Eu Heroi - melhor campanha viral de todos os tempos

Who`s - Jon Brion

Amazon.com: Jon Brion: Albums, Songs, Bios, Photos

Producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion grew up in a musical family: his father was director of the Yale concert and marching bands, his mother sang in jazz bands, and his siblings, Randy (a conductor/arranger in L.A.) and Laurie (a violinist), were both avid music students.

Young Jon didn't deal with instruction or practice well, but his natural affinity for improvisation and melody more than made up for his impatience. Unwilling to conform to the conventional school system, Brion attended special education class at Hamden High School in New Haven, CT, and the day he turned 17, he left school for good.

Moving to Boston in 1987, the young musician formed many bonds that he would keep long into his professional career, including producer Mike Denneen (owner of Q Division, Boston's premier studio and record label) and Til Tuesday vocalist Aimee Mann.

Also while there, Brion tuned his improvisational musical abilities: "I used to watch TV with an unplugged electric guitar, on the couch, and commercials would come on and I'd try to play along. It was one of the prime things I concerned myself with for several years, getting to the point where if I heard it, I could play it. Then I started working on getting my brain to do multiple things at once. And having my hands translate them." This proficiency led to increasingly frequent studio work on the West Coast, eventually resulting in his move to L.A.

While in California, he and Jellyfish guitarist Jason Falkner formed the Grays, an underground superstar group which released the 1994 album Ro Sham Bo, before quickly fading as the other members (Falkner, Dan McCarroll, and Buddy Judge) went on to individual musical success.

Throughout the '90s, Brion found himself increasingly in demand in the studio, producing and collaborating on albums by Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, Rufus Wainwright, David Byrne, and the Eels and soundtracks including the Grammy-nominated Magnolia.

In addition to his prolific studio work, he also has held a long-term position as "the house band" Friday nights at the high-profile Hollywood nightclub Largo. At his live shows, the crowd can expect anything from guest appearances by Aimee Mann, Michael Stipe, Elvis Costello, T-Bone Burnett, or Grant Lee Phillips, and Brion is infamous for making up songs on the spot (often from titles shouted from the audience). He also is beloved for his quirky cover versions of songs by Cheap Trick, the Beatles, and Cole Porter, proudly likening his on-stage antics to "spraying musical Raid on the classics, until each dying song flips on its back and wiggles its little musical legs in surrender."

Whatever music he was involved in, his eclectic touch undeniably shaped the sound of many progressive alternative musicians throughout the '90s.

- Zac Johnson, All Music Guide

Overkill

Day After Day, Night After Night « The Sunjay Times

I can't get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications

Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know I'll be alright
Perhaps it's just imagination

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away

Alone between the sheets
Only brings exasperation
It's time to walk the streets
Smell the desperation

At least there's pretty lights
And though there's little variation
It nullifies the night from overkill

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away
Come back another day

I can't get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications

Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know I'll be alright
It's just overkill

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away
Ghosts appear and fade away
Ghosts appear and fade away

Land down under

YouTube - Men at work: Land down under!!!! (One of their best songs!!)

Travelling in a fried-out combie
On a hippie trail, head full of zombie
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous
She took me in and gave me breakfast
And she said,

Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.

Buying bread from a man in brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, do you speak-a my language?
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
And he said,

I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.

Lying in a den in bombay
With a slack jaw, and not much to say
I said to the man, are you trying to tempt me
Because I come from the land of plenty?
And he said,

Oh! Do you come from a land down under? (oh yeah yeah)
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.

Guess Which Economy Doubled in Size Last Year

Believe it or not, the virtual economy of Second Life, a popular online computer game that lets users create a new reality for themselves, doubled in size last year. Users spent more than a billion dollars on virtual goods over the last year, compared to $360 million for the year before.

Second Life's economy is now larger than the economies of nations such as East Timor, Samoa and Dijibouti.

The Day The Media Died

Citi Bang!

Citibank, a company that’s taken billions of dollars in bailout money apparently plans to spend $400 million to stick its logo on a stadium. This giant branding exercise isn’t going to help Citibank sell its products, and it certainly isn’t going to help relieve the credit crisis. But that’s the kind of horse puckey that happens when marketeers convince top management that “branding” is vitally important.

Matt Harding mata a cobra e mostra o pau

GM to the American taxpayer

The following ad, which is on GM's site will appear in print the same day American congress may begin voting on as much as $34 billion in U.S. assistance for GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler

GM's Commitment to the American People

We deeply appreciate the Congress considering General Motors’ request to borrow up to $18 billion from the United States. We want to be sure the American people know why we need it, what we’ll do with it and how it will make GM viable for the long term.

For a century, we have been serving your personal mobility needs, providing American
jobs and serving local communities. We have been the U.S. sales leader for 76
consecutive years. Of the 250 million cars and trucks on U.S. roads today, more than 66
million are GM brands — nearly 44 million more than Toyota brands. Our goal is to
continue to fulfill your aspirations and exceed your expectations.

While we’re still the U.S. sales leader, we acknowledge we have disappointed you. At
times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below industry standards and our
designs become lackluster. We have proliferated our brands and dealer network to the
point where we lost adequate focus on our core U.S. market. We also biased our product
mix toward pick-up trucks and SUVs. And, we made commitments to compensation
plans that have proven to be unsustainable in today’s globally competitive industry. We
have paid dearly for these decisions, learned from them and are working hard to correct
them by restructuring our U.S. business to be viable for the long term.

Today, we have substantially overcome our quality gap; our newest designs like the
Chevrolet Malibu and Cadillac CTS are widely heralded for their appeal; our new
products are nearly all cars and “crossovers” rather than pick-ups and SUVs; our factories
have greatly improved productivity and our labor agreements are much more competitive.
We are also driven to lead in fuel economy, with more hybrid models for sale and
biofuel-capable vehicles on the road than any other manufacturer, and determined to
reinvent the automobile with products like the Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric
vehicle and breakthrough technology like hydrogen fuel cells.

Until recent events, we felt the actions we’d been taking positioned us for a bright future. Just a year ago, after we reached transformational agreements with our unions, industry
analysts were forecasting a positive GM turnaround. We had adequate cash on hand to
continue our restructuring even under relatively conservative industry sales volume
assumptions. Unfortunately, along with all Americans, we were hit by a “perfect storm.”
Over the past year we have all faced volatile energy prices, the collapse of the U.S.
housing market, failing financial institutions, a stock market crash and the complete
freezing of credit. We are in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression. Just like you, we have been severely impacted by events outside our control.
U.S. auto industry sales have fallen to their lowest per capita rate in half a century.
Despite moving quickly to reduce our planned spending by over $20 billion, GM finds
itself precariously and frighteningly close to running out of cash.

This is why we need to borrow money from U.S. taxpayers. If we run out of cash, we
will be unable to pay our bills, sustain our operations and invest in advanced technology.

A collapse of GM and the domestic auto industry will accelerate the downward spiral of
an already anemic U.S. economy. This will be devastating to all Americans, not just GM
stakeholders, because it would put millions of jobs at risk and deepen our recession. By
lending GM money, you will provide us with a financial bridge until the U.S. economy
and auto sales return to modestly healthy levels. This will allow us to keep operating and
complete our restructuring.

We submitted a plan to Congress Dec. 2, 2008, detailing our commitments to ensure our
viability, strengthen our competitiveness, and deliver energy-efficient products.

Specifically, we are committed to:

• produce automobiles you want to buy and are excited to own
• lead the reinvention of the automobile based on promising new technology
• focus on our core brands to consistently deliver on their promises
• streamline our dealer network to ensure the best sales and service
• ensure sacrifices are shared by all GM stakeholders
• meet appropriate standards for executive pay and corporate governance
• work with our unions to quickly realize competitive wages and benefits
• reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil
• protect our environment
• pay you back the entire loan with appropriate oversight and returns

These actions, combined with a modest rebound of the U.S. economy, should allow us to
begin repaying you in 2011.

In summary, our plan is designed to provide a secure return on your investment in GM’s
future. We accept the conditions of your loan, the commitments of our plan, and the
results needed to transform our business for long-term success. We will contribute to
strengthening U.S. energy and environmental security. We will contribute to America’s
technical and manufacturing know-how and create high quality jobs for the “new
economy.” And, we will continue to deliver personal mobility freedom to Americans
using the most advanced transportation solutions. We are proud of our century of
contribution to U.S. prosperity and look forward to making an equally meaningful
contribution during our next 100 years.

O cinema do monóculo

“Testemunha de Acusação” e o olhar clássico hollywoodiano sobre seus personagens
condensado e adaptado de: Larissa Pontez, "O cinema do monóculo", 2008.

podem ficar com a realidade

esse baixo astral

em que tudo entra pelo cano

eu quero viver de verdade

eu fico com o cinema americano

Paulo Leminski

Cinema Clássico. O próprio termo “clássico” já transmite uma idéia de fixo, imutável, emblemático de um tempo passado, mas que influencia e estabelece parâmetros para o que sucede, por tratar-se de algo universal e, assim, imortal, como as proporções gregas e as sinfonias de Mozart. Portanto, a nomenclatura de um tipo de cinema como clássico revela sua importância entre seus pares.

Outro ângulo pelo qual o termo é entendido é como algo preso às suas bases, conservador, resistente a mudanças e inovações. Mas o simples fato de o chamado Cinema Clássico Hollywoodiano tratar-se de um período tão abrangente (aproximadamente da década de 1910 aos anos 60), durante o qual ocorreram as duas Grandes Guerras, uma crise econômica mundial, a Guerra Fria, a Guerra do Vietnã, e inúmeras inovações tecnológicas, entre outras fundamentais transformações, torna ao mesmo tempo realistas e imprecisas as asserções de que esse cinema é tanto “imortal”, quanto profundamente arraigado às suas tradições: realistas, à medida que ele de fato definiu as linhas formais e estilísticas que perduram até hoje e que separam o “cinema canônico” de qualquer outro tipo de cinema que fuja a elas; e imprecisas, já que nenhuma forma de arte poderia permanecer imutável em um período tão dinâmico e turbulento.

Se o cinema canônico passou por poucas reformas nos seus alicerces formais, seu conteúdo sofreu, a cada transformação mundial, profundos conflitos. A “Era de Ouro” do cinema norte-americano, em que os grandes estúdios produziam com dinamismo industrial e os filmes de gênero atingiam seu ápice, durou, para alguns teóricos, aproximadamente até o final da Segunda Guerra Mundial. A discrepância, inédita até o final da década de 1940, entre os filmes elogiados pela crítica e emblemáticos da época – “À Beira do Abismo”, de Howard Hawks, 1946; “Sangue de Herói”, de John Ford; “A dama de Shanghai”, de Orson Welles, 1948, entre outros – e aqueles que, na ocasião, fizeram sucesso de bilheteria, é indicativa do gradual declínio do modelo hollywoodiano clássico. Essa fragmentação do público, que até os anos 40 era massificado incentivou a produção de filmes “pré-vendidos”, ou seja, baseados em livros, histórias, peças, etc., que já eram sucesso de vendas.

