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I went to bed last night reading about how the most famous tenor of the 20th century, Luciano Pavarotti had worsened in health in the last day or so.

I got to work this morning to find my FT headlines already publishing his obituary.

While I may not be the greatest opera fan in the world, I’ve always understood the importance of those who make great contributions to the music artform.  No one would deny his beard and giant stature made him instantly recognizable, even if his voice was what brought fame upon him.

Lots of people say that he brought opera into the mainstream with his work in the Three Tenors, or their performance at the 1990 World Cup.  For me, it was his work on Sesame Street that got me to recognize him at such an early age.

Opera may not maintain the popularity it had 400 years ago, but Pavarotti made it relevant to today, both with his talent and his publicity.

Lest anyone reading this post think that this article is on the miniaturization of TV for your mobile phone (ie, Verizon’s VCAST), it’s not. This article is a more visceral response to the dumbing down of American society. For Myspace has finally hit the apex of our Short Attention Spans: the Minisode.

Here’s how the minisode works: Myspace takes a 22-minute sitcom such as “Facts of Life,” “Diff’rent Strokes,” or “T.J. Hooker,” and they distill the plotline down to six minutes.

The sitcom has always been a part of American history, ever since its inception with Amos ‘n’ Andy on the Radio, to “The Burns and Allen” and “The Abbott and Costello” TV shows. However at its core, the sitcom is a chance for us to establish a comedic link between a series of characters and each week (or if syndicated, daily) pick up where we left off in the ensuing antics and lessons that these characters learn. Sans-commercials, the American sitcom has worked best in the 22-minute format, allowing enough time to setup a episodic plot, sideplot, resolution of plot, and tie-in resolution to the sideplot. My problem here is not with the formula of the sitcom but rather, with the idea that it can now be boiled into 6 minutes.

We always knew that sitcoms were a little pedantic.  Look at the Brady Bunch, Full House, or Friends.  There’s nothing overly complex about them; the gags are often very corny and although the characters have individual quirks, they are none-the-more-complex.  Thus, the sitcom is an adaptation of our own lives, condensed to fit a timeframe within our busy schedules.  Additionally, our attention span falls short when we reach a certain time.  If not for commercial breaks, American audiences would probably drop off after about 10 minutes.

I suppose this works in favour of the minisode, however it also testifies to the American inability to stay focused on anything for too long.  In particular, it demonstrates that our attention spans are getting even shorter than they once were, as the formula of the “sitcom of yore” is now starting to fade away.

Perhaps this is smart of Myspace and of the other TV networks that are cognizant of this pattern of waning attention spans.  Perhaps it demonstrates that American lives are too busy to sit through a half-hour of television.  Instead, it must be relegated to 6 minutes on the computer.

I would disagree.  I think it’s a psychological failure of our society to accommodate 30 minutes out of our day to enjoy some entertainment.  If we do not have that much time to submit to entertainment, it doesn’t just mean that we are overworked, but that we don’t care enough to take the time.  What little time we have becomes condensed.

I’m sure some psychological studies back me up on this – we’ve always known that Americans have increasingly been suffering from Short Attention Spans.  Chalk it up to the Protestant work ethic.  However, I’ve already spent too much time on this entry to perform actual research.  I should be looking for something else to write about instead.

SiCKO
Directed by Michael Moore
Dog Eat Dog Films/The Weinstein Company/Lionsgate Films, 2007
113 minutes
Rating: 8/10

It doesn’t take much to get Michael Moore’s blood going these days. From his essay on corporate America (Roger and Me) and critique of American gun culture (Bowling for Columbine) to his assault on the Iraq War (Fahrenheit 9/11), there does not seem like much good happens in Moore’s America. On his third major motion picture, SiCKO, Moore once again writes, directs, and produces his brand of progressivist commentary, only this time, he targets a topic of universal appeal: the American health care system.

SiCKO opens with two stories, one of a man who has to stitch a gash on his own leg; another who had to chose – based on price differential – whether he wanted to re-attach the sawed off tip of his middle finger or of his ring finger (the difference being almost $48,000 between the two fingers).

Lest we think the rest of the movie is going to be this gory, these are just mere examples to prepare the audience for the gore of the health care system itself. Moore spares no expense of emotion in his typical stylistic approach of documenting all of the people whom the “system” has wronged. In spite of this, his over-the-top propagandism at least starts to show its maturity in SiCKO by taking a less involved approach to telling a story.

