Weekend Reads (May 14): iPod (RIP), Guns N’ Roses, Hackers, the New Doctor, Mullets
Recommended weekend reading material for May 14, 2022.
Every week, I compile a list of interesting and thought-provoking articles to offer you some enjoyable weekend reading material.
It’s safe to say that the iPod is one of those devices, something that brought about a major cultural shift when it was introduced back in 2001. But all good things must come to an end. After two decades, Apple has officially discontinued the iPod.
While the iPod Touch has had its fans, the writing’s been on the wall for a while. The seventh-gen iPod Touch Apple discontinued Tuesday was introduced in 2019 via a press release. While the iPhone 11 would be released later that year, the 2019 touch had the same A10 processor as the iPhone 7. The sixth-gen iPod Touch launched in 2015. Despite people like me crying for a simplistic music player designed for the age of streaming, the time between releases and older hardware made it clear that Apple wasn’t looking to spend much time on the iPod.
From Apple’s official announcement: “Music has always been part of our core at Apple, and bringing it to hundreds of millions of users in the way iPod did impacted more than just the music industry — it also redefined how music is discovered, listened to, and shared.”
My 2nd generation iPod Touch is still somewhere down in my office; I bought it in 2009 before I even got my first iPhone. Although I used it as a music player, I initially got it for testing mobile website designs. (This was before responsive web design was really a thing, and instead, you had to create a separate mobile site at a subdomain or subdirectory.)
Related: John Gruber bids farewell to the iPod Touch and reflects on how it served as “a preview of the iPhone’s future” in terms of design and specifications.
Few music videos are as bombastic, cinematic, and over-the-top as the video for Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain.” Twenty years after its release, Gabe Bullard reflects on the video’s iconic status and legacy.
It’s rare that any work can so perfectly encapsulate a subculture and an era. Individual elements of “November Rain” might seem silly out of context. But in their proper place, each is essential. There’s nothing to cut, nothing to add. The song itself is one of Guns N’ Roses’ best, and the pinnacle of the power ballad. It’s loaded with orchestration, melodies, two guitar solos, and enough sonic variation to stay interesting for its lengthy running time. The video, directed by Andy Morahan, likewise carries the hallmarks of its genre — multiple expensive-looking set pieces (two churches, an Old West town, a crowded wedding reception), shots of the band partying together, a sexy woman. There’s just enough artistic ambition to transcend dirtbag party rock, but it’s not so self-serious that it veers into pretension.
Behold it in all its glory below. And yes, Slash’s solo is still as epic as ever.
Celebrated comic book artist George Pérez died late last week from pancreatic cancer. He was 67 years old.
Pérez is probably best known for launching the New Teen Titans in 1980 with writer Marv Wolfman, where the two created Cyborg, Raven and Starfire and had Dick Grayson become Nightwing. Wolfman and Pérez later reshaped the DC Universe with Crisis on Infinite Earths, which, in turn, led to Pérez rebooting Wonder Woman in 1987 with a beloved five-year run that redefined Diana for a new generation. At Marvel, where Pérez got his start in comics, he is likely best remembered for two separate runs on the Avengers; with Steve Englehart in the 1970s and then with Kurt Busiek in the 1990s, where the two relaunched the series in 1998 to great acclaim.
At one point, Pérez was working on some of Marvel and DC’s biggest titles at the same time.
Tributes to Pérez have since poured in from both fans and fellow comic book creators, including Karen Berger, Colleen Doran, Tom King, Jim Lee, Mark Millar, and Fabian Nicieza.
Moon Knight’s first (and maybe only) season wrapped up last week. I’ve really enjoyed Matt Poppe’s coverage of the series on Christ and Pop Culture, and here are his thoughts on the season finale.
On the bright side, Moon Knight is Marvel’s only Phase 4 project that has existed within its own bubble as a story confined to itself with no references to other films, shows, or events in the broader MCU. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but not since Guardians of the Galaxy — eight years ago! — has producer Kevin Feige let a project stand on its own terms. Assuming the good and best in all things, it means that a studio obsessed with eating its own tale still knows how to tell a solitary story without bogging it down with callbacks and in-jokes and Easter eggs.