Bem-sucedido nesse momento de crise do sistema, Billy Wilder era um representante do modelo almejado pela indústria, geralmente fazendo filmes propositalmente sem conotações políticas, dirigidos às massas. Estilisticamente, é um dos diretores mais aclamados e representativos do formalismo técnico hollywoodiano. Apesar de defender ao máximo a chamada invisibilidade do aparato cinematográfico, em 1950 Wilder já era considerado um auteur dentro do sistema de estúdios, um autor que executava com maestria os princípios do cinema canônico.

Seu filme “Testemunha de Acusação” (1958) parece, a princípio, apenas mais uma adaptação, de uma peça surpreendente de Agatha Christie, apenas um filme onde o aprumo estilístico (da decupagem, da atuação, da direção de arte, etc.) fica evidente. Sob análise cuidadosa, entretanto, percebe-se uma reflexão sobre a capacidade de o cinema clássico espelhar, representar e se comunicar com o público desse período. Não apresenta inovações formais, como o cinema de vanguarda. Parte da própria gramática canônica, utilizando a gama de artifícios técnicos para investigar a eficácia do modelo narrativo clássico e seu iminente declínio.

A história trata de um caso de assassinato, em que a testemunha-chave – que testemunhará pela acusação – é a esposa do réu. No entanto, como na grande maioria dos clássicos hollywooodianos, o elemento central do filme são as ações e relações entre personagens, não sua dinâmica e seus conflitos psicológicos.

Em um período em que pouco era atribuído ao inconsciente das pessoas, Virginia Woolf ainda era considerada uma escritora "difícil" e Joyce, impossível, o cinema,que, com os anos, passou a ser visto por tantos teóricos como uma das formas de arte que mais agem dentro desse inconsciente, em seu modelo clássico, pouco falava do universo interior de seus personagens. Os filmes eram guiados pelas relações entre os indivíduos, deixando o espectador em uma posição não de observador onisciente, mas de alguém dentro da história, que acompanha e desvenda a narrativa pelas ações e palavras de seus personagens, cujas motivações não são divulgadas ou esclarecidas. Nesse sentido, o cinema clássico se aproximava muito mais da vida real, na qual cabe a cada um depreender as intenções alheias, do que da novela oitocentista, cujos narradores ofereciam uma exposição ilimitada das mentes de seus personagens.

Se “Testemunha de Acusação” fosse realizado hoje, o cinema e seu público exigiriam uma análise psicológica muito mais profunda e detalhista para uma história em que as verdadeiras intenções dos protagonistas (Christine e Vole) são completamente invertidas no final.

O filme abre com um travelling in, utilizado, como em tantos outros casos, para localizar e transpor o espectador para dentro do universo no qual transcorrerá a história: nesse caso, a Corte Criminal de Londres. Essa cena será repetida no terceiro ato, quando o júri se prepara para dar o veredicto.

A música inicial é um leitmotif que acompanha elementos representativos da justiça, como o brasão sobre a bancada do juiz no fim dos créditos iniciais. Porém, quando retorna, é sobre a imagem de uma estátua da Justiça em reforma, como uma metáfora kafkaniana de que o processo de justiça é o antagonista do filme, no qual tanto Vole quanto Wilfrid confiam. É a protagonista, Christine, que assumidamente desconfia e se opõe a esse sistema, burlando-o, tomando um caminho próprio e inesperado para salvar seu marido. E ao final do filme, quando a deficiência da justiça é comprovada, Wilfrid compreende que, ao executar – “não matar” – o marido, Christine está preenchendo a falha causada pelo sistema, reequilibrando a balança. Eles são, nessa cena, através de uma ainda mais sutil metáfora visual, cúmplices. O monóculo em que Wilfrid tanto confiava para determinar a honestidade das pessoas já lhe é obsoleto e ineficaz. Ele balança-o como um pêndulo, sem mirá-lo em ninguém. Porém, como um sinal para Christine, a luz que reflete na lente incide sobre a faca, anteriormente um instrumento na defesa do marido, com a qual ele será morto.

Vole e Christine são, até o desfecho do filme, quase caricaturas de si mesmos, mas integrados a um universo de personagens alegóricos (o herói vitimizado, a femme fatale, o sábio-bufão, a “ruffiana” enfermeira), e por isso são aceitos como familiares. Seus nomes variam quase a cada cena: Vole também é chamado de Leonard, Mr. Vole, o acusado, o prisioneiro; Christine é, além de Mrs. Vole, também Mrs. Helm, Frau Helm, e a própria testemunha de acusação. A volúvel identificação desses personagens sinaliza seus desdobramentos e transformações.

Christine, no entanto, é um caso ainda mais singular. Talvez tão importante quanto a linguagem canônica e o sistema de estúdios do período clássico seja o star system, que jamais voltou a ter o mesmo prestígio que teve na Era de Ouro. Sobre ele, David Bordwell escreve:

A estrela reforçava a tendência à caracterização fortemente definida e unificada. [...] como o personagem ficcional [a estrela] já possuía um conjunto de características salientes que preenchiam as necessidades da história.

Tendo como ponto de partida essa visão amalgamada de personagem-estrela, Herbert Feinstein não está sozinho quando, em 1958, referiu-se a Christine como a própria atriz:

Marlene Dietrich interpreta uma Testemunha de acusação traiçoeira e duas-caras. [...] parece inútil discutir esses personagens [...] sob nomes fictícios, já que – para uma mulher – essas femmes fatales conseguem, inexoravelmente, interpretarem a si mesmas.

Dos diversos arquétipos que revolviam as estrelas, a aura da femme fatale simbolizava a mulher sinônimo de ruína. Frígida, calculista e intocável, ela arquiteta a destruição dos homens que a vêem como objeto de desejo inatingível e, como a própria Christine alega, “veneram o chão onde ela pisa”. Como Mary Ann Doane comenta:

Seria um erro ver [a femme fatale] como uma heroína da modernidade. Ela não é sujeita do feminismo, mas um sintoma dos medos masculinos sobre o feminismo.

Em oposição a ela, as heroínas eram frágeis e puras. Essas características eram reforçadas pela fotografia, que lhe dava um aspecto angelical. Wilder utiliza esses cânones da técnica cinematográfica para apontar à verdadeira personalidade de Christine. Ao ser supostamente desmascarada por Wilfrid, ela chora no banco das testemunhas. É então que a luz que a ilumina, faz o mesmo efeito das heroínas do melodrama e do filme noir: Ela está se sacrificando pelo amado. Seguindo os arquétipos clássicos, em “Testemunha de Acusação” Dietrich seria não uma femme fatale, mas uma diva, uma mulher que desconhece seus efeitos acidentalmente destruidores.

Mas a mentalidade do star system estava tão arraigada nos espectadores do período que, mesmo após a traição de Vole e a validação das ações de Christine por Wilfrid, Feinstein ainda via Dietrich como a vilã.

Conhecendo plenamente as propriedades alegóricas e familiares que as estrelas produziam na platéia, Wilder utiliza o próprio star system para quebrar esses paradigmas, a fim de produzir o final surpreendente: o espectador antecipa que Christine trairá seu marido, mas ela será a verdadeira heroína trágica que luta para salvar seu amado sem, contudo, conquistar seu final feliz. Se Tyrone Power (Vole) é um dos “príncipes encantados” do cinema clássico, ele será o traidor assassino. A surpresa dessas inversões das identidades não só dos personagens, mas, para o público, dos próprios atores, só poderia ter tal impacto na Era do Cinema Clássico Hollywoodiano.

Como o espectador clássico, Sir Wilfrid também é abalado pela revelação dos protagonistas. A razão pela qual ele prezava tanto a vida do cliente era porque estava, desde o início, convicto de sua inocência, pois estava confiante nos métodos de avaliação e investigação que estava acostumado a usar. O público tenta encontrar sinais e desvendar os personagens através da lente cinematográfica, como Wilfrid através de seu monóculo, simplesmente baseado em suas convicções anteriores: o contrato entre cinema clássico e espectador de que, a qualquer momento do filme, o público teria sempre o ângulo verdadeiro do que está acontecendo; as características das estrelas se confundem e misturam com os personagens que interpretam, cujas ações e falas revelam suas reais motivações.

Mas o que a câmera de Wilder evidencia é a ineficácia e ingenuidade desse olhar. O filme acaba sendo uma metáfora das limitações do olhar clássico sobre os personagens, ao achar que, narrando suas ações, é possível apreender algo sobre suas verdadeiras identidades. Como na vida real, com pessoas reais, em que isso não é possível, também não é ‘realístico’ no cinema. A luz que o cinema clássico lança sobre seus personagens, como a luz que o advogado lançava com seu monóculo, é inútil. Ao invés de estar atento às falas e ações, o espectador, para realmente desvendar esses personagens, deve olhar além do que está acostumado a ver. Como o próprio Wilfrid desconfia, “isso é muito arrumado, muito arranjado, e inteiramente simétrico demais”.

O declínio do modelo clássico hollywoodiano não se deve exclusivamente a mudanças econômicas ou à crise do sistema de estúdios. As mudanças de mentalidade do público americano, que havia perdido um pouco de sua ingenuidade e tornado-se mais aberto e consciente às demais tendências mundiais, foram gradativamente afastando o espectador do contato que costumava ter com a forma como Hollywood contava suas histórias e retratava seu imaginário. Seus conflitos e alegrias já não eram mais aqueles representados nas telas.

O fim do período Clássico Hollywoodiano pode ser visto como o coroamento e desfecho do período industrial nos Estados Unidos. De “O Nascimento de uma Nação” (D. W. Griffith, 1915) a “Como era verde o meu vale” (John Ford, 1941), passando por “Tempos Modernos” (Charlie Chaplin, 1936), “I Love Lucy” e “Os Jetsons”, a produção audiovisual americana narrou e refletiu os desafios, sacrifícios, perplexidades, benefícios e alegrias da era industrial, da mesma forma como as perturbações provocadas pela transição da sociedade agrária para a sociedade urbano-industrial foi documentada em um trabalho pioneiro do cinema – Metrópolis (Fritz Lang, 1927).

À medida que foi ficando claro que essa sociedade havia se transformado em uma sociedade pós-industrial, ficou também claro que essa produção audiovisual pertencia a uma outra época, agora extinta. A fragmentação dos gostos, o aumento da renda da população e o barateamento dos meios de produção e distribuição caracterizam a sociedade pós-industrial, e propiciam uma produção muito mais variada, multi-cultural, experimental e auto-reflexiva.

