The Social Network: See it, then forget it.

Aaron Sorkin does not use Twitter. Aaron Sorkin does not have a flickr account. He doesn't use Foursquare, as far as I can tell. And unless you consider having a fan page being 'on Facebook' (and nobody on Facebook does), Aaron Sorkin is not on Facebook. That the writer of 'The Social Network' doesn't seem to engage in any social networks says all you need know about this film.


The movie is bright. The dialogue is 30's comedy fast, a style familiar to anyone who's ever watched Sorkin's other whip-smart love-child, "The West Wing". The film is structured around legal depositions, by the FB founder and those suing him for a piece of that multi-billion dollar pile. And what we see on screen is conflict over who owns the idea, what money gets you as an early investor, what being first can do for you in founding an online company, the social bump the founders get by starting a service that's 'cool'.


This really should be an interesting movie. And not only because of the considerable talent behind it -- it should be interesting because it is about social media, the most significant alteration in human interaction since television. Instead, we spend an entire movie watching preppies get steamed about how their run-of-the-mill dating-website idea gets implemented and expanded upon beyond their wildest imaginings without them, because they're too busy sculling.


This is not a movie about social media, and that's why it's a huge failure. Here, perhaps one of the smartest writers of politics and dialogue working in entertainment brought considerable skill to play to make an engaging drama regarding the events and conflicts surrounding FB's foundational year. But not once do we see an example of how Facebook works, about the changes it brings to individuals, and about the impact it can have -- is already having -- on American culture. The movie does not peer into the future, where everybody's past relationships are documented and recorded, where their peer groups are measured and quantified, where all are in contact with all about everything, all the time. The movie never asks the all-important double-rainbow question: What does it mean?


A movie about Facebook isn't about intellectual property battles, and that is all that this movie is about. A movie about Facebook is about what happens when 500 million people open up accounts, and interact socially online, daily, giving much personal information, being watched and read by a single company, having their relationships, arguments, break-ups, emotions, locations, sleep-time, aspirations, everything about their personal lives once formally private now made effectively public, archivable, searchable, quantifiable, exploitable.


Saying "The Social Network" is about Facebook, is like saying a movie about how Sylvannia was founded is about television. This movie is not about Facebook - at least, it's not about what's important about Facebook.


You can go see "The Social Network", and you'll enjoy it about as much as you enjoyed 'The Firm", if you saw that film. But if you're interested seeing a movie about Facebook, you're going to have to wait to see that movie; it hasn't been made yet. And once it does get made, this movie will fade into the historical mists -- pretty much like all those friendships of yours with people who aren't on Facebook.

How To Do Nuit Blanche

This is my forth year at Nuit Blanche, the Montreal All Nighter. I have a bit of experience spotting off the program my familiar favorites, and also the new ones which look like a promising go. So, I'm writing this up for the unintiated -- those who have NO idea what to do for Nuit Blanche. I expect you have access to the website www.montrealenlumiere.com to scan and read.

First, some basics. The Montreal All-Nighter is geographically divided into 5 major areas, with events in all of them basically from 7pm Saturday to 5am Sunday morning. Two of these areas are worth concentrated efforts on your part, if you're into their ethos. First, the "Art Underground", for the cerebral afficianado, is a series of art works in the underground city. Go to the website, and follow the walking tour map. Bring a flask. Second, the "Maisonneuve Pole" is a family-aimed grouping, around the Big O, including the Botannical Garden, and the Biodome among others. Bring your kids.

Now for the other three: The Old Port is where you'll find families, bright lights, and country line dancing. Place Des Arts is for those with a head on their shoulders: arts, arts, beauty and arts. Plateau is for those late in the night, with a hip crowd, who want you to come join their party. I plan to do Old Port 8pm-10pm, Place Des Arts 10pm-2am. Plateau 2am-5am. Or, if I want to start drinking early, Plateau 8pm-5am. But the numerical ordering of sites, as described at the website, starts at the Old Port, goes through Place Des Arts, and ends up in the Plateau.