Disclosure: I edited Poppe’s articles before they were published.
Hackers was a critical and commercial failure when it was released in 1995, but has since become a cult classic. Its depiction of computers and technology is totally absurd, so why do real life hackers love it so much?
Hackers is one of those films that has not only stood the test of time, but gotten better with every passing year. I think the reason why it's only got better is because they didn't really try to get the technology right, (they were busy lifting the plot of Superman III), rather, they spent time and effort making the cultural aspect a pretty in-tune caricature. By exaggerating the community, it’s turned into the nerdy version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with Hackers themed watch parties. The plot of Hackers is pretty tired, and the technology is pretty wrong, but none of that matters because everyone's busy yelling out catchphrases.
I don’t believe in guilty pleasures, but if I did, then Hackers would almost certainly be at the top of the list. As I said before, its depiction of technology is ridiculous, but it totally captures the feeling of when computers were still magical and the internet was this mysterious thing just beginning to emerge in the public awareness. Nobody knew what it actually meant, but the possibilities seemed limitless and exciting — and Hackers perfectly captured that vibe with its over-the-top cyberpunk aesthetic.
Ncuti Gatwa has been announced as the 14th incarnation of the Doctor, following Jodie Whittaker’s departure from Doctor Who this fall.
Star of stage and screen, Ncuti is best known for his critically acclaimed performance in Sex Education as the iconic Eric Effiong, for which he was awarded Best Actor Award at the Scottish BAFTA’s in 2020 as well as numerous nominations including Best Male Performance in a comedy programme at this year’s BAFTA’s.
While Gatwa will be the first Black actor to headline Doctor Who, he won’t be the first Black actor to play the Doctor. Jo Martin portrayed the Fugitive Doctor in 2020.
Chuck Grimmett explains the value and importance of blogging.
Platforms come and go. Buy a domain and set up a permanent space on the web where others to find you and link back to. I have no idea what I put on Myspace back in the day, but everything I’ve published on this site since 2008 is still accessible and the links still work.
A personal website is a digital homestead that you can improve, tinker with, and live in for years to come. It is a home for your thoughts, musings, opinions, trials, and happenings, built in a way that suits you.
While Grimmett’s article is primarily within the context of blogs, much of what he writes is applicable to personal non-blog websites, as well.
Jason Kottke — whose dedication to blogging has long been an inspiration — is taking a sabbatical to rest and answer some important questions.
Does what I do here make a difference in other people’s lives? In my life? Is this still scratching the creative itch that it used to? And if not, what needs to change? Where does kottke.org end and Jason begin? Who am I without my work? Is the validation I get from the site healthy? Is having to be active on social media healthy? Is having to read the horrible news every day healthy? What else could I be doing here? What could I be doing somewhere else? What good is a blog without a thriving community of other blogs? I’ve tried thinking about these and many other questions while continuing my work here, but I haven’t made much progress; I need time away to gain perspective.
This one’s for my fellow design geeks: Font Awesome goes behind the scenes of their iconic (npi) mullet icon.
There is perhaps no haircut as reviled — yet as resilient as the mullet. A style so irrepressible that if the calculations from the Font Awesome Ministry of Pop Culture are correct, the mullet has stood the test of time for 50 plus years!
Love it or hate it, we believe that such an enduring cultural symbol deserves respect. So, we thought it only appropriate to make an icon in honor of the enduring mullet.
If you were born in South Korea, then congratulations! You could become one year younger if the country’s president-elect succeeds in changing how Korean ages are calculated.
Lee Yong-ho, chief of Yoon's transition team's political, judicial, and administrative subcommittee, said during a press conference on Monday that they are pushing to standardize the way age is counted in South Korea, per Yonhap News. The change is being pursued for practical reasons, Lee noted.
"Due to the different calculations of legal and social age, we have experienced unnecessary social and economic costs from persistent confusion and disputes over calculating age when receiving social, welfare and other administrative services or signing or interpreting various contracts," he said.
South Korea currently has three systems for calculating a person’s age, meaning that someone could technically have three different ages — which proved a problem when creating consistent COVID vaccine guidelines.
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