the audience for the album – the lone individual who totally buys into what Zappa is selling. Perhaps she is there to offer a lifeline to the listener, as if to say, “It’s all right, there are others like you.” In any even, her inclusion is notable, and we’ll be seeing her again in future albums.

“The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet,” described by Zappa as “what freaks sound like when you turn them loose in a recording studio at one o’clock in the morning on $500 worth of rented percussion equipment” is a wildly experimental piece of music, a tribute to Zappa’s idol Edgard Varèse, and the genuine climax of the album. Throughout “Freak Out!” there are a number of brief excerpts of a wild orgy of sound sprinkled liberally, as though the album itself is just barely holding back the chaos that might otherwise overtake the listener. In “The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet,” the dam breaks and the chaos comes flooding out. It is structureless, uninhibited, and gloriously artistic – the “freak out” that we have all been promised. To describe it any further would be futile. It must be heard to be understand – if it is to be understood at all.

And so we have this album that presents us with these questions about society. But Zappa’s music and his lyrics are not simple; why should we expect his message to be? The songs on the album can be read as indictments of 1960s society, but certain elements of them can also be read as indictments of freak culture itself. Zappa is careful to emphasize the essential creative nature of true “freak-dom,” but surely he was aware that often the culture abandoned that creativity in favor of substance abuse and political radicalism (Zappa himself was famously an anti-drug libertarian). Although these themes would be better developed two albums later, there is enough evidence even at this stage to raise the question of just how committed to the freak culture Zappa was. Certainly he empathized, sympathized, and even bought into certain elements of the ethos, but where his believe in it began and ended remains vague. But then again, perhaps that’s the point. What isn’t vague that “Freak Out!” is ultimately a radical celebration of individualism and a rejection of “the way of doing things.” Above all else, “Freak Out!” is the album of the conceptual “I.”

“Freak Out!” was released the same year as “Pet Sounds,” “Blonde on Blonde,” and “Revolver.” It achieved the commercial success of none of its contemporaries, but stands today as an equal – if not superior – artistic statement. It remains inaccessible, dense, and challenging, but those characteristics ensure that it never gets old or outdated.

Inside the album sleeve, there is a quote by Varèse from 1921. It says, “The present-day composer refuses to die!”

He was clearly talking about Frank Zappa.

The Lineup (left to right): Frank Zappa (guitar, vocals), Elliot Ingber (guitar), Ray Collins (vocals, harmonica, tambourine), Jimmy Carl Black (vocals, drums), Roy Estrada (bass, vocals),

Doctor Who

But in 2005, a new Doctor Who began airing on BBC One. Masterminded by writer-producer Russell T. Davies, the new program is a direct continuation of all that had come before, but was designed to be younger, fresher, and edgier – in short, Doctor Who for the 21^st Century, at least in the eyes of studio executives. The details of the production, and of the whole program’s complex history, are widely available elsewhere on the Internet, but given the context, it is easy to see why the premiere episode of the new series, entitled “Rose,” was so hotly anticipated before its release. In a new recurring feature here at StefanClaypool.com, I am going to be viewing and analyzing each episode of the revived series, exploring what works and what doesn’t, and attempting to draw some conclusions about why the Doctor’s story seems destined to go on forever. Rather than present an exhaustive scene-by-scene recap of the episode, I’ll be discussing the importance of key themes and events to the overarching story, while at the same time analyzing the development of characters, ideas, and the production as a whole.

“Rose” is about introductions. It is less a compelling story in and of itself than a proposition: will you come with me? It presents both Rose Tyler and the viewers with a new and exciting world, and hopes that they will follow. This is made explicit at the end of the episode, when the Doctor offers Rose a place on the TARDIS. She accepts enthusiastically. Clearly, Davies and his crew hope that we as viewers will accept the offer with similar enthusiasm.

The original Doctor Who was creaky and bound by its obvious budgetary limitations. More importantly, it was made in an era when expectations for television were low. But in the post-Twin Peaks, post-Buffy world, old Who wouldn’t play. Davies begins the episode with a whiz-bang montage of Rose Tyler’s (Billie Piper) daily life, set to a thumping electronic soundtrack (composed by Murray Gold, who will rapidly evolve into one of the series’s most important contributors). Davies uses the montage to both introduce Rose’s life – decidedly normal by British standards – and to make a promise to viewers: this is not the Who of old. Throughout the episode, Davies strains to convey this message, and for the most part he succeeds. In his introduction of Rose Tyler, a simple girl living a simple life in 2005 London, he succeeds.