Some rules: (1) I'm only suggesting free stuff. I like stuff that costs money, too, but I find it too confusing for those who are looking for a good free time to include them on the same page. (2) I'm not suggesting scheduled events (except the 8pm fireworks at the old port, where to start the evening). The ethos of "Nuit Blanche" is to wander, sample, stay where you enjoy, move on from what you don't. Working out a schedule among 180 possible events is impossible. (3) I'm not suggesting dance clubs. If you're looking for dance clubs, there are lots, lots lots. Go check out the nuit blanche website, and find one good for you and your friends. (4) I don't care how tired you get, and how early you get it. I'm giving you a full program here, I expect you to follow through. If you peter out early, then don't blame me if you missed out on some spectacular stuff, because you never got beyond the fireworks show. Some of what's below is spectacular, some of it expected and a full night of Nuit Blanche requires -- requires -- you do both. And finally, (5) between my suggestions below are a huge number of extremely worthwhile events which will catch your fancy. But you need to be aware of them: so, first thing, pick up a schedule at any Information booth, or most venues, and appoint the reader in your group to thumb through it during the whole evening.

Finally, watch for the free shuttles which will move you in a circular route in each of the main areas (Old Port, Place Des Arts, Plateau), as well as the free shuttle which will take you between the main areas. Big help!

Below, I list the main areas, times, location, a brief, and the amount of time you might want to apportion to it.


Start at

OLD PORT

(1) 8pm Fireworks (start at 8, end quickly!). Old Port . 15 minutes.
(1) 10pm-6am. Old Port. Skating Rink. Skate on the St. Lawrence! 45 minutes.

At this point, take the free shuttle up to:

PLACE DES ARTS.

10pm-1am.
(63). 8pm-3pm. National Monument. Best Film Shorts from Sundance 2010. 5 minutes, or 2 hours.
(68) 6pm-5am. City Hall. ARTVscope gives a live tour of Nuit blanche Events. A great way to spot early on what to do for your evening.
(67-70) All Night, various -- Place Des Arts. There are actually a large handful of major events around this center, all of which are worth at least a walk through, a linger, a long long consideration. Just go to Place Des Arts and start walking around. An easy 2-3 hours doing this alone.
(74) 7pm-2am (or 3am) - Belgo Building. Almost 20 studios open, with events, shows, to-dos, drinks, music and the unexpected and surpising. Do not miss. http://bettinaforget.com/TheBelgoReport/?p=615. 30 min to 2 hours.
(75) 11pm-2am. St. James Church. Sonorous wind pipe organ playing, continusously. Come in from the cold and enjoy. 5 minutes to 1 hour. It's nice to sit for a while.


At this point, take a shuttle up to:

PLATEAU

1am-5am.
Really: you should just start at the corner of Sherbrooke and St. Laurent, walk north, and be reading the guide to find spots along the way. But don't miss:
(86) 10pm-3am Laika. Hip joint. Go in.
(97) 8pm-6am La Cagibi. Great coffee house, food, drink, with music, electronic lights, and weird performance art. Go for a breather.
(99) 9pm-3am. Mile End Guitars. Music, art, and hipness abound at 5555 De Gaspe Street. Not for the stodgy.


That's all I've got for you. Remember: it's a long night: so pace yourself, drink lots of water, and enjoy!

Bye-bye iPhone. It's Been Swell.

When I first started hearing rumors that Apple would come out with its own cell phone -- more than a year before it was actually available in Canada, it turned out -- I stopped looking at new cellphone hardware. I stopped being excited about flips and bricks, bluetooth and earbuds. I stopped searching through Sonys, Nokia, Motorola, LGs, Blackberries. I gave them all raspberries.

I stopped thinking about changing my cellphone plan with my provider, to add this long-distance, or that voicemail gizzy-do, because every time I did, they would lump on a "3 year contract required" clause, which would make it harder for me to change companies, which I may have had to do if the iPhone wasn't available with them (eventually, it was).

And when the iPhone was finally put out there by Fido, my provider, I snapped it up -- first spending 7 hours in line on opening day, to discover that I still had 14 months left on my contract, and they weren't making it available to customers like me who had more than 8 months (or some arbitrary number like that) left on a contract.

But now I'm done. Well, almost done. I'll keep my iPhone for now; but my next hardware switch will be to an Android phone.

