Boy, Ben sure is intent on looking at something slightly offscreen, huh. Find out what he spies at
Shastrix!
In other news, I've got my next Jim Sleeveless video recorded, I just need to larcen some time to edit them into something cohesive. I'm maybe 2/3rds through a new story, called either "Walkabout" or "The Test." And I've begun to learn the guitar!
Also, if you haven't seen Scott Pilgrim vs. the World yet, damn it GO! It's a great movie, and it should be hitting the cheaper theaters by now (not in Minneapolis for some reason. More hipsters there I guess?) My life got taken over by Scott Pilgrim for a few weeks. Possibly up until and including the present time. They're just interesting stories.
In my exhaustive research (wikipedia and some blogs) I've noticed that Some People are calling the Scott Pilgrim books a perfect depiction of my generation, like Coupland's novel Generation X, the movie Reality Bites, and others were for Gen X. Among the problems I have with this idea: Bryan Lee O'Malley was born in 1979. According to Howe and Strauss, the two guys who refurbished the study of generations as a whole, O'Malley is technically a Gen X-er. In several ways, Scott Pilgrim, the main character, is reminiscent of Gen-X as well. They're both
young Gen X-ers, but the traditional beginning of the "Millenial" or "Y" Generation is 1982 (Howe and Strauss, again).
Think of a stereotypical Gen X kid: an alternative music-listening, video game-obsessed, slacker, with disinterested or absent parents and a dead end job, not that he or she cares. Now look at most of the characters in Scott Pilgrim. They're hipsters, who're devoted to the local music scene. Scott retreats into video game references and escapism when he's threatened. For four whole books, Scott is unemployed, and he mooches and freeloads off his friends. His parents are touring Europe, and appear later to give Scott an apartment. The only job Scott's ever shown doing is basically unskilled kitchen labor. It's hard to get more dead end than food service, believe me.
His friends work as delivery girls, video store clerks, call center employees, and baristas. Several of Scott's friends, as well as Scott and his roommate Wallace Wells, are depicted as living beyond their means, and relying on credit cards to buy expensive sushi and video games and clothes.
I posit that, similar to the likes of Bob Dylan and James Dean, members of the post-WWII Silent Generation that enraptured teenage Baby Boomers, Scott Pilgrim isn't one of us, but somebody we look up to, for good or ill. The positive aspect of the Scott-as-Gen-X-er theory is that his lifestyle is shown to be something he should fix, especially in volumes Five and Six. The universe forces Scott to attempt to better himself. He doesn't think he'll be able to make it as an adult, but reckons he'll get it with practice.
