I waited 14 years for 'Kingdom Hearts 3' and all I got was a disappointment - guest post by Tim Broxterman

Kingdom Hearts 3

I was a bit of a video game addict as a kid. And one of the games that contributed to that most was Kingdom Hearts, which I played obsessively after it came out in 2002. I quit gaming (mostly) cold turkey years ago, but after watching my friend Tim Broxterman replay Kingdom Hearts 2 in college, and once Kingdom Hearts 3 actually threatened to come out and end the series, I became interested in it all once again. When the third game actually came out earlier this year, I played a few hours of it, but then realized I didn't want to become a gamer again. Still wanting to know how the game measured up to past entries, I asked my friend Tim, who was playing it anyway, to finish and review it for me. His review follows below. 

[By Tim Broxterman:]

After 14 years, it’s hard to believe that Kingdom Hearts 3, which came out earlier this year, exists. It’s also hard to believe that Kingdom Hearts 3 is such a disappointment. This game single-handedly shook my faith in the series and made me question whether my fond memories of earlier games are simply nostalgia clouding my judgment.

The Kingdom Hearts games ate up countless hours of my childhood. The story of Sora, the protagonist, trying to reunite with his friends after setting off to discover new worlds always stuck with me. It was something I could relate to, and I constantly imagined myself in Sora’s position, venturing off into new places. That is the core of the Kingdom Hearts story, and it’s something that almost every kid has dreamed of before.

The game that started it all.

Following Kingdom Hearts 2’s release in 2005, I immediately began anticipating the third (and supposedly final) game in the series. The sequel had improved significantly on the original. It took the gameplay of the first and added more to that basic foundation. The worlds were more interesting, combat was more interactive, and great new characters were added to the cast, such as Roxas and Axel. Seeing how much Kingdom Hearts 2 had improved on the original, I couldn’t wait to see what Kingdom Hearts 3 would be.

And then I heard…nothing. For years. Eventually, I started joking that Kingdom Hearts 3 was vaporware that would never see the light of day. When information about the game finally started to trickle out, I approached it cautiously. No game can live up to a 14-year wait. Because of this, I avoided as much information about the game as possible before its release date, and tried to go in blind. My expectations weren’t excessive, by any means. I merely wanted to see the conclusion to a beloved series from my childhood. Yet even with those tempered expectations, the game falls short of what past games had achieved.

Past games like Kingdom Hearts 2

From a technical gameplay standpoint, Kingdom Hearts 3 is merely average. Let’s start with the combat, which forms much of the active gameplay. Most combat encounters boil down to mashing the attack button and occasionally activating the second form of your keyblade (a sword-like weapon shaped like a key, Sora's main equipment) to win. There is no depth to the combat beyond that. While Sora’s combos are cinematic and exciting at first, by the end of the game, you’ll have seen them so often that they’ll lose all of their appeal. Yet the combat isn’t outright bad, as it at least works in the context of the game.

The problem is that the fighting is entirely one-dimensional and simplistic. The only sense of variety comes from the keyblade’s form changes, but those are merely different attack patterns as you mash the attack button some more. The only sense of combat depth that the game can muster is changing your combos to be flashier. While you can mix it up and use magic or environmental attack options, none of them feels as effective as smacking the snot out of your enemies with your keyblade’s basic attack. The game’s design attempts to accommodate new gameplay options – such as the oddly-named “flowmotion” moves — but they largely feel ineffective by mid-game. The simplistic approach to combat also manifests in the difficulty of the game. During my playthrough, I never died once on the normal difficulty. The game was mostly devoid of challenge as I sawed through countless waves of Heartless (the game’s primary non-boss enemies).