I'm not walking away from the most anticipated consumer product I've ever purchased because I'm bored with it. I'm very far from being bored with it: I recently got (some say, over-) excited about the monitoring of my sleep cycle -- through the innovative app "Sleep Cycle" -- which lets me know if I got a bad 7 hours of shut-eye, so I can minimize the unexpected cranky that somehow got under my collar, which I probably otherwise wouldn't even notice. My iPhone makes me think about getting proper sleep; it has me backing away from bright-light screens an hour before bedtime, pulling up a book, turning off music -- those things "good sleep" gurus tell us is important. To get good sleep. Because of a cellphone. Because of the iPhone.

I'm not walking away from something which has changed my sleep, keeps me on calendar, tracks my daily tasks and calendar, because I don't need it -- and this is beside the fact that it makes and receives phone calls.

I'm walking away because of a very simple, important principle. And that principle is girls in bikinis.

Well, not exactly girls in bikinis. You've probably heard that Apple has this past weekend banned from its Applications store those Apps which do nothing else but display girls in bikinis. Now, anyone who has a cable modem can tell you that access to images of girls in bikinis is not hard to come by, and banning something which provides them is a bit like banning wind.

No, the problem is that Apple has decided that it's not a platform, it's a channel.

"What?"

I said, the Apple iPhone is not a platform, it's a channel. A platform provides a protocol -- software and hardware capabilities, which others -- note OTHERS -- can make use of as they will. The importance of a platform is that it becomes limited only by other's imaginations -- that is, by the collective imagination of people who would like to make a living, buy a boat, send their kids to Harvard based on profits made by selling you uses of that platform. Which is why I was happy to shell out 99 cents for "Sleep Cycle", which lets me sleep better and feel better during the day, while sending its author's kids to Harvard (well, at 99 cents, maybe UCLA).

A channel is just a mode to deliver content determined by the owner of that channel. And this weekend, Apple decided that it wants to be a channel, not a platform, and it announced that rather strongly by banning some -- but not all -- applications which show girls in bikinis. This is because, it appears, Apple believes that its core consumers for the iPad -- which will use the same App store as the iPhone when it comes out in May or so -- will be families, and it apparently also believes that families do not want to see girls in bikinis, does not want to see them so very much, that they won't buy Apple Applications of any type if there are Apps of girls in bikinis around. Such is the danger they pose.

Now, don't get Apple wrong. Even though they banned apps designed to show girls in bikinis, they are not against apps which show girls in bikinis. You see, as the New York Times pointed out, they permit Sports Illustrated's swimsuit app, which has identical content to those apps Apple banned to make their store family safe. Why? Philip W. Schiller, head of worldwide product marketing at Apple, said “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format,” he said. So there you have it! Families are safe if the bikinis come from a well-known company with previously published material available blah blah blah. But not the other thing. Other thing, bad, according to Apple.

But what if Apple changes their minds, and next week suddenly lets bikinis galore back onto the phone? Flooding the color screen with jiggly so giggly that even the most iridescent college freshman feels fresh? Will I re-warm to the iPhone then?

Doesn't matter -- doesn't matter in the least, because once you decide you have the power to open and close the gates, you are then and thereafter, forever after, a gatekeeper. You can open those gates wide, let the people flood through, but there you are standing next to them, ready to shut them tight if you should decide that some burly, surly types are not to your liking.

I don't like gatekeepers. I was 12 once. But I'm not anymore, and now that I'm an autonomous adult, I expect the world to be my oyster. I expect that, if I should want bikinis on my iPhone (or bikinis on women on my iPhone -- whatever) that it's there.
What's more, I want a computing device where anyone -- absolutely anyone -- can develop software for it, and don't have to receive permission from the self-appointed gatekeepers, who just happened to make the hardware. I don't want to hear that the makers of the phone shut out software developer X because they wrote an app which competes with core capability Y, or that Z can't distribute their software because vertical-agreement service vendor A thinks it infringes on their secret agreement with Apple.

That takes too much effort on my part.

I want to know that the best authors are writing software for the platform I own, and they will only do that if they know that, after they develop the application, nobody will tell them they can't sell it.

And that's what Android promises: an open source, open environment in its online app store, the Android Marketplace.

So, goodbye Apple iPhone. It's been swell.