Novas regras para atendimento

Entra em vigor hoje a portaria que regulamenta o decreto presidencial 6.523, de 31 de julho, que estabeleceu novas regras para atendimento, em setores regulados:

• energia elétrica,
• telefonia,
• televisão por assinatura,
• planos de saúde,
• aviação civil,
• empresas de ônibus,
• bancos e cartões de crédito fiscalizados pelo Banco Central.

As empresas que descumprirem as regras estarão sujeitas a multa de R$ 200 a R$ 3 milhões de reais, conforme prevê o Código de Defesa do Consumidor.

Veja abaixo as regras:

Tempo de espera

A regra geral é que o consumidor não espere mais do que um minuto até o contato direto com o atendente, quando essa opção for selecionada.

Casos específicos

Energia Elétrica - segue a regra geral de, no máximo, um minuto de espera. O tempo de atendimento só poderá ser maior no caso de atendimento emergencial que implique a interrupção do fornecimento de energia elétrica a um grande número de consumidores, provocando elevada concentração de chamadas.

Horário de funcionamento

A regra geral é o funcionamento durante 24 horas, sete dias por semana. O texto garante o acesso do consumidor ao fornecedor sempre que o serviço esteja sendo oferecido ou possa ser contratado pelo consumidor.

Poderá haver interrupção do acesso ao SAC quando o serviço ofertado não estiver disponível para contratação.

O que mudou

• A empresa deve garantir, no primeiro menu eletrônico e em todas suas subdivisões, o contato direto com o atendente.
• Sempre que oferecer menu eletrônico, as opções de reclamações e de cancelamento têm de estar entre as primeiras alternativas.
• No caso de reclamação e cancelamento, fica proibida a transferência de ligação. Todos os atendentes deverão ter atribuição para executar essas funções.
• As reclamações terão que ser resolvidas em até cinco dias úteis. O consumidor será informado sobre a resolução de sua demanda.
• O pedido de cancelamento de um serviço será imediato.
• Deve ser oferecido ao consumidor um único número de telefone para acesso ao atendimento.
• Fica proibido, durante o atendimento, exigir a repetição da demanda do consumidor.
• Ao selecionar a opção de falar com o atendente, o consumidor não poderá ter sua ligação finalizada sem que o contato seja concluído.
• Só é permitida a veiculação de mensagens publicitárias durante o tempo de espera se o consumidor permitir.
• O acesso ao atendente não poderá ser condicionado ao prévio fornecimento de dados pelo consumidor.
• O cidadão que não receber o atendimento adequado poderá denunciar ao Sistema Nacional de Defesa do Consumidor (SNDC), Ministérios Públicos, Procons, Defensorias Públicas e entidades civis que representam a área.

On Journalism

November 17, 2008

Chris Masters, the longest-serving reporter on Four Corners, retired from the Australian broadcast ABC last week after 25 years.

I HAVE been talking about myself a lot lately - not always a comfortable circumstance for someone who has long argued the journalist is the storyteller and not the story.

A benefit has been a rare focus on positive elements of a beloved occupation.

I can understand some of the reasons why journalism has a bad name. When I see a pushy reporter harassing a comparatively powerless television repairman or the like, I too find myself looking into my hands, directing sympathy away from my own profession.

But for all that, I don't see the majority of reporters as exploitative and predatory. Most work harder for the public than they do for themselves. Many of our neighbours are better paid and spend more time with their families. Journalists regularly get into trouble for the sake of the community, often bearing community ire for doing so.

And now it is getting harder. While the communication revolution booms around us we watch our industry shrink. While our skill levels increase, our opportunities are narrowing. The Sunday program is gone from Channel Nine, and The Bulletin magazine is no longer there to run long-form print stories. Across our industry it is harder to find managers and proprietors who grasp the essence of journalism. It is difficult to reconcile that somehow, with all our communication skills, we fail to convey, even to our own employers, the worth of what we do.

I am pleased to be able to look back on a career and offer to the public a scorecard of public achievement. And, I am a long way from being the only one. The skills we develop as gatekeepers of public information embody values that outreach simple explanation.

We learn to make what is important interesting. We grade information, day by day, interview by interview, lie by lie - honing our talent for truth. We break into forbidden territory, challenging abuse of power and staring down the hypocrites. We try to give the public the facts, often when it is bad news - when they least want to know what they most need to know.

The thrill of it for me is this search for truth, a worthy life-long quest. Never quite getting there is probably what makes it so energising. My most important trick was collected from my mother, and that is finding nobility in the commonplace. Olga Masters was a suburban reporter who did not need a car crash to find a story. I got from her a sense of proceeding with whatever I had selected, or had come my way - and seeing where it took me. Every story, big and small, became a battle to find out as much as I could in the time that I had. Over time, I came to recognise the brilliance of this approach.

It made me less inclined to self-censor stories with a higher degree of difficulty, or adjust my focus to the easier ones that appeared to promise awards and acclaim - the "good get" as we often put it.

The preferred "next cab off the rank" approach can be more painful at first, but far more rewarding over time, as you find and develop narrative skills to make what is before you work. We become less fearful of inconvenient facts, and more inclined to allow the invisible hand of the story to choose the pathway, and move us closer to our best understanding of the truth. Checks and balances begin to organically apply. And rather than a nuisance, balance and fairness becomes a virtue.

The journalist who develops as a confident storyteller undergoes a process of liberation. When you are interested in the whole you don't so eagerly rely on an angle. Open-minded research propels us on a wild ride, which to me is where the job is at its most thrilling. Recognising nuances - integrating opposites - giving texture to the characters - surprising the reader. Good journalism is like good drama. It is life - and the more we allow ourselves to be alive to the intricacies of the yarn, the better the writer, the stronger the message and we would hope, public engagement with the story. I can see, looking back, that spending most of the first half of my career working in smaller communities had another benefit. There is nothing like waking up again and again in a place where nothing happens to advance your skills in investigative journalism. And it is that much harder to absolve yourself of moral responsibility when you are in direct touch with the audience. Journalism is supposed to connect with society.

So there is a lot to like about good journalism and a lot the public don't see that would improve our reputation. But it would be foolish to pretend that is all there is to see. My sense is our poor reputation has a lot to do with a perception that we capture public information first of all for our own benefit. Journalism is not an industry with a clear and uniform value system. It is hard to get a room full of reporters to agree on how and why we do what we do. Some reporters see information as public property, while others see that it belongs to them. Enormous institutional competitiveness encourages possessiveness and detachment from the element we all share - public responsibility.

To go on too much about all this is baying at the moon. But we could at least talk about it more. Just as journalists are secretive about stories, so too are they wary of sharing ideas. So here is one:

Get rid of the commentators. Not necessarily all of them, just the bloody great majority. The next time a reporter says they are sick of making all those phone calls and wish to settle into a regular opinion piece, let us agree to lead them into the snow.

Like those energy ratings symbols on the fridge, editors could insist on similar telephone-like icons accompanying each column. It is a treat when you read a column supported by visible research. Opinion without facts is worth little and yet the opinion columns have grown, as far as I can see sometimes influencing and invading news.

Columnists like to give the impression they are fearless, but few ever get into what I would call "useful trouble". As Stuart Littlemore used to say, "there is no such thing as false opinion". Opinion is far less costly to defend. The sound and fury is skirmish and point-scoring, making little real difference. Policymakers can't ignore contrary evidence. The cleverest commentators, be they from Left or Right, must know this. The ranting ideologues of both sides should admit the cause they most advance is their own.

And now it is happening in my corner. In the US, TV news shows such as the one I work on are being replaced by so-called fearless commentators in mock attack on one another from opposing corners of a studio. It is useless TV foisted on us for no better reason than it is cheaper. It is not news.

And the coverage of daily news on TV more and more has a feel of external hands managing the process. Expensive outside broadcast vans, reporters and cameras assemble, working more it would seem in the business of event management than news reporting. When we are there in the crowd our instinct is to break free and find the real story. And that is what I am doing. I have loved working at Four Corners and am grateful for the generous support and opportunities given to me, in the same way it is given to reporters at this newspaper.

While The Australian and the ABC are often at odds there is a proud shared record of supporting investigative journalism. Never more has the importance of leadership in expressing the worth of what we do been more important.

As I see whenever I return from an overseas assignment, Australia is still a long way from Stasiland. We are lucky to live in a wonderful country and work in an exciting industry. Opportunities are still with us. While limits to press freedom crowd in, there is still enormous power in our own potential - and those stories waiting to be told.

The Screen People of Tomorrow

By KEVIN KELLY

Published: November 21, 2008

Everywhere we look, we see screens. The other day I watched clips from a movie as I pumped gas into my car. The other night I saw a movie on the backseat of a plane. We will watch anywhere. Screens playing video pop up in the most unexpected places — like A.T.M. machines and supermarket checkout lines and tiny phones; some movie fans watch entire films in between calls. These ever-present screens have created an audience for very short moving pictures, as brief as three minutes, while cheap digital creation tools have empowered a new generation of filmmakers, who are rapidly filling up those screens. We are headed toward screen ubiquity.

When technology shifts, it bends the culture. Once, long ago, culture revolved around the spoken word. The oral skills of memorization, recitation and rhetoric instilled in societies a reverence for the past, the ambiguous, the ornate and the subjective. Then, about 500 years ago, orality was overthrown by technology. Gutenberg’s invention of metallic movable type elevated writing into a central position in the culture. By the means of cheap and perfect copies, text became the engine of change and the foundation of stability. From printing came journalism, science and the mathematics of libraries and law. The distribution-and-display device that we call printing instilled in society a reverence for precision (of black ink on white paper), an appreciation for linear logic (in a sentence), a passion for objectivity (of printed fact) and an allegiance to authority (via authors), whose truth was as fixed and final as a book. In the West, we became people of the book.

Video Citing: TimeTube, on the Web, gives a genealogy of the most popular videos and their descendants, and charts their popularity in time-line form.

Now invention is again overthrowing the dominant media. A new distribution-and-display technology is nudging the book aside and catapulting images, and especially moving images, to the center of the culture. We are becoming people of the screen. The fluid and fleeting symbols on a screen pull us away from the classical notions of monumental authors and authority. On the screen, the subjective again trumps the objective. The past is a rush of data streams cut and rearranged into a new mashup, while truth is something you assemble yourself on your own screen as you jump from link to link. We are now in the middle of a second Gutenberg shift — from book fluency to screen fluency, from literacy to visuality.

The overthrow of the book would have happened long ago but for the great user asymmetry inherent in all media. It is easier to read a book than to write one; easier to listen to a song than to compose one; easier to attend a play than to produce one. But movies in particular suffer from this user asymmetry. The intensely collaborative work needed to coddle chemically treated film and paste together its strips into movies meant that it was vastly easier to watch a movie than to make one. A Hollywood blockbuster can take a million person-hours to produce and only two hours to consume. But now, cheap and universal tools of creation (megapixel phone cameras, Photoshop, iMovie) are quickly reducing the effort needed to create moving images. To the utter bafflement of the experts who confidently claimed that viewers would never rise from their reclining passivity, tens of millions of people have in recent years spent uncountable hours making movies of their own design. Having a ready and reachable audience of potential millions helps, as does the choice of multiple modes in which to create. Because of new consumer gadgets, community training, peer encouragement and fiendishly clever software, the ease of making video now approaches the ease of writing.