And telling a story is exactly what Moore is good at. His folksy demeanor is what makes his movies worth watching and listening to what’s coming from his soapbox bearable.

After being distressed at the horror stories of managed medical care, Moore starts to look back on the history of HMOs and Nixon’s involvement in the February 1971 shift toward managed health care. From there, the audience is taken to Canada, where a conservative retiree talks down the American “only take care of yourself” mentality. Of course, Moore’s wife is Canadian, so there’s automatically some bias, and he interviews his own relatives for the film, but that’s beside the point.

Moore then goes to London, where former Member of Parliament Tony Benn praises post-WWII National Health Services (“If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people”) and a British doctor – government paid, obviously – links his £85,000 per year plus bonuses salary to a universal health care system that incentivizes promoting better health.

The story then shifts to France, where one is expected to find rising anti-Americanism but instead finds a health system where “you pay according to your means but receive according to your needs.” Though it is obvious that Moore has focused his foreign attentions on more middle-class families, it also contrasts a higher overall standard of living nonetheless – a testament to the greater sense of community on the issue of health.

And why shouldn’t there be a sense of community?

This question is where SiCKO excels in turning public attention back to Hilary Clinton’s neglect of universal health care. In traveling on his much publicized trip to Guantanamo Bay (providing a couple of great chuckles) and Cuba, Moore shows that there is a vast inconsistency between the general American communal spirit of say, 9/11, and the lack of communal spirit in American managed health care. After all, we should live in a world of ‘we,’ not a world of ‘me,’ right?

Sure, people will suggest that Moore’s inherent progressive bias is too one-sided, but it’s more difficult than with his previous films to assert that there can be even be such a partisan stance on an issue as universal as human health. In an added bit of irony, the first song of the closing credits is “Don’t Be Shy,” by Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens). However, Moore starts to let the people and the story tell themselves, appearing on-camera more sparsely than before. In fact, he isn’t even seen for at least the first 45 minutes of the film. For credibility’s sake, this works to his advantage.

Perhaps there are more questions to be posed after watching SiCKO than there are actually answered (i.e., Can’t part of America’s high health care costs be attributed to issues beyond profit motive, like skyrocketing medical malpractice suits? Aren’t there funding problems with Health Canada, S.O.S. Medicins, and NHS?).

But Moore has never really aimed to solve problems, nor answer questions with his movies. His goal has been to lead social dialogue on the issues that should be important to Americans and bring the plights of the ‘abused’ to the forefront of mainstream American society.

Will there truly be a solution to the questions that Michael Moore himself poses throughout the film? He likes to think that the grassroots will start to affect change, but the reality is that in America, the politicians are the ones with the power to move universal health care forward. At least with SiCKO, Moore is trying to point the rest of us in that better direction.

(For my initial comment outside the theatre, check out New York magazine’s Entertainment & Culture blog)

I’ve been lacking things of real interest to write about here on this blog, though I must say that I’ve downloaded the new Wilco CD and it is excellent.  It sounds a little bit like Randy Newman and modern Bob Dylan, only confirming my belief that 2007 is the year of the matured artist.  In addition to the Wilco CD, I’ve obtained a copy of the new Kings of Leon album and it seems that bands are creating bigger and better albums that expand and evolve the sounds of the artist, rather than just making a sophomore or third album that falls into the rut of similar song writing styles with different melodies.  The alternate agenda of bands is to completely change their styles and heading into a different direction that alienates core fans.  A group puts a lot of its credibility on the line by taking this approach and risks either massive successes or failures.  One could look at Radiohead as a band that either alienated a lot of its pre-Kid A fanbase or only served to entice them further into the rabbit hole.

I’m not sure yet whether I will ultimately post a formal review of the Wilco and/or Kings of Leon album, but they are high on my list of 2007 albums.  The remainder of the year continues to pull some amazing follow-up talents from bands like the Arctic Monkeys (23 Apr), Travis (7 May), Radiohead (18 Aug), Coldplay (31 Oct), The Polyphonic Spree, Feist, and of course, the supposedly excellent but may never come out Guns ‘n’ Roses album.

Now onto things a little less (or more) technical:

Whilst I’m reading Michel Albert’s book Capitalisme Contre Capitalisme, I’m also starting my research into various journal articles, with my current cache of articles at 77.  Personally, I wish there was a way that I could move the pdf journal files onto my Palm Zire, but with 2MB of memory, I can barely upload one file at a time onto it.  It’s a pain to have to drag my laptop everywhere, but I’ve also put the files onto USB key, so now I can bring them with me wherever I go.  The first article I’m reading is entitled “A Comparative Analysis of New Product Programmes: European versus North American Companies.” 