A generation's nightmare

Most of the changes to combat in Kingdom Hearts 3 simply don’t work as well as the creators clearly thought they would. It tries to be faster, on the whole; Sora’s running speed picks up after only a second or two running in a straight line. As a player, I can appreciate that, because less time is spent running slowly through enormous worlds. This does not translate to the combat, however, which is mostly based on spectacle rather than interaction. The game makes a good decision in giving the player the dodge roll from the outset (a change from past games). But the length of Sora’s combos makes it unrealistic to dodge mid-combat. Most enemies telegraph their attacks clearly, and I wanted to be able to dodge most of their attacks, but Sora’s moves can take several seconds for just one hit (depending on how cinematic his move is), which renders dodging totally worthless. Often it is better just to absorb the damage and get the opportunity to start the combo over again instead of being tactical. While I can see what the game designers were thinking, the combat gameplay feels mostly like a missed opportunity.

This game’s voice acting is about as uninspired as the combat system. None of the actors show any emotion, even during times of crisis. The characters are not properly expressive for the situation and never sound like they are feeling any sort of emotion. This is bizarre, because many of these voice actors had been expressive in the past. But their performances in this game sound stiff and apathetic. It’s almost like the voice actors completely forgot how to act in the 14-year gap between games.

Another complaint I have is that the worlds take much longer to complete than in past games. One of the most unique features of Kingdom Hearts games has been staging gameplay in levels largely based on Disney properties. This time around, the developers included fewer worlds than in past games, but made them significantly lengthier. At first, this doesn’t sound so bad. But the worlds would often overstay their welcome. Some took more than 90 minutes to complete. These worlds contain several boss fights that seem like they should be the end. But the world always finds some dull reason to trudge on. Some some are just complete rehashes of the movies, the most egregious offender being the world based on the movie Frozen. They recreate certain scenes shot-for-shot, just with game main characters Sora, Donald, and Goofy stumbling around in the background. I found myself wishing these worlds were over about halfway through the experience, and hoping that the next one would be more interesting.

For example...

In addition to being too long, the worlds are somewhat creatively limited. They’re all based on relatively recent Disney films, despite Disney’s vast catalog. The oldest film to receive a world in this game is Hercules (which came out in 1997), and that’s the first world. After that, it focuses on recent releases, such as Frozen and Tangled. I missed the chance to explore classic worlds like Neverland, Monstro, or even Timeless River from past games. Because of this recency bias, Kingdom Hearts 3 feels less strongly connected with Disney’s history than past games were. In fact, by featuring only recent Disney releases, and making several of those worlds mere recreations of the movies themselves, the game often seems like it’s merely a way to promote DVD sales.

Every complaint I have about Kingdom Hearts 3 pales in comparison to the worst offense of them all, though: the plot. The plot is incomprehensible garbage to everyone except for the people who wrote the series. To gain even a basic understanding of it requires immense effort from the player. You would have to buy numerous consoles just for Kingdom Hearts games, costing not only thousands of dollars, but also hundreds of hours. The developers initially envisioned Kingdom Hearts as a trilogy, but they stretched that out over nine games, and only added more depth and complexity to an already confusing plot. (Most confusing of all: How there can be nine games, yet the ninth is somehow only considered the third. Don’t ask.) Kingdom Hearts 3 doubles down on this convoluted story, expecting the player to have followed the releases as it frantically tries to wrap up the numerous plot threads (or at least those it decided not to retcon).

For example: These two, who are not one person dressed differently, or twins, or brothers, but two completely different characters.

When the story was confusing in past entries, it could at least fall back on the basic concept that Sora had set out on an adventure with his two closest friends and had been separated from them. That’s an almost universally relatable concept, and served as Sora’s primary motivation. The past games always did a great job of conveying that. Kingdom Hearts 3, however, is so busy trying to tie up loose ends that it never has time to dwell on Sora’s relationship with his friends. Riku, who had been one of Sora’s aforementioned long lost friends, actually plays a significant role for the entire story in this game. But you would never know that he and Sora are great friends unless you’ve played past games. Sora interacts with Riku the same way he would with a wet piece of cardboard. Their interactions are dull and lifeless, and there are no signs of a bond between the characters as they meet in passing between missions. To a newcomer, Riku would just be another character who for some reason pals with King Mickey--yes, Mickey Mouse is in this game; again, don’t ask--and always hangs out in the realm of darkness.