This is not how Hollywood makes films, of course. A blockbuster film is a gigantic creature custom-built by hand. Like a Siberian tiger, it demands our attention — but it is also very rare. In 2007, 600 feature films were released in the United States, or about 1,200 hours of moving images. As a percentage of the hundreds of millions of hours of moving images produced annually today, 1,200 hours is tiny. It is a rounding error.

We tend to think the tiger represents the animal kingdom, but in truth, a grasshopper is a truer statistical example of an animal. The handcrafted Hollywood film won’t go away, but if we want to see the future of motion pictures, we need to study the swarming food chain below — YouTube, indie films, TV serials and insect-scale lip-sync mashups — and not just the tiny apex of tigers. The bottom is where the action is, and where screen literacy originates.

Read the remainder of this article in this post

Could it be more gay?

NPR names Vivian Schiller as president and CEO

Tue Nov 11, 2008 7:38pm EST


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Vivian Schiller, a vice president at the New York Times who runs the newspaper's Web site, was named president and chief executive officer of National Public Radio on Tuesday.

Schiller, 47, replaces Dennis Haarsager, who has served as interim CEO of NPR since March, the radio network said.

She has more than 20 years of experience working in media. She currently heads the day-to-day operations at the Web site of the New York Times, but in a previous position at CNN she ran long-form programing for the U.S. news channel.

NPR programing goes out over more than 880 public radio stations in the United States. The New York Times is owned by New York Times Co.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

Media's Advertising Addiction Leaves Billions on the Table

Jack Myers

Posted November 11, 2008 | 07:05 AM (EST)

The equity value and potential revenues being left on the table by media companies is in the billions. It is long overdue for these companies to focus on how they can wean themselves off their addiction to advertising revenues and begin capturing the other 70% to 75% of corporate marketing budgets they rarely touch. Media companies need to convince investors they have the management team in place that can develop and implement a coherent and intelligent vision for the future – a future in which they will be forced to be less dependent on advertising revenues. Just as America must wean itself off foreign oil by developing new energy sources, media companies must develop and implement a new vision if they are to survive. It's clear, based on their continuing emphasis on traditional business models… their reaction to the softening economy… and the unyielding downward pressure on media company stocks… that the current management teams at all but a few companies are failing to make the transformation to the new economy.

In just the past few weeks, the media industry has gone from a wake-up call to a migraine headache. Across all media companies and agencies staffs are being cut in anticipation of an accelerating economic downturn precipitated by expected reductions in corporate ad spending.

While there are tidbits of good news here and there, overall it's impossible to view the short-term industry future with anything but nervous caution, at best. A depressed holiday shopping season will exacerbate an already negative industry mood. Unfortunately, many media companies are cutting in all the wrong places, trimming where there is no fat, and eliminating overhead without any cohesive strategic vision for how to rebuild and reconstruct the businesses they are now deconstructing.

For years, the signs have been on the wall. Traditional media companies have had plenty of opportunities to invest in business models that would have prepared them for these tough times. I'm not referring to digital investments, which of course are an important part of future growth opportunities. Ambitious digital plans have been rolled out, but traditional ad-dependent business models have been anchor-bolted onto them. The focus should have been and could have been on identifying core assets that have viable brand extension and growth potential and on shedding those assets that remain dependent on commoditized supply and demand market fluctuations.

Every network television series should have been reviewed for its long term brand vitality – not based on ratings but based on non-traditional revenue potential. Every section of every newspaper… every personality on every radio station and every format within a radio company… every editorial category within a magazine and every publication within a magazine company… all need to be analyzed as independent brands. Just as Procter & Gamble assessed the brand vitality of each product and category the company marketed, and shed several while investing heavily in others, so should media companies have viewed their businesses as collections of independent brands. Each media brand needs to be assessed for its potential to generate revenues from events, sales promotion, database marketing, cause related initiatives, long-tail sales, and other below-the-line marketing communications budgets.

Some companies have flailed at efforts to conduct strategic business reviews. A few, like Meredith, Disney, Google and IDG, have succeeded to varying degrees. Brand reviews need to be conducted by non-traditional experts who are knowledgeable of a company's assets but unaffiliated with the core editorial and business traditions of the company. Anna Wintour at Vogue has no true perception of the value of her brand as a long-tail marketing enterprise any more than David E. Kelley understands the event, database marketing and digital marketing opportunities represented by Boston Legal.

And the traditional consulting companies like Booz, McKinsey and Bain & Company are mostly locked into outdated Harvard Business School case studies and antiquated perceptions of media industry realities. They are incapable of bringing forward thinking non-traditional vision to the companies they advise.

There is less time than they realize for major media companies to reinvent their business models. The writing was on the wall in 1993 when I wrote in my first book Adbashing,

"Media have traditionally not been viewed as marketing partners by advertisers or their agencies. Rather, they have been perceived as commodities designed to deliver a message as inexpensively as possible to a particular audience. Media sales representatives are not typically challenged to develop new and creative means of addressing a client's specific marketing needs."

If media companies want to survive for the next 15 years they must act quickly to alter this paradigm and present a coherent future-looking vision that will appeal to both marketers and investors. They must cure themselves of their advertising addiction.

This post originally appeared at JackMyers.com.

Nosso Amigo em Kathmandu

Como quase tudo na minha vida, meu gosto por sites é fortemente influenciado (contaminado?) pelos meus interesses e minha vida profissional – não sou muito bom em separar vida pessoal e profissional. Talvez por isso, um site em que sou bem ativo é o www.ask500people.com.

O Ask500People é um site de pesquisas ininterruptas, pela Internet. Você e dezenas de outras pessoas postam perguntas de múltipla escolha, que vão recebendo votos dos usuários, como você. As perguntas mais votadas vão subindo na “fila”, até que são “lançadas”. Então, pessoas de todo o mundo começam a responder à sua pergunta. Mais recentemente, passou a ser possível votar nas perguntas, enquanto elas ainda estão na fila.

Eu acho a coisa muito cool – você bola uma pergunta, pessoas julgam se ela é interessante, sua pergunta vai “ao ar” e centenas de pessoas ao redor do mundo tiram a dúvida que você tinha sobre como elas são, o que elas pensam, sentem, desejam, temem. Eu já teria ficado viciado na brincadeira, se a primeira versão beta do site não fosse bastante lenta. Agora não é mais e o risco de que eu gaste muitas preciosas horas de meus finais de semana ou noites, brincando de perguntar coisas às pessoas aumentou.

Outra coisa que melhorou muito é o número de respostas. Apesar dos 500, do nome, no começo a votação se encerrava quando chegava a 100 respostas. Agora, com a progressiva popularização do site, muitas perguntas estão chegando perto de receber as 500 respostas desejadas.

Além da real limitação do tamanho da amostra, no começo, eu também desconfiava do perfil dos respondentes: “Humm...”, eu pensava. “Com certeza, amostra viezada – deve ser uma garotada, ou uns computer geeks”. Então postei a pergunta: “Como você se define?”.

Surpresa: 56% dos usuários, ao redor do mundo, têm mais de 30 anos. Heavy-users de Internet, realmente são: 71%. Mas, mesmo entre esses, 62% têm mais de 30 anos.

OK. Então são pessoas maduras, bastante conectadas à Web. Minha próxima pergunta foi mais ousada: “Eu...

...nunca me encontrei com alguém que conheci através da Internet” – 44%

...me encontrei com várias pessoas que conheci via Internet” – 27%

...fiz sexo com alguém que conheci na Internet” – 19%

...casei com alguém que conheci na Internet” – 10%

Uau! Um em cada dez casou-se com alguém que conheceu via Web! Considerando que 32% dos usuários não são casados (segundo verifiquei por outras perguntas), na verdade o número de “casados via web”, entre os casados, é praticamente 1 em cada 7. Será verdade?

Consultando o livro “Microtrends”, do especialista em pesquisas americano Mark J. Penn, descubro (no capítulo “Internet Marrieds”!) que cerca de um em cada 43 casamentos americanos, realizados em 2007, foram de casais que se conheceram pela Web. Se o número de casais-web estiver dobrando a cada ano, há mais um casal, nesses 43, casado antes de 2007. Isso nos leva a um número de 1 casal-web em cada 21 ou 22 casais americanos. Um em cada 7 a 10, na população dos usuários Ask500People não parece, portanto, desarrazoado.

Não que o pessoal seja todo americano. A maioria é, principalmente nas perguntas que “vão ao ar” em horários em que a Europa está dormindo, quando as respostas de americanos podem chegar a quase 80%. E as diferenças nas respostas de diferentes países, como não podia deixar de ser, muitas vezes são marcantes.

Por exemplo, certa vez perguntei: “Você tem que escolher entre dois vinhos, de mesmo preço e da mesma variedade (digamos, Merlot). Qual você escolhe? Um excelente vinho, de um grande produtor global, ou um vinho muito bom (mas não excelente), de um produtor tradicional, de terroir”.

Como era de se esperar, todos os franceses e alemães disseram que escolheriam o vinho de terroir. Americanos e ingleses foram menos unânimes, mas cerca de 55% também escolheriam o vinho tradicional. Já na India, a tendência é oposta: dois terços prefeririam o “vinhão” globalizado. Já em países como Canadá, Egito e Arábia Saudita, o pessoal radicaliza: todos os respondentes escolheriam o “vinhão”. Talvez o pessoal desses países, de clima também “radical”, não tenham muito apreço pela idéia de “terroir”.

Uma outra pergunta (essa não foi minha) que também revelou diferenças regionais interessantes foi: “Você é mais cândido com alguns amigos on-line, do que com seu/sua melhor amigo(a), parceiro(a) ou esposa(o)?”.

Mais de 70% dos americanos, franceses e canadenses e mais de 60% dos ingleses e japoneses disseram que não (algo me diz que, os franceses, por uma razão diferente dos demais...). Os coreanos ficaram no meio-a-meio. Nós, brasileiros, nossos vizinhos argentinos e os italianos já viramos para o outro lado: cerca de 60% de nós “nos abrimos” mais on-line do que ao vivo. Aí os mexicanos, marroquinos, argerianos e outros “vão para as cabeças” – 90% a 100% soltam a língua, mesmo, é na web.

E o que esse universo de interneteiros globais, maduros mas modernos, de idéias liberais mas comportamento um tanto conservador, pensa do Brasil? Perguntei (e essa foi minha pergunta que recebeu mais votos, para “ir ao ar”): “Brasil é...