In this montage, we are introduced to two characters who will become more important as the series progresses: Rose’s mother Jackie, and Rose’s boyfriend Mickey Smith. Neither is given much time or development in this particular episode, though, so we’ll hold off on discussing them in depth, but they represent something else that Davies will prove adept at doing throughout the episode and the series: planting seeds, in both the narrative and in the minds of the viewers. But more on that (much) later.

Later, we are also introduced to our first extraterrestrial threat: the Autons, creatures of living plastic, most commonly shown in the form of storefront mannequins. The choice is an interesting one, and clearly one that Davies must have agonized over. With only two prior appearances, both during the Jon Pertwee era, they were not the most obvious choice, but their presence serves important plot and thematic purposes. In terms of events, they are relatively bland and uncomplicated, allowing for an easier introduction into the Doctor’s world than some companions (or audiences) receive. They are slow-moving, relatively non-threatening, and dangerous only for their numbers and persistence. Thematically, they fit the “first monster” role nicely as well, as their intrinsic blandness places the focus of the episode squarely on the protagonists. In a way, they also reflect the emptiness of Rose’s existence to this point. Before her encounter with the Doctor, Rose was not terribly different from these plastic people – a point which the Doctor himself emphasizes when he tells Rose that all humanity does “is eat chips, go to bed and watch telly.” The Plastic Mickey, which plays an important role in the episode, further expands on this theme. What is Rose Tyler’s life? Is she really anything more than another piece of plastic, or is she something more? This is a question that the series will endeavor to answer, and to which the Doctor himself is crucial.

And then there is the Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston. For the new viewer – the viewer who has never seen Doctor Who before “Rose” – what do we learn about him? He’s an alien – a “Time Lord” – but he looks human. He appears at various points in history, and people have noticed. He is in possession of two marvelous pieces of alien technology – a sonic screwdriver, which can do seemingly anything, and the TARDIS, an object that looks like a 1950s Police Box from the outside, but is bigger inside and, oh by the way, travels through time and space. He was on the Titanic and present at the Kennedy assassination. He appears seemingly at will when danger is near, and danger is always near him. He is often callous toward human connections, and makes passing references to disappointment with his ears, as though they were new. He mentions something called the “Shadow Proclamation,” from which he seems to derive some kind of authority. He is merciful when he can be, but decisive when he needs to be. He is often serious, sometimes cheeky, and always attempting to appear in control. He avoids connections, but is terribly lonely. He looks down at humanity, while at the same time revering it. And he has been through a war.

The war itself is only referenced, but it is clearly weighing heavily upon the Doctor, and on the rest of the universe. In fact, the plot of the episode itself is driven by the unseen, unexplained “war,” which supposedly destroyed the Auton’s home – an even for which the Doctor expresses profound regret. But why? What was his involvement in this war? Who fought it? And how did humanity escape – if it did?

These are the questions that Davies wants us to be asking at this point, and he succeeds in making them interesting enough to keep our attention, despite the episode’s occasional missteps. The BBCGI is sometimes comically bad. Rose often comes across as less than compelling and less than intelligent – not noticing something being wrong with Plastic Mickey doesn’t inspire confidence – and is generally a cipher at this juncture. Attempts to be edgy and sexy occasionally degenerate into “action movie” cliches, Rose’s reference to gymnastics being the worst culprit. And Davies makes the mistake of giving the whole of Britain “Sunnydale Syndrome”  - there is no reason for people to forget the terrors of the Autons, yet they do and do quickly. In a small town, it stretched the boundaries of belief and become a recurring joke. Here, it is simply inexcusable. There are other problems as well, all generally stemming from Davies’ attempts to sugarcoat the episode for public consumption. For an audience with no history with the program, this may have helped, but it looks foolish in retrospect, especially considering how successful the new series has become.