As far as I’ve read, Prof. EJ Kleinschmidt encourages a cross-national approach in assessing the successes of new product programs.  Though I’m not sure where this might fit into CSR, I believe his premise is correct.  And perhaps in assessing the various CSR approaches and formulating, it is helpful to know how new product programmes function.   By doing so, I can extrapolate prescriptions as to now future product entries may be marketed with a focus on CSR.

In addition, I have started culling quotes from various television shows and other sources of pop culture.  This past Sunday, I was watching Gordon Ramsay’s F Word and there was some discussion between Chef Ramsay and British television personality Janice Street-Porter on sustainable cod farming vs. opea sea cod fishing.  I’ve been looking to some random TV quotes that depict public perceptions of corporations and responsible business in order to gain some non-academic perspective. In addition to the F Word, I have also found quotes from The Cosby Show and from NUMB3RS that are applicable to the subject.  I may use them in the chapter headers throughout the thesis to draw CSR into pop culture, particularly since a lot of marketing deals with pop culture and the ability to harness brand images and identity in the public psyche.

If anyone has any good ideas/quotes/interesting informational sources, feel free to leave comments here on the web site.  So far, my biggest (and only) participant has been Dany, who has not only added his own thoughts to the discussion, but has given me more fodder to develop my own thoughts on the subject.

its been quite a few days since the last time i posted and ive had a couple of different things ive wanted to discuss, ranging from thesis readings, to advance album reviews, and the whole likes.  thats not to say that i couldnt have written multiple postings, however it gets kind of tedious to write those postings the way i do.  thus, i blew it off.  however, i said that i would still maintain routine postings, and such as i am.

my parents came down to visit almost two weeks ago, and i had the pleasure of accompanying them to see the drowsy chaperone at the marquis theatre.  im always a little skeptical about broadway musicals, however my parents wanted to see it and i figured it couldn’t be as corny as something like tarzan or even the producers.  the end result was that i happened to enjoy it more than i had anticipated.  there were three key things that led to my enjoyment of the play.

1) the music – all too often, broadway musicals follow the rogers & hammerstein formula for introducing music into the plot of a story.  in addition, the music is obviously written for a pit orchestra, making the songs of “camelot” seem out of place.  in chaperone however, the setting of the play within the play puts all the relevant musical numbers in a 1920s context, which naturally evokes a ’20s big band sound, befitting of a pit orchestra.  the end result is that the musical numbers not only relate to the period, but they make for good songs.

2) the man in the chair – bob martin, one of the original writers of the play, casts himself as the “narrator” character.  the premise of the play revolves around this character frequently breaking down the “fourth wall.”  by doing this, he allows himself to set the pace of the show, as well as set the concept of the play within a play.  while this concept could have been pursued easily, and in a cliched manner, martin adds a completely innovative and creative concept, key to the show’s success.

3) the use of the record as the plot vehicle – this plot device goes hand-in-hand with the usage of the man in the chair.  by conceiving the play within the play as an old recorded show, martin allows for his own interpretations on the play and is able to speed through all the musical numbers of a typical broadway play.  as the actors are playing out on stage what is happening on the record, it also makes for some interesting acting challenges, such as a skipping record, the wrong side of the record is played, etc.

like i said, i wasnt sure what i was going to make of it going in, but had a rather good time.

as for myself, the first half of the semester is winding down and i am leaving tomorrow afternoon to go back to CT until the 7th.  on the 9th, there is the big east career fair, where i am hoping to hand out more resumes and some cover letters in hopes to get myself into an internship position for the summer.  originally, i wasnt sure how international business/marketing was going to fit in a market for finance/accounting majors, however in a discussion with a friend today, i found out that even some of those companies have sustainability reporting divisions.  not only would working at them become crucial to my thesis understandings (of which i am making good progress and even developed my 8-part outline), but would benefit me careerwise as well in the field of csr.

whilst i am home, i hope to get done some thesis reading (perhaps a blog post or two), as well as make some minor edits to my resume, and possibly work on a few cover letters to prospective employers.  though i havent actually commenced actual writing of the thesis, i’m pleased with how my readings/research have been going and now that i have a working outline (my advisor was right, it came the form of a some spontaneous breakthrough as i reading a book on management and labour in europe), it will be even easier to piece together just what information becomes relevant to developing the logical inductive reasoning of my argument.

that said, it’s time for class.  keep reading…