...um país significativo, no concerto das nações (redação deliberadamente pretenciosa) – espantosos (pelo menos para mim) 48% optaram por essa resposta.

Em compensação, 37% responderam que “não têm idéia do que é ou onde fica o Brasil” (13%), ou que “o Brasil é um país marginal e sem importância” (24%).

E os 15% restantes? Esses responderam que o Brasil “é um lugar onde gostariam de viver”.

Apesar de um terço dos coreanos desejar viver no Brasil, metade não sabe onde ficamos e o restante nos considera um país sem importância. Já a metade dos canadenses e australianos – e 51% dos americanos – nos consideram muito importantes (o único argentino que respondeu, também).

E, então, tem essa pessoa em Kathmandu, no Nepal. Será um homem? Uma mulher? Não tenho como saber, mas uma coisa eu sei: ele ou ela gostaria de viver no Brasil.

Best analysis ever

Abaixo, a análise de Bob Harris, sobre o último episódo de The Sopranos.

Essa foi a melhor, mais minuciosa e mais arguta análise de uma produção audio-visual que eu já vi. Inspiradora de transformadora da maneira como passei a assitir qualquer obra A-V.

Enjoy!

Tony Soprano didn’t just get whacked; he practically got a funeral
Friday, 15 June 2007

I finally got around to watching the much-debated Sopranos finale last night. I haven’t seen the show much in years; it’s brilliant and all, but I gave up around season four. Just had things to do, and the show got a little, I dunno, slow for a while. You know. But after all the hullaballoo, I decided to take a look again for myself.

After looking closely at the final episode, I’m reminded of people who left the film American Beauty wondering who had actually shot Kevin Spacey, just because face of the killer was offscreen when the trigger was pulled, despite the fact that his identity couldn’t have been clearer. This is a lot like that.

I should add, incidentally, that I was a TV writer myself for a while. Not a particularly accomplished one. Mostly small stuff nobody ever saw. I worked for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation for most of the third season; that was the one credit you might recognize. Anyway, my point: not any claim to expertise -- which is minimal at most, I promise, and for you to judge, in any case -- but during the year of my life that I helped in modest ways to hang dwarfs, make parasailers go Icarus, and poison poker players with lead-filled candies, I saw first-hand just how meticulously little details could be fussed over – and that was on a show with a breakneck production schedule and no particular auteur nursing his vision through every single shot.

So.

Keeping in mind that Sopranos creator David Chase wrote and directed this episode himself after months of planning –

[Update: actually, it might have been well over a year of planning:

Meanwhile, remember that 21-month hiatus between Seasons Five and Six? That was Chase thinking up the ending. HBO chairman Chris Albrecht came to him after Season Five and suggested thinking up a conclusion to the series; Chase agreed, on the condition that he get "a long break" to decide on an ending.

so we might be in for a ride.]

-- and that he has already told interviewers that “it’s all there,” let’s take him at his word.

So, starting with the two most blatant clues and working outward until we stumble into what may be Tony’s own weirdly implied funeral rites:

The sensation of imminent death – “you probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right?” – was now-famously discussed in an episode called “Soprano Home Movies.”

This same episode was reportedly repeated, out of sequence, re-airing “you probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right?” the week before the finale.

And the same exact scene – this same discussion of how death would be experienced – “you probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right?” – was also apparently excerpted in flashback in the second-to-last episode.



This is called hitting the audience in the face with a two-by-four, hoping they'll notice. We have been instructed as to what to expect from first-person death, as clearly as any self-respecting dramatist would likely allow.

[Update: The song titles given close-ups on the jukebox also point directly to "Soprano Home Movies." See the end of the post.]

[Update: And now I am informed that for the next episode, they're repeating "Soprano Home Movies," out of sequence, yet again. You are now being hit in the head with a truckload of lumber.]

(Incidentally, you probably would hear the shot from a pistol even at short range, but that hardly matters; this is fiction, and the only thing that matters is its own reality.)

Also, Tony got shot once before – in an episode called “Members Only.” And sure enough, a guy in a Members Only jacket – an unlikely fashion choice, unless David Chase is showing us the ending in enormous letters – walks in, looks repeatedly in Tony’s direction, and moves to a spot that would give him an unimpeded line of fire. [Added for clarity: moments before the end, he is entering a bathroom near Tony.]

A few seconds later -- and much as described in advance -- things suddenly, silently end.

Members Only Guy, incidentally, is listed in the credits not as “Furtive Man Drinking Coffee” or “Guy Who Gets Up To Pee” or “Weak-Bladdered Fellow With Strange Fashion Sense.”

He's "Man in Members Only Jacket." The chosen wording of the credit itself is a big freakin’ arrow.

Another strikingly obvious bit of information: shortly before his death, David Chase very briefly frames Tony in a shot that visually quotes the Last Supper (one-point perspective; special holy light from above (more obvious in the footage than the grab); a long horizontal base supporting triangular composition, human forms on both sides of the subject; etc.).



[Fwiw, the Last Supper was a common subject for numerous masters, and in Italy it took on a recognizable, almost iconic general composition, before and after da Vinci. This Washington Post writer suggests that Chase was actually quoting the del Castagno. I don't; I think the general layout is plenty.]

We’ll get back to this imagery [and discover that the entire back wall was created just for this scene] shortly.

Hardly surprising, though, that Tony’s last conversation with Carm mentions his own personal Judas. And we all know what happened after the Last Supper.

Clear enough yet? We’re just getting started. [Added for clarity: we'll now go very closely through the scene, with particular attention to the direction.]

Remember, the show is largely (albeit not completely) told from Tony’s POV. Long stretches of Tony's dreams, fantasies, and passing perceptions have been presented as the show’s reality. Now look again at the sequence. Members Only Guy enters, holding his left arm with an odd stiffness; there’s even a small, visible bulge in the bottom of his left jacket pocket. (Out of frame in the grab below, unfortunately. On the tape, this looks more to me like a roll of quarters than the barrel of, say, a Glock 36, but hey, it’s there. Make of it what you wish.) But all this is only visible for about a second before Tony’s son A.J. emerges from behind him, and Tony’s (and our) focus shifts to Tony’s son.



The restaurant, incidentally, is manifestly not filled with people gunning for Tony, despite the online rumor. There's literally nothing in the sequence that indicates such a thing. Instead, the restaurant is simply filled with a strangely color-desaturated vision (more on that shortly) of ordinary middle-class Americana: Cub Scouts, kids on dates, etc.

David Chase shows us Members Only Guy almost continuously from the time he enters, although this may not be immediately obvious – he’s often not in focus, but he’s in the background behind A.J., at center frame in the over-the-shoulder shot used conventionally to show Tony’s POV in a conversation.



Members Only Guy is thus directly in Tony’s eyeline throughout.



We have this put directly in our face, front and center. More than half a dozen times, in fact. But Tony's focus is on his son.



David Chase, who has complete control of the seating and camera angles, seems to be directly showing us that Tony’s not paying attention to Members Only Guy. Whether that’s wise of Tony is another issue.

We could ignore Members Only Guy ourselves, but Chase also shows him in repeated clear-focus medium shots, with his left side remaining away from the camera – which is to say, from Tony’s POV. And Chase shows us that Members Only Guy is doing nothing in the entire scene but turning and looking directly at Tony – and no one else in the restaurant – over and over, in a highly suspicious way.



It’s true that there are plenty of other people in the restaurant. None of them are staring at Tony this way. And it’s true that Members Only Guy is a character no one has ever seen before. But certainly some of the show’s victims never recognized their attackers, either.

Eventually, Members Only Guy, named for the episode in which Tony gets shot, gets up, sidles near, is discounted by Tony as a threat…

And the series ends within seconds, in precisely the sudden full-stop manner repeatedly (and in repeats) described in advance.




[Update: I didn't know this when I wrote the original entry, but the Sollozzo murder, where Michael Corleone shoots Sollozzo just after emerging from the bathroom, has been established as Tony's very favorite scene in The Godfather. So this would be a damned appropriate way for Tony to go.]

[Update: the New York Times now reports that David Chase wanted the blackness to last a full 30 seconds, which certainly is an even stronger implication of death.]

[Incidentally, there are five separate shots involved in showing us the Members Only Guy going to the bathroom. It goes by so fast it barely registers, although nobody had to be reminded of having seen him, either: (1) Members Only stands up; (2) Tony reacts; (3) Members Only approaches, from Tony's POV; (4) Tony discounts the threat; (5) the camera dollies to stay on Members Only, revealing the bathroom, while Tony glances back and discounts him yet a second time. All of this just to get some poor random guy to the can? Man, either he's absolutely essential to the scene, or he must have really, really had to pee.

That must have been a strange day for the actor. I mean, it's your first gig, you're excited, you're in makeup, you've got this spiffy new jacket that looked cool in 1981... and then your entire evening is nothing but getting up to head to the toilet a couple of times... then waiting around for the cameras to be set up again. Then you're getting up to walk toward the toilet a few times again from Tony's POV... then waiting around for the cameras to be set up again. Then you're heading suspiciously toward the toilet from yet a third camera angle...

You gotta go, you gotta go.]

[Update: And several NJ emailers say that the real room is actually the Ladies' room; it was only switched to a Men's room and given a visible sign specifically for this scene. I saw this note so many times that I finally called Holsten's and asked; they confirmed it. So even the set dressing points us to an implied Sollozzo ending.]

Need more? There are dozens of other hints throughout the episode, starting from the very first frame.

The episode actually opens with a harbinger of Tony’s funeral, plain as day. Remember, David Chase personally directed for the first time since the series premiere. And David Chase’s very first shot in eight years is of Tony Soprano lying flat on his back, viewed from above, much as if we are looking down on him in his coffin.



There is a literal moment of silence.

Then, when the clock radio kicks on, the first bars of the song are funereal organ music.

Tony stirs, the music starts to rock, and Tony begins his day. But about five minutes in, Tony’s eating an orange. This is a specific reference both to the Godfather series and to earlier Sopranos episodes: in simplest, familiar form, Orange = Death. [If you need an explanation, read this list of allusions to the Godfather for starters; also see the updates at end of the post. At minimum, remember that both Michael and Don Vito Corleone died with oranges; the former in his hand, the latter in his mouth.] As a reference it's so well-established and on the nose that I was surprised to see it. It’s almost cliché.



Speaking of which, there’s a lot of fuss about the big orange cat (note the color; to a writer as careful as Chase, this probably would not have been arbitrary). There’s really no need to debate its meaning. This is carefully-crafted fiction, so as a rule, things generally mean what the characters anticipate they mean; that’s how harbingers and foreboding often work. Otherwise, we'd have only our own prior cultural references to know what to fear. And Paulie could not be clearer that the creature is a Bad Omen. Of what? Through the episode, the cat is literally focused on a reminder of death – specifically, Tony’s murder of Christopher, who was almost a surrogate son.