But there is one note that Davies hits perfectly, and he will hit it repeatedly throughout the series: he raises the critical question of the Doctor’s existence. Is the Doctor a hero or a harbinger? Does he save people or destroy them? The character of Clive – an innocent family man whose life only indirectly crosses paths with the Doctor’s – shows that the Doctor , while perhaps beneficial to mankind as a whole, often leaves a trail of bodies in his wake. His impact on Rose is also rife with tragic potential. He may shake her out of her humdrum existence, but he makes her into a killer first. It is Rose, not the Doctor, that defeats the Autons by killing their collective consciousness. However justified her actions may have been, she has already allowed herself to be fashioned into a weapon. And when presented with the opportunity to travel with the Doctor, she callously leaves her boyfriend and mother behind. Over the course of the episode, Rose abandons her entire life for the opportunity to run off with a man whom she has only just met. Is this a positive? Contextually, perhaps, but it is not an action that is without consequences, and those consequences will come into play down the road.

So who is the Doctor? Does he make people better or make them dangerous? What sort of impact does he have on the lives of his companions? And how does he reconcile the often paradoxical nature of his existence with his need to do good? These are the questions that will drive the series, and each of them is introduced in “Rose.” And as the episode ends, and Rose runs smiling into the TARDIS to begin her adventures in space and time, we in the audience are left with a choice: will we accompany her and her mysterious Doctor, or will we tune out?

“Rose” does not tell us everything, but it makes us want to know everything. Despite its flaws, it succeeds as what it is meant to be: an introduction. And that’s why we enter the TARDIS, ready for whatever comes next.

Frank Zappa was the Mozart of the 20^th Century, and consistently pushed musical, intellectual, and philosophical boundaries over the span of his thirty-year professional career in a way that no other popular musician ever has. A genuine artist who approached his work with the same enthusiasm, dedication, and deep understanding of his field as the great masters, Zappa was in a constant state of reinvention and renewal, and redefined what was possible in modern music. His unique ability to break a style or genre down to its component parts and reassemble them in his own distinct fashion was the hallmark of a musical project that spanned more than sixty albums in his lifetime and many more since his death. More than any of his contemporaries, Zappa understood the nature of music, and used it to deliver messages larger and more complex that the simple mantras of love and happiness (and/or societal disenchantment) that dominated his era. He was also a staunch advocate of freedom and liberty, a shrewd businessman who by the time of his death owned every note that he had ever recorded, and a vocal defender of individual rights. In short, he was the leading intellectual force in popular music during his lifetime, and his legacy will only continue to grow with time.

Zappa’s sixty-two albums are not standalone works. Instead, they are linked by what Zappa called “conceptual continuity” and collectively makeup the “Project/Object” – the singular overarching artistic project that dominated his life. Musical and philosophical motifs consistently reappear throughout the catalog, painting a portrait of a man who would have been just as distinctive and committed to his art if he were born three hundred years earlier. Zappa had music in his soul, and was defined by his work in a way that only the greats can be. And yet while he is today appreciated by many music aficionados, his work is often overlooked by not only mainstream audiences, but also by self-professed music lovers who find themselves unable to penetrate Zappa’s admittedly dense and eclectic body of work.

Frank Zappa’s name deserves to be spoken in the same breath as the masters of years past. Over the next several months, I will endeavor to explain why as I review and analyze in release order the more-than-sixty albums that comprise the main Zappa catalog, beginning with 1966′s Freak Out! and concluding with 1995′s Civilization Phase III, the final project Zappa completed before his death. This will be a long and exhaustive project, but I hope that by the time I am finished, you too will see Zappa for what he is: the single greatest composer America has ever produced.

But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about minimalism, and the conclusion that I ultimately came to was that my site, though serviceable, was doing more than I wanted it to do. I want the focus of the site to be on the blog post, on the writing, and the best way to do that was to eliminate distractions and leave only that which matters. That’s what I’ve tried to do.

And with that comes the promise of more writing. Within the next couple of weeks I’ll start a new project here, in which I’ll be analyzing episode-by-episode the classic television series The Prisoner. So stay tuned!

Which raises a larger point about communication and media in the 21st Century. I don’t want to blog at length right now, but I wonder if we’re not entering a period when services like cable will go by the wayside. Alternatives are certainly there, but just aren’t well-marketed and established. Furthermore, what is going to become of traditional communication devices like the telephone and more contemporary ones like SMS? I find myself using Twitter much more than text messages, and the allure of VOIP is powerful, even if the technology remains imperfect. Is that the wave of the future, or just a tool for a tech-geek minority? These are questions businesses are going to have to address at some point.