The poor writing is not limited to just Sora’s interactions with Riku, either. Sora as a character seems to be written in an entirely different fashion for Kingdom Hearts 3. In past games, he had his own personality. Sure, he could be cheesy, but he was also charming and likeable. In this game, he is--there is no better word for it--lame, and his character has very little depth. Most of his dialogue is stupid, and not in a funny or endearing way. Many of the unique aspects of his personality have been removed entirely. The majority of Sora’s character is just him getting depressed when villains tell him he isn’t good enough, only for him to be cheered up immediately by some encouraging words from Donald or Goofy. Then everything goes back to normal until they encounter another villain.

And they barely get to eat any ice cream. 

Here I must address something that will make absolutely no sense to someone who has never played a Kingdom Hearts game, and has now begun even to make less sense to me: the game’s use of the heart. Hearts (sort of magical stand-ins for the soul), darkness, light, and friendship feature heavily in the Kingdom Hearts series. But now that I have played Kingdom Hearts 3, I’m not entirely sure what a heart is anymore. The game gives the heart so many abilities that it can overwhelm uninitiated players. At times, it can feel like the catch-all solution for the writers, as players encounter situations such as hearts living inside of other hearts and awakening at just the right time. The game gives so much power to the heart without properly explaining what that entails or what the boundaries are for hearts that it had lost me entirely by the end. I began to write off plot points I didn’t understand as, “That was his heart doing... something.”

Kingdom Hearts 3 also completely eliminates Final Fantasy characters from the game, despite their presence in prior games (Kingdom Hearts began as a sort of Disney/Final Fantasy hybrid). The game’s director said this was intentional, as he felt that the game’s characters could stand on their own now and didn’t need support from Final Fantasy characters. The problem with this is that those Final Fantasy characters are still part of the story, and the game is still lacking in certain areas without them. I enjoyed learning more about the keyblade from Leon and Yuffie in Kingdom Hearts 1. I enjoyed battling Sephiroth and talking to Cloud in both Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. All of this (and more) is gone in this game. While the game’s director may have felt that his characters didn’t need support from Final Fantasy characters, eliminating several important cast members makes the game feel emptier.

To be fair, what game wouldn't feel emptier without this guy? 

Despite all of my criticisms, I must admit that Kingdom Hearts 3 did begin to redeem itself as I approached the end, the source of most of the good things I can say about it. The final world is the game’s high point. It felt good to finally fight many of the members of Organization XIII (one main group of antagonists) that had been taunting me throughout the game. The fights come in a boss-rush mode of sorts, a greater challenge than the rest of the game. You also get to team up with a variety of new characters. While fighting alongside Donald and Goofy isn’t bad, I enjoyed the variety, as I could interact further with some of the characters that I wanted to hear more from. There were even a few fleeting moments when the game began to evoke that familiar sense of connection I had with these characters in past games.

Another high point in Kingdom Hearts 3 is the music. The entire series has always had phenomenal music, and this game is no exception. The game opens with a beautiful new remix of “Dearly Beloved” and it never stops from there. Once again, the music truly shines at the end of the game, when Sora finally gets to the worlds that are unique to Kingdom Hearts 3. These original compositions are among the best in the series. Many of the songs will burrow themselves into your skull, and you’ll be looking them up on YouTube months after you’ve finished playing the game. 