Yeah, sure, but the orange cat doesn’t actually show up when Tony supposedly dies, does he? Sure he does – in an almost laughably large way. David Chase chose to shoot the final scene in a dessert shop in Bloomfield, New Jersey, where the actual mascot of the town’s real high school football team is the same as that of nearby Princeton University -- an orange tiger. In the Last Supper shot, guess what David Chase shows us, beyond Tony’s right shoulder?



A bigass orange cat three feet high, that’s what. The framing is actually pushed slightly to that side, favoring the cat.

David Chase could have shot that scene in any restaurant in Jersey. He chose that one for some good reason. And he didn’t have to frame the giant orange cat over Tony’s shoulder. He chose to. (See below.) Does it work as art? Eh. He’s a genius, but it’s not the most brilliant bit of symbolism I’ve ever seen. But it’s there on the tape, coincidence or whatever it is.

[OK, one more update: If you like, compare the TV show's wall to the real back wall of Holsten's (see links below). What the photos show, among many other details: the three-foot cat apparently only exists in Sopranoland. So whatever it does or doesn't mean, it's there intentionally.

I'm not showing the actual photos here because they frankly crash right through the reality that David Chase spent so much time creating, and I respect that too much to just dump them onto the page. Before you click, consider the choice. It might be a bit like whipping open the box and seeing that the girl isn't really being sawn in half (spoiler alert!), and then the wonder is gone, although you can better appreciate the craft of the magician. I hope you'll only click if the latter is what you're after.

In any case, the photos reveal a lot of stuff: it's not just the giant cat; the entire back wall was redressed. Also, the real room has lots of bright yellows, blues, and greens, all of which are pretty much obliterated in the final color scheme (see below). There's also no sign of the all-gray waitress smocks in Sopranoland; the employees apparently wear either white or bright red shirts. Even the color of the table where the Sopranos sit is a bright and more saturated yellow in real life.

There are no jukeboxes on the tables; the show apparently brought in props. This supports the assumption that the music (about which more later) was integral to the scene's conception.

I'd figured that Holsten's was chosen partly for the back wall. Guess not. But directors do have full-time location scouts specifically to find places to fit their exact needs. (Fwiw, the last name of a The Sopranos' location scout matches one of the two athletes' surnames on the redressed back wall during the scene. The other athlete shares a name with the show's parking director, who has the underappreciated job of literally ensuring room for everybody to, yes, park. I have no idea if these really are shout-outs, but it seems likely. People working shows do little shout-outs like this all the time. I've done it myself and been shouted-out-to. Good times.)

So if we assume the location scout gets paid for a reason, forgetting the wall, why this restaurant? Why this particular booth? If we peek at the real one, it really doesn't look that special. Surprisingly cheery. Cozy. The onion rings are divine. But there's no sign in the window screaming "culminate your career in a courageous if puzzling choice that will confuse millions here -- we validate." Looking more closely, however, the place has a lot to offer. There's enough room here for the equipment to light and film Tony from all sides, including over the shoulder, with no pillars or other obstructions. Tony's facing the door as people enter, but the counter is also in his natural over-the-shoulder POV, and the stools are naturally tall enough to keep Members Only Guy hovering quietly over A.J.'s shoulder. Plus, there's convenient whacking access from the nearby Sollozzo Lounge. Are we doing anything else in the scene, really? No? Great! Let's get some jukeboxes in here, and maybe, I dunno, a big damn cat that doesn't quite work... hey, what's the parking situation like?

So, Neo, you take the blue pill, and just keep reading, or you take the red pill, and peek... Apoc, are we online?]


Whatever the deal is with the cat, death is palpable everywhere in this world by the time they sit down. By this point, almost everyone in Tony’s world outside his immediate family is either emotionally dead to him (Dr. Melfi, Carlo), physically dead (Christopher, Bobby, etc.), or incapacitated (Junior, Silvio, etc.). Even Paulie speaks fearfully of the afterlife and the Virgin Mary… before agreeing to a job he believes will lead to a premature death.

Hardly surprising that the entire family is wearing black at the end.



[Updated: Tony's shirt isn't just black -- it's the exact same design he was wearing when he was shot the first time. This looks to be another reference back to "Members Only." Several emailers pointed me to this clip on YouTube:]



What else stands out about the restaurant scene in the episode? Not tons – but it’s orange as hell, right down to the orange neon and the orange vinyl and the orange trim on the jukebox cards. Besides setting up a subtle Last Supper, and the nice geography for that Godfather-inspired post-piss cap job. (Remember, Chase could have stuck Tony in a corner booth with his back to the wall, something we’ve all seen before. He chose not to.)

Also worth noting: the restaurant’s servers and customers and even the Members Only Guy are in muted tones and lots and lots of gray. The USA hat on the coffee-drinking trucker doesn’t have the bright red-white-&-blue you’d expect. Even the Cub Scouts’ kerchiefs are quite notably gray, not bright golden yellow. [Updated -- see the end of the post and the entry below.]



You don't get lighting and costuming this uniform by random accident; the colors could also have been manipulated in the editing room. In any case, the only obvious colors in the entire sequence are various shades of orange and black. Death, death, death.

[Update: This color scheme stuff has been the most misunderstood part of the post, which is my fault, the same way I also wrongly assumed most people knew the significance of oranges (the fruit and the color) in the Godfather series. My bad. So here: I'm not saying that everything in the scene is precisely orange, nor am I saying that orange always equals death, universally. Obviously not. But directors and their lighting guys do sometimes like to set up shots with specific color palettes. It sets a mood. It helps create the scene. How many times have you seen morgue shots with an unnaturally greenish hue, even when there's no rational source for the greenish light? Or romantic scenes dominated by reds and yellows? Emotionally antiseptic worlds in pale blues? Scenes of intense emotion reflected with vivid colors across the spectrum? Watch the Matrix movies sometime with the sound down, and you'll see how places and even worlds can be defined just by changing hues. Or, better, watch Soderbergh famously use three different color schemes for the three separate but interplaying worlds in Traffic. It's wonderfully effective.

If you don't notice this stuff while watching, that's because you're not really supposed to; if the craft were obvious, you wouldn't suspend disbelief, defeating the whole purpose. But rest assured, good directors have lots of little tools to heighten and enhance a scene -- different angles and movements and lenses and film stocks -- and light itself is the medium they work in. In a quality production, virtually nothing goes in front of a camera without thought.

Color schemes don't necessarily have intrinsic meaning; they might just shift to create a sense of changing place. Still, directors often try to set a tone or reinforce whatever else is going on when they can. For comparison's sake, look again at the general hue of the kitchen where Tony eats the orange fruit.



Different from the restaurant, isn't it? Cold. Creepy, even. (The screengrab exaggerates things a bit, but the greenish hue is there in the actual lighting and decor. You can see it for yourself on the tape sometime.)

Just sticking to color, and just in the rest of this single episode -- look at the tape: family gatherings, dinners, etc. run toward warm, homey yellows and golds. Silvio's antiseptic hospital room is mostly blue -- blue sheets, blue tubing, Gabriella in a blue sweater, etc. The emotionally cold scene between Tony and Junior has a cold morguish green cast to it -- to my eye, a little greener than when Janice visits in the same episode. (Nice touch, I thought.)

Especially for interiors and night scenes, if a director so chooses, you'll often see color used to give a scene anything from a subtle tinge to a clear and dominant hue.



So looking again at the Soprano family sitting in the booth, if Paulie Walnuts held a gun to your head and asked you what "color" that scene was, as a whole, in one word, what would you say?

And look again at that whole restaurant, closely, either on tape or even just glancing at the Last Supper image: any bright blue hats, purple sweatshirts, or pink hair ribbons?



Nope. A large part of the basic color wheel -- the whole bright-blue section directly opposite to orange -- has been whacked. Just pale gray waitresses. Scouts with gray kerchiefs, led by a man with gray hair in a gray sweater. A woman with gray hair and a colorless shirt on the far side of the jukebox. A gray Members Only jacket. A girl drinking brown chocolate milk in next to a kid in a brown-trimmed T-shirt and a khaki jacket with a red-orange splotch on the arm. Whatever else is going on, almost the entire sequence (save stuff like tiny glimpses of the real-world neon at the far left of shots of the front door) is tightly limited in color and saturation: grays. Neutrals. Oranges, reddish-oranges, orange-browns. And blacks.

The blackest clothes in the room? The Sopranos' own table.

Now in that context, as to why Chase chose that restaurant and that color scheme for Tony's last moments before the sudden silence, the best idea I had with was that it fit with the orange-death connection precedent of the Godfather series. This makes some sense, especially since the Sollozzo shooting is referenced both physically and verbally in the very same scene. That's what I meant about the "orange" in the scene.

Now, this may or may not be correct. As I've said, the color scheme may not mean anything at all; it's mostly a means of amplifying whatever else you're doing. But you can rest assured that this was location-scouted and art-directed until it screamed, and the coloration here was intentional, for whatever reason. And certainly the final color scheme is plain enough, unless I missed a flying purple elephant during the onion rings and brown cola. I'll further suggest, as you can consider while peeking at the real Holsten's, that since bright reds, oranges, and yellows usually bring warmth and cheer to a place -- just ask the designers of fast-food joints -- Chase muted his already narrowed palette to make the room a little colder and less cozy, too. That's my guess, anyway. I don't pretend to know. Chase may take his own reason to the grave.]

We are also directly told that both Tony and his milieu are at an end. As a tour bus passes, we hear a disembodied guide explaining – in an announcement unrelated in any way to the plot – that Little Italy is rapidly vanishing. And Tony himself actually tells Meadow that “my chances are flying by me,” a phrase close enough to “my life is flashing before my eyes” to be virtually the same thing. (Compare this with Phil Leotardo’s “bye bye” to the children in the very same episode, shortly before death from a point-blank gunshot he, too, never saw coming; Chase seems to delight in these cues, where a line of dialogue turns out to mean more than the character realizes.)

[And yes, as many emailers noticed: the final shot of Tony leaving Junior's side -- the very last shot before the restaurant sequence begins -- includes an easy-to-spot bulletin board stating that the "Next Meal" will be "Supper." This could just be yet another in a series of remarkably consistent coincidences, or it could be Chase's intentional little in-joke. Your call.]

So, finally, Tony enters the restaurant. There is a bell on the door, and the rest of the scene involves Tony (and us) taking note of the occasions that the bell rings. The ringing of bells is not essential to the story in any way, and these characters have met in public places hundreds of times with no bell present, but Chase makes a meal of it here. This might veer into The Walrus Was Paul territory, but the repeated ringing of a bell, in a different context, is called a knell; it’s a well-known sign of mourning.

Weirdly, the door is also glimpsed opening and closing silently; still, the bell rings only and exactly six times. It sure seems like a conscious part of the sound design. “Six bells” is also a traditional call to Mass, and in the Catholic church, a Mass is said at a funeral.

[Update: I should be clearer here that I'm skeptical of this idea about the bells myself, but just sharing what I do see in the episode and what it might mean.]

Before you discard this as seeing ten guys on the Grassy Knoll -- and I'm sure as hell tempted myself -- we’ve already been shown a coffin shot, an orange, an orange restaurant, two orange cats, and a three-second Last Supper shot, referencing the very center of the rite of the Eucharist. So it's at least reasonable to ask: besides the Last Supper and a half-assed bell thingy, are there other unusual things going on here indicating that Chase may have been trying (successfully or not) to subtly invoke a Catholic Mass?

Yes. A bunch.

[Update: This Washington Post TV editor finds all sorts of Biblical symbols I would never have noticed, including events throughout the episode. Interesting. Guy knows way more about the Bible than I do, I can see that. Judge for yourself.]

This isn’t a particularly Catholic idea, but one big point of Mass in many churches is communion with the Holy Ghost. And after Carmela sits down, Tony says something truly odd, using a nickname for A.J. which makes little obvious sense: “Where’s the ghost?” [ERRATUM -- this entire paragraph is just incorrect; see the end of the post. I've left it here because people should be happy to admit when they're wrong.]

Carmela doesn’t miss a beat: “He just called. He’s on his way.”

Okaaaaaaay. Maybe the Walrus is Paul. [Or not.]

[Updated: At this point, when A.J. first sits down, Tony's description of the onion rings -- "the best in the state" -- pretty directly references Tony's favorite Godfather scene: Sollozzo describes the veal as "the best in the city" before being shot by a man coming out of a bathroom. See the end of the post.]

A.J. arrives, and Tony awkwardly takes A.J.’s hand with the same sort of overhand non-shake grip you see in church when people join hands in the Sign of Peace. [UPDATE: Eh... on second thought, this, too, is a serious reach. I got carried away with the Mass thing and started seeing it everywhere. Withdrawn. My bad.]



Soon, onion rings appear. (Yes, still more orange food. And I feel like I’m being hit by a hammer at this point.) And then something else truly odd happens – all three consume the onion rings not the way that ordinary human beings eat onion rings – bite off a chunk, chew, swallow, etc. – but by sliding the whole rings onto their tongues. Like communion wafers.



Honest, it’s right there on the film. It's really odd. Look at it again. And just so we don’t miss it, David Chase even highlights this strange series of actions with three separate close-ups.



It’s so blunt and unwieldy a symbol that I’d be tempted to dismiss it. I mean, come on -- onion rings? But it's either intentional, or three different actors all made the same bizarre choice, framed by individual shots that took time to set up and light, without it all somehow being the director’s intent.

[I have no idea which. Just pointing out what's actually in the episode, and trying to give David Chase, a brilliant guy who both wrote and filmed this as Tony's last moments, credit for having something in mind.]



Weird.

[Updated: Many readers insist that the onion rings aren't exactly orange. They're a pale orange on my TV, which is a pretty darn nice one, but OK, whatever -- I'm still waiting for a better explanation of what's up with three separate Catholic characters using their own mouths like giant CD insertion trays, all three highlighted in separate close-ups, in the weighted final moments before the long-planned climax of an eight-year show. Sure, maybe onion rings are just onion rings. In which case, well, pretty strange onion rings.]

What else happens at a funeral? You eulogize the dead – “eulogy” from “good words” in Greek – remembering them in the best light possible. The last thing Tony's son ever gets to tell his father? “Focus on the good times,” A.J. says. "Try to remember the times that were good."

He’s quoting Tony, back to him. Tony responds by speaking of himself in past tense, suddenly showing little more self-awareness than Junior has just shown in the previous scene. “I said that?” Tony asks, genuinely and pleasantly surprised.

The last moments show a developing bond between Tony and A.J. Which is interesting. Given the death of Christopher, A.J. is the only potential male heir left in Tony’s life.

Hmm. Right about here I paused the DVR and thought for a minute. David Chase chose a literal reference to A.J. himself to invoke the Ghost image. [ERRATUM -- nope; see the end of the post.] I wonder about another possibility in addition to Tony’s death: A.J.’s.

Farfetched? Maybe. But this episode has also contained repeated suggestions of A.J.’s mortality. The giant fireball at the SUV might have been the first clue. His reaction in therapy. His desire to run off to a war zone. And, um, the urgent attention his parents have been giving to the issue of keeping him not very dead of late.

And, say, from Tony's POV, Members Only Guy physically blots out A.J. while entering (much more notably in the footage than in the grab, below) – something which was probably intentional, since you don’t send actors willy-nilly into frame during even a minor scene.



Still, I’m less than 50-50 on this idea. But if Members Only Guy shot when he emerged from the bathroom, the only person in position to react – as Chase himself has designed it, remember – would have been A.J. Alternate endings, anyone?

[Updated: The actor who played Members Only Guy has said that something "shocking" happens in an unaired version. Maybe we'll find out someday.]

[And here's another interview with the same guy that makes it even clearer that there was an ending filmed beyond the sudden silence. The guy says there were at least 10 takes of everything. So that's 30 trips to the toilet in one day. I hope he's not Method. Because, y'know, his kidneys... Anyhow, if this were the Sopranos' universe, Chase would have this guy whacked before he spills.]

If we have been set up for both Tony and A.J. to die [a big if -- this bit is just wild speculation here] this would end the Soprano male bloodline. The finale would be absolute. Carm would be destroyed (whether physically wounded or not) and Meadow, the only one with a real chance to go straight, would be literally on the outside, watching from afar.

In any case, Tony’s swallowing of his greasy orange wafer ring is his last act on this earth (or at least on our TV screens). But do we have any more evidence that this is, indeed, Dead Man Communing? Yup. In the soundtrack.



In Catholicism, administration of the Eucharist in the moments before death is known as Viaticum, derived in part from the Latin for… “Journey.”

*Loud throat clearing noise.*

[The link leads to the Catholic Encyclopedia for a full explanation of the derivation.]

[Yes, this could be just coincidence. I'm with you. I get it. But there it is. Of course, if Chase just liked the lyric and had only a passing fancy that the band's name would also imply a metaphorical Journey, that would make it both intentional and a coincidence, with everything just arising from the same metaphor.]

Which brings us to the final songs:

One thing seemingly missing from the Catholic Mass references described above is the lack of a visual shout-out to holy water at the outset, the ritual reminder of damp divine purification. However, when Tony enters the restaurant, the background music is 1975’s “All That You Dream” by Little Feat. And David Chase has it cued up not to the beginning, but to this specific lyric:

All, all that you dream... it comes through shining, silver lining and
Clouds, clouds change the scene... rain starts washing all love’s caution...

“Rain starts washing” – an explicit description of water providing cleansing from the heavens – plays during the Last Supper shot. Those three words, only those three words, and only that one time.



Either Chase really had this in mind – and by all accounts he makes extremely careful decisions about music – or this is one mind-blowingly cool coincidence.

[This didn't involve slowing down records and playing them backwards, btw. It just involved listening closely. Exactly once. It's right there.]

As to the final song, the Viaticum -- sorry, Journey -- power ballad so widely debated: it begins at the precise instant that Carmela is shown entering the restaurant. Not a frame before, not a frame later, from the looks of it. Literally bang on the cut. See for yourself if you have the tape. [At 24 frames per second,] this is not the sort of thing that happens by accident. It's a choice you make in the editing room.



So I guess the music seems symbolically intended for Carmela, the most likely survivor of any post-onion-ring gunplay at the table. (This notion is reinforced by the way the lyrics "just a small-town girl" and "livin' in a lonely world" are both matched to insert close-ups of Carmela's face, interrupted by a shot of Tony.)

Why would Carmela need her own song when at least one person she loves is apparently about to practically die in her lap?

The purpose of most Christian funeral music is to reassure the mourners of the presence of God, express the hope that Christ will take the deceased to Himself, and provide comfort in the faith that the loved ones will all one day be reunited in the afterlife.

For the survivors, in other words -- and really quite precisely:

Ohh, doooon’t stop… belieeeeevin’…

I've probably screwed up some of this. Religiously, I'm a lapsed agnostic, so I don't even remember what I don't care about. And maybe it’s all wild happenstance. This could be so utterly, buffoonishly wrong. Which would be cool, too. I like a good laugh as much as anybody.

I repeat: this is only my opinion. I do not know anything. I do not pretend to. This is party conversation I'm not even particularly attached to, something a friend muses about while you're both getting more beer, floated specifically because it's amusing to chat about and the speaker is having a bit of fun. Don't take this too seriously. David Chase made a work of art. This is what I saw when I looked at it with a degree of playful curiosity, nothing more. I guarantee there are errors here in fact and judgment. There always are, for all of us.

I hope you've enjoyed this.

But I encourage you to look again for yourself at what's actually on the screen and in the soundtrack.

David Chase did, after all, insist: “Anybody who wants to watch it, it’s all there.”


UPDATE: The line attributed to Tony above, "Where is the Ghost" is incorrect. According to the Closed Captioning, which I didn't initially think to check, the exact words are "Where is Googootz," pronounced like "guh-goats." While "Googootz" looks like an infectious crusty buildup caused by the overuse of search engines, it's actually a real Italian nickname that I simply didn't recognize and therefore misheard. This resets the meaning of both that piece of dialogue and any implication it might have had about A.J.'s possible doom. The rest still makes sense. So far. Recalibrate your credulity to taste.

I also mistyped Phil Leotardo's name as "Paul," which I've corrected directly in the text because it could lead to confusion with Paulie.

One weird apparent implication of imminent death explained away beautifully; at least a dozen or more to go.

UPDATE again: The Scouts are apparently Bear Scouts, who wear pale kerchiefs. My bad. Still, the point about the choice of a washed-out color spectrum, save for mostly orange hues, seems self-evident from the sequence. Editors in post-production can jack colors around quite a bit. And there's a whole lot of neutral tone in that restaurant, right down to the choice of the gray Members Only jacket, which kinda blends right in.

Come to think of it, that, in fact, may have been the practical point of the color scheme in there, and not so much the orange tone of the room per se. Hmm.

But the thingy about oranges being a hint of death -- this is extremely well-known to fans of the Godfather series. Don Corleone buys oranges and immediately gets shot; much later, he finally dies with a piece of orange in his mouth. Michael Corleone also dies with an orange in his hand; if memory serves, it falls to the ground when he dies. There are also many minor examples, where the color orange itself becomes a hint that something bad is coming for that character. In the Sopranos, Tony had orange juice in the episode where he was shot, a fairly obvious wink to the Godfather. And now he eats an orange in the beginning of the final episode...

UPDATES never end: I only noticed this while first typing the words "Try the veal. It's the best in the city" in the joking Godfather reference at the top, welcoming the flood of new traffic. However, in their last conversation, Tony oddly tells A.J. that the onion rings are "the best in the state." It's a fairly strange comment. However, it makes absolute sense if Chase is deliberately referencing the famous Sollozzo shooting scene ("Try the veal. It's the best in the city.") in the Godfather. Sollozzo famously dies just after commenting on the veal, so much so that it's a common in-joke among fans to drop the phrase "try the veal" into conversation.

Moments later, the speaker is shot by Michael Corleone -- emerging from a nearby bathroom.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Lots of folks have been puzzling over the significance of the handful of song titles given close-ups when Tony first sits down and fools around with the jukebox.

Notably, "This Magic Moment" appears near the center of the frame just after Tony first flips the titles; "This Magic Moment" also appears again, moments later, as the card directly behind Tony's final selection, "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey.

According to the HBO website, "This Magic Moment" is is the song playing as Bobby returns to the lake house in "Soprano Home Movies." That's the episode in which the much-repeated conversation about death being a sudden silence – “you probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right?” -- took place.

As far as I can determine, none of the other songs briefly shown on the jukebox have previously appeared on the show. So while there seems to be some face value meaning in some of the other titles, and perhaps they reference other things in other ways, the mysterious jukebox titles seem at minimum to be another in-your-grill pointer to Bobby's description of death in that episode.

Again, I'd like to thank several emailers for providing various screengrabs illustrating the points. This post was originally all text; I've been adding grabs as people have kindly filled in the blanks. Much appreciated.

OK, I'm gonna go resume my life. (I actually have one, honest. I like it.) Please, everybody, one thing I beg of you to remember: it's a TV show. It's fun. It's nothing else. And again, I'm not presenting the above as, er, Gospel. It's a list of things which actually happen on the screen, and a series of opinions as to what they mean, if anything, based on a very limited amount of experience.

As I've said throughout: every single word here could be wrong. I am completely certain that at least some of them are. Some of them may not be. I don't know which ones.

Do your own thinking. Have fun.

Leave the gun, people. Take the cannoli.

And then fuhgeddaboudit.

• • •

A FEW DAYS LATER -- READ THIS FIRST; IT MAY SAVE YOU SOME TIME, HONEST:

In less than 48 hours, this post has already been viewed by over 80,000 people. [Another 48: 160,000.] So this has been a bit like expecting a few friends to pop over and suddenly Yankee Stadium shows up. (Then Shea. And Wrigley.) Neat, but also overwhelming.

Um... hi.

Hold on. Let me put on some better pants... OK.

I am flooded with emails, nearly all extremely kind. One of you even forwarded helpful screengrabs originally posted by A Lesson A Day; my thanks to all. I'll never catch up with it all now, unfortunately. I appreciate every letter -- sincerely -- but I've barely time to even read them all, and there's a point of diminishing returns. I mean, of course we won't all agree with every little thing here. As I keep saying, I'm not even sure I do. That's just how art is sometimes. I was thinking out loud here, nothing more.

Media folks? Thanks, but heavens no, thank you. I was just sharing with the class. I'm glad lots of people liked it. But I wouldn't presume to push my ideas on the meaning of someone else's creation beyond this one article, which will remain quietly here for anyone to consider when they want to. It's a respect thing. It's not remotely my place. I hope you'll understand.

I only wrote this because I thought the way The Sopranos ended was cool and layered and wonderfully bold. I thought I'd have my little say, like everyone else, and then get back to politics, travel, and the other stuff that draws my usual massive 1000 visitors a day. Then, well, the deluge, but them's the Intertubes. In the initial torrent, I allowed my thoughts to evolve in public for a couple of days, just out of respect for all involved. The thing got longer, but you can see where I tried to admit my own mistakes and add new information as best as possible. I think you guys are smart enough to decide which bits are worthwhile, one by one.

Within what follows, the original post remains intact, with errors simply pointed out. I know we're almost trained in this culture to expect people to burn embarrassing documents or bull-headedly insist on being right about everything. Strangely, we may value this in our leaders and opinion-makers most of all. But everybody makes mistakes. Best to admit them with grace, enjoy a moment of feeling silly, and move on.

Jake Tapper, ABC News's Senior National Correspondent, did a nice, clear job of summarizing a few salient bits of all this. And thank goodness. :) If you only have five minutes, go read that, with my full blessing. You may still want to come back here later; there's a lot more, and the visuals below will help with some of the ideas. One quibble: I never meant to imply anyone should be "embarrassed" for feeling confused. Goodness, no. I still am about some of this. And where the hell are my keys...?

Like anyone's, my original take had merits and weaknesses. About a quarter of what I originally thought was pretty much crap, as I've eagerly pointed out myself. But the rest seems worth considering, and readers have brought up much additional stuff -- Tony's shirt, the song pointing to Bobby on the jukebox, online pics of the real Holsten's back wall, etc. -- which flesh out many of my original thoughts in interesting ways. Ultimately, I hope you'll have fun here. But that's all this is. Fun. Nothing more.

Finally, a few folks have titled their links here as "this guy solved it!" and similar. I want to be clear: I disavow any such claim in the strongest terms. I'm glad people enjoyed this, but when I wrote the words "this could be a coincidence" and such, I meant them. Every time. This is what I saw when I approached it with playful curiosity, that's all. Final answers are fun, but this is just an opinion even I'm not particularly attached to, a bit of fluff, cocktail conversation among friends, meant to entertain as much as anything. About twelve million people have opinions on this. This is one. That's it. The creative process itself is often so intuitive that I doubt there even is a "right" answer for some of this stuff. And if David Chase himself someday declared all of these ideas complete rubbish, I would be perfectly happy.

Meanwhile, there are other topics I'm much more interested in, honest to God. You know the litany of important stuff in the world -- Iraq and Afghanistan are both off the rails, there's talk about bombing Iran, etc. (If I start quoting Yeets -- er, Yeats -- just roll your eyes.) I hope you'll be at least as interested in those complex puzzles as you are in what happened to one fictional guy.

If you find the post below engaging, you might like the rest of the site, too. Or the book on your upper left, or the one I have coming out in the fall. Which I have to get back to. Meanwhile, have fun with this for what it is, nothing more, OK? I hope maybe you'll even bookmark the main page and then remember to come back again some time, when there aren't 80,000 160,000 visitors fighting over my only bag of chips.

Moving on now. Existing post, interruptions and all, begins here.

• • •

REALLY FINAL UPDATE: AS I KEEP INSISTING, THIS ENTIRE POST MAY BE RUBBISH

This Canadian wire story, which has now also been picked up by the AP, implies that the upcoming deluxe edition of The Sopranos: The Complete Book includes an interview with David Chase in which he may disavow some, much, or all of the below. The writer implies more disavowal than seems to be contained in Chase's actual quotes, so it's hard to tell. We'll have to see when the book is released.

In any case, I wouldn't be surprised -- in fact, I'd be delighted.

I wrote most of the post below one night during a family health crisis, trying to keep my mind off my worries by taking a look at the puzzling Sopranos finale and writing about it for a few hours. I thought I saw something brilliant, so I said so. That's all this was and all it was intended to be.

I also emphasized repeatedly that I wasn't presenting any of this as "the" answer, but just a playful take trying to see what might be there, just for general amusement and nothing else. (Scroll down and count the disclaimers yourself.) I assumed that like almost everything else I post here, it would roll off the bottom of the page unnoticed in a week, and that would be that.

But nature abhors a vacuum, and David Chase seems to have left a big one regarding what happened to Tony. So within just a few hours, the Internet overmind took this tossed-off post and ran with it. Before long, it was linked to by over 300 other blogs and received over 400,000 hits. Most things I write get maybe a few thousand page-views, tops.

Jeebus, I don't even particularly care about the Sopranos, honest to god, and I said so. But I could also tell from the emails that people were already taking this waaaaay more seriously than I intended.

So I then spent a few hours that weekend patching and correcting obvious mistakes and adding even more disclaimers begging people not to take this as representative of anything but a lark. (btw, if you doubt that thousands of words can really be tossed off like this in a couple of sittings: I'm a writer -- it's what I do, all day, almost every day. Any chef can chop vegetables really fast. It doesn't make them a good cook, but speed is part of the gig, good or bad, if you want to make a living. Same deal.)

This was a freaky experience.

Suppose you scribbled down a lengthy, rambling essay about why, I dunno, the Dodgers need better pitching, and all of a sudden you've got traffic coming from TV networks, major newspapers, and national magazines, with many of them under the false impression that you consider yourself some sort of expert, and judging you accordingly? Man, that was weird.

In all honesty, I've been both amused and a little horrified ever since by the thousands of people who seem to have completely ignored clear caveats and decided that (a) this was the answer, and (b) that I truly intended it as such. (Are people really that uncomfortable with open-ended questions, playful hypotheses, and simply appreciating the sense of wonder at an unresolved mystery? Apparently so.) The deluge of email that followed eventually became depressing, even though most of it was always extremely friendly and positive.

Here's the thing: every new note increased the growing realization of my own role in all this energy being wasted on a fictional character, as I alluded to in the follow-up post (which now follows this one, before the original post begins).

Hey, uh, guys? The US is in the middle of two wars and considering a third, the dollar is dropping faster than senatorial trousers at a Cub Scout camp, and a year before elections, our broken political system has already winnowed the presidential field down mostly to candidates half of us can't even stand.

That's the stuff worth bothering with, and that's the stuff I write about the vast majority of the time. (In fact, I have a whole new book out with maps and brief essays summarizing conflicts all over the world. You may have noticed the ad at the top of the page.) And that's the stuff that attracts my giant low-four-digit readership.

So you can see how the massive surge of traffic, nice as it was, was also an unpleasant reminder of how much more millions of people seem to care about a fictional murderer than about real criminals dishonoring this country with illegal surveillance, waterboarding, rendition, and so on... depressing, really.

So if the article is accurate, and David Chase really says, "there WAS a war going on that week, and attempted terror attacks in London... but these people were talking about onion rings," hell, yes. I agree utterly. Which is why I turned down numerous interview requests (it wouldn't have been appropriate anyway, obviously) and never wrote about the subject again.

Still, I'm leaving every word that follows intact, of course. Read on and judge for yourself if you like. Although I'd really rather you enjoy the Union of Concerned Scientists' video on the probable failure and horrifying consequences of a unilateral US attack on Iran.

Or you can watch this YouTube video of all the other major stories the media ignored on the day Anna Nicole died, and realize just how far out to sea the "news" media really is.

Or, if it's truly more important to you, you can read this lengthy post goofing around with why I thought Tony Soprano was killed, including several layers of repeated sincere disclaimers.

When you're done, scroll back up and check out the other two links, though. And maybe a thousand other more important things. Thanks.