As I look back on Kingdom Hearts 3, I almost feel like an angry father saying, “I’m not mad, just disappointed.” The game had potential to be great, but much of that potential was wasted on an incomprehensible plot and Disney fan service. Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 had a different feel from the third. There isn’t one significant issue that I can point to and say, “This is why Kingdom Hearts 3 pales in comparison.” Instead, it’s a series of seemingly minor decisions that add up to a cumulatively worse game. While some may enjoy this game, I found it to be bland and lacking personality. If I had not played the past games in the series as a child, I don’t think I would have even finished it. Simply put, Kingdom Hearts 3 is average at best. And--much as it pains me to say--there are much better RPGs available elsewhere.

4/10

My Triple 10k Autumn

Trophy from winning the MCM 10k, which began my triple 10k autumn. Yes, I probably could kill someone with it

One of the strangest things about trying to be a serious runner solo is making my own "season." For every year of my life between 2006 and 2014, fall was a schedule of races I had nothing to do with; I just had to show up at them (and often I was driven there!).

But as a now 25-year-old post-collegiate in denial, I get to make up my own schedule. And after spending winter-spring 2017 training for a half-marathon, summer-fall 2017 training for a marathon, and winter-spring 2018 training for a half-marathon, I decided I wanted to drop down to lower distances again, especially with another marathon--Boston 2019--looming. Ideally, I might even PR in some of them. So this fall, I signed up first for a 5-miler and a 5k in September.

Looking at my October-November, though, I made a bold, potentially risky decision: I would run 3 10ks, that old collegiate staple, culminating in the Cincinnati Thanksgiving Day Race, which I have run every year since 2014. Yet describing the races as being in the October-November corridor is a bit misleading, as they were actually even more proximate: October 28, November 11, and November 22. This is a level of race proximity rigor I arguably never even reached in college. How did it go for me? Pretty well, I'd say. Herewith a summary of each race.

1) October 28: Marine Corps 10k (results)

Why do race winners instinctively raise their arms as they win?

Followers of my running career may recall that I ran the Marine Corps Marathon last fall, coming in 15th with a 2:34:29 in my marathon debut (full summary here). But since I dedicated this fall to shorter races, I signed up for the Marine Corps 10k on the same day as the marathon instead. The Marine Corps 10k consists of the last 10k of the Marine Corps Marathon--i.e., the worst part of the race. But I had looked up past winning times of the race and discovered that winning it was very realistic for me. I started the race with someone running alongside me, leading me to think I might have some competition. This eventual 2nd place finisher faded by about 5k, however, and I ran all the way to a 1st place finish of 32:16 by myself. While this was not my fastest 10k time (far from it, in fact), I did run the race entirely alone after 5k, on a fairly rough course, a few days after recovering from some kind of illness. It also resulted in this post-race interview. And I later learned that I ran the second-fastest ever time for the race. So I was happy with it.

2) November 11: Veterans' Day 10k (results)

Finishing the Veterans' Day 10k alongside Kyle Wagener, who would beat me by about 9 seconds with actual speed

I chose this race instead of the Fidelity Run for the Parks 10k, held on the same course a week earlier, because I had run that race before, and because 2017's results for it and this race suggested this one would be more competitive. I had modest hopes for this race: to go sub-32, and to get in the top 5. For while I could qualify away my result for the first 10k I did this fall all I wanted, I could not deny the time itself. When this race began, I put myself in the lead pack, and was surprised to find us going sub-5 to start. And then even more surprised to find us go sub-5 again. And again. 4 miles of this race at the lead pack were sub-5, and the last two were only barely over. I faded slightly after 4 miles that fast, but chose about halfway through the next mile not to die. I ended up in 3rd place, less than 10 seconds from 1st, and 2 seconds from 2nd, both of whom outkicked me. My time of 31:03, however, was more than enough consolation. This was a lifetime 10k PR for me by more than 20 seconds, and more than 30 seconds faster than the time I ran at this course in 2016, my previous post-collegiate PR. My only regret about this race is that I lacked a stronger kick that could have gotten me sub-31, but I guess I need something to keep me motivated.

3) Cincinnati Thanksgiving Day Race (results) 

One of the few pictures from the race in which I don't look to be in pain (wearing the St.X singlet since I'm racing local)

I have run this race every year since 2014, in various states of shape: In 2014, at or near peak college shape, I was 4th in a 31:46; in 2016, having been forced by injury to take two of the three days preceding the race off of running, I was 2nd in 32:16; in 2017, less than a month after my first marathon, I was 4th in a 33:07.* This time around, though, I was in arguably better shape than I ever had been, tapered well, and managed to avoid any last-minute mishaps that had marred previous seasons. So I thought I would be capable of challenging this race's 2-time consecutive champion. Alas, it was not meant to be; he is just too good. But I still managed 2nd place in 31:44, 2 seconds faster than my collegiate peak time at this same course. I didn't feel quite at 100 percent at this race, for some reasons beyond my control and some that were, and that makes the result ever-so-slightly disappointing, as I thought I was faster than this. I am still content with it, however, especially as a way to end a pretty rigorous "season" of 10ks.

So, there you have it: My Triple 10k Autumn. As I said, I don't think I ever did something this rigorous in college. And I managed to beat my college 10k PR, something I wasn't sure I would ever do. I also proved to myself and to anyone who doubted me that I can be "fast" if I want to be; despite more than a year-and-a-half of running half-marathons and a marathon, I can still drop down for a quick and dirty 10k if I so desire. Now that I have done this, though, it's time to abandon speed for endurance once more, as I gear up for my Boston Marathon debut in spring 2019. I will most certainly write about that here when it happens, so please stay tuned for future updates on my life between runs.

What if 'The White Album' had been one album? A 50th anniversary inquiry

As you can see, The White Album is white. 

Last Thursday was the 50th anniversary of The Beatles, a.k.a., The White Album, The Beatles' sprawling 1968 double-LP. I took the occasion to record a podcast on The Beatles' musical legacy, which you can listen to here (also embedded below).



For other Beatles content I have produced, see my ode to George Martin, my partial encomium to Yellow Submarine, my case for the Beatles-inspired ELO to be inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame (which they were after I wrote my article, proving the extent of my reach), and my analysis of Princess Leia's Stolen Death Star Plans, a rewrite of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band that makes it tell the story of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope.

And speaking of The White Album and George Martin: Martin, who made so much of The Beatles' music possible, has said that The White Album should have been one album. Since then, it has become a little parlor game among Beatles' fans to decide which songs to keep to make it a perfect record. Well, I gave it a try for myself. My method here was to remove songs I didn't like, without changing the order, until I got to approximate album length for each side of the hypothetical LP.*

1. "Back in the U.S.S.R." McCartney 2:43

2. "Dear Prudence" Lennon 3:56

3. “Glass Onion" Lennon 2:18

4. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" McCartney 3:08

5. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" Harrison 4:45

6. "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" Lennon 2:43

7. "Blackbird" McCartney 2:18

SIDE TWO (22:46)

8. "Rocky Raccoon" McCartney 3:33

9. "Yer Blues" Lennon 4:01

10. "Sexy Sadie" Lennon 3:15

11.  "Helter Skelter" McCartney 4:29

12.  "Revolution” Lennon 4:15

13.  “Good Night” Starr 3:13

TOTAL LENGTH: 44:37

SGT. PEPPER’S LENGTH: 39:52

ABBEY ROAD LENGTH: 47: 23**

And now, to justify my decisions, first for the songs I kept. I did this in a completely arbitrary, subjective fashion, made even more so by the fact that I have no real musical training. First, here's why I kept the songs I kept:

"Back in the U.S.S.R."

In true Beatles fashion, this is a fantastic album opener. But it's also a foray into surf rock, and a parody of the Beach Boys using the imagery and vocabulary of the Soviet Union. I wouldn't dare to get rid of it.

"Dear Prudence"

"Back in the U.S.S.R." segues into this song, so I wouldn't want to get rid of it for that reason alone. But it's also a beautiful, relaxing number that climaxes beautifully, thanks to some drumming by not-Ringo.

“Glass Onion"

Some might argue that this song is The Beatles at their most self-indulgent, referencing their own songs and teasing those who try to find deeper meaning from them. But The Beatles have always been a bit cheeky, and that cheekiness is an indelible part of their appeal. Plus they'd earned a little meta by this point.

"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"

I am not a huge fan of this song, but I just love that The Beatles decided to do some reggae rock in 1968 because they felt like it. So it stays.

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

One of George Harrison's best career compositions (not simply as a Beatle), and one of The Beatles' best songs, period, Harrison's heartfelt lyrics and anguished delivery secure it a spot on the perfect White Album. And Eric Clapton's guitar work seals the deal.

"Happiness Is a Warm Gun"

In a little more than two-and-half minutes, John takes us through basically three different songs, all musically unique yet somehow not disjoint, with some pretty strong (i.e., blatant) sexual and drug-related symbolism to boot.

"Blackbird"

Closing side 1 with Paul's simple and comforting acoustic number to come down from the orgasmic euphoria of "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" is a nice consequence of this arrangement, but "Blackbird" could follow any song on any album and I'd keep it regardless.

"Rocky Raccoon"

Maintaining continuity with Side 1 by opening Side 2 with "Rocky Raccoon," another acoustic animal-themed number, is another happy consequence of this arrangement. But again, I would keep this song regardless of the order. Paul does a convincing Bob Dylan parody that also has something of a moral to it. Yes please.

"Yer Blues"

By the late 60s, blues had become the province of many leading rock bands. The Beatles were well aware of this, and so they decided to make light of it somewhat...while also doing it better than virtually everyone else. John's screams of "Yes I'm lonely...want to die..." are mocking the relentless blues sadness...but also seem somewhat credible coming from a soul as dark as his. That and mean guitar keep this on the album.

"Sexy Sadie"

John's thinly disguised attack on Maharashi also stays on the album for being so darn catchy, and for "inspiring" Jet's "What Have You Done" and Radiohead's "Karma Police."

"Helter Skelter"

The birth of heavy metal simply has to stay. The Beatles never got heavier than this, and even later metal bands had to try pretty hard to get here. Yes, Charles Manson later appropriated it into his bizarre fever dream apocalypse, but that wasn't The Beatles' fault.

 "Revolution”

In the late 60s, as bands became openly political (if they didn't start there), one of the only explicitly political messages in The Beatles' music was anti-revolution: "If you go carryin' pictures of Chairman Mao/You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow..."; "If you're talking about destruction/don't you know that you can count me out..." But there was always that extra "in..."

“Good Night”

I don't just keep this here because Ringo needs a track on the album (though he does). I genuinely enjoy this over-orchestrated, Disney-esque track, with Ringo's calmly sung lullaby vocals (ending with spoken word). Even a halved White Album takes us to some pretty wild places, so something this comforting is a good way to end.

And now to justify what I removed (again, I do this in a completely arbitrary, subjective fashion, made even more so by the fact that I have no real musical training):

"Wild Honey Pie"
I don't need to justify this. This song never should have made it out of studio diddling. 

"The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"

I hate the refrain of this song, I hate the structure of the verses, I don't care about the story it tells, I hate that it's the answer to the Beatles' trivia question "What Beatles' song has a vocal from a non-member?" and I hate that that non-member is Yoko Ono. 

"Martha, My Dear"

I like much of what John mockingly called Paul's "granny music," so it was a difficult choice for me to excise this. But it's not even the best granny song on the album..and it's about a dog. Dogs are great, but this is The White Album. We've got more important things to talk about. 

"I’m So Tired"

John did the "I like to sleep" thing better on Revolver's "I'm Only Sleeping," which has backwards guitar and other interesting things to commend it. This just seems like another anonymous White Album track to me. 

"Piggies"

I have a soft spot in my heart for this song, which is so delightfully weird that I do like listening to it. But it's not novel enough in its weirdness to merit inclusion. Plus, I gave "Helter Skelter" a Manson pass, but I'm not sure this gets one, as its lyrics were written in blood on the wall of a Manson murder house. 

"Don’t Pass Me By"
As far as Ringo county ditties go, I guess it's better than "Act Naturally" and "What Goes On," but that's about all I can say about it. 

"Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?" 
A fun title and rousing delivery, but beyond that, forgettable and unnecessary for a pared down White Album. 

"I Will"

This is one of several songs on The White Album so similar to each other that I always forget about them or can't distinguish them from one another in my memory: slow, acoustic, simple lyrics...whatever. Get rid of it. 

"Julia"

See above. 

"Birthday"

This song should only be listened to on your birthday. 

"Mother Nature’s Son"

This was a bit of a harder choice, as I like its structure, but it gets cut because I don't think it's really about anything. 

"Long, Long, Long"

See answer for "Julia," "I Will." 

"Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except For Me and My Monkey"

See answer for "Why Don't We Do It In the Road." 

"Honey Pie"

Perhaps the hardest thing to cut. By far Paul's best "granny music," and a full-on Beatles music hall impression. If I could put one more song on the Half Album, this would be it. 

"Savoy Truffle" 

Another song I have a soft spot for, but a little ditty about Eric Clapton's candy addiction does not make the cut. Sorry George.

"Revolution 9" 

I don't need to justify this. How this song made it on at all when The Beatles were rejecting far-superior Harrison  compositions left and right is a mystery to me. This song should only be listened to on Halloween.   

So there you have it: My ideal White Album, with explanations for why I kept and cut what I did. To be sure, I still love The White Album as-is, and it was hard for me to criticize anything The Beatles did. I just think George Martin was right that a little bit of discipline might have helped. But The Beatles may have been beyond discipline by that point anyway, as the four stars had already begun to spiral away from each other's orbits, alas. 

Anyway, here's a Spotify playlist of The White Album with only my chosen songs: I called it "Te Wie Abm" because I removed every other letter from each word. If you like my version, then you can pretend it's the real one. Or you can make your own. Probably every Beatles' fan has a different preference. And that's one of many reasons why they're so great.

*According to this link, vinyl albums could be ~22 minutes per side: https://standardvinyl.com/vinyl-pressing/12-inch-records/
**I used this site, which I usually use to add up running splits for workouts, to add up the times.

Spend this Halloween at 'The Exorcist' steps

Pictured: synergy 

Longtime readers of mine--if there are any--might know about my history with the 1973 horror film with The Exorcist. Short version: For more than a decade of my life, I had nightmares about the movie--and about demonic possession more generally--after first learning about it despite never having seen it. And during Halloween 2016, I decided to face my fears and watch the movie, with the following result. As I summarized here for Acculturated (RIP):

I spent the next decade of my life blocking out any demonic pop culture—especially The Exorcist—in the hope that the fear would vanish as I aged. But it did not. My Catholic upbringing and a primal anxiety about losing control of my own body are largely to blame. The nightmares subsided, but my fright lingered. Thus, at 23 years old, I finally decided to confront my fears. I would watch The Exorcist, which was filmed in Washington, D.C., the city in which I currently work and live, for Halloween. Perhaps it would end the nightmares forever, or perhaps it would continue them indefinitely. I did not know. But so resolved, I could not back down. What I found upon watching was some of what I expected, some of what I did not, and much that made confronting my fears worthwhile.

Read the whole article I wrote for Acculturated to find my elaboration of the virtues of The Exorcist. If you don't feel like doing that, well, I'll recapitulate here: Basically, it's a wildly pro-Catholic movie about the reality of evil in the world and the importance of faith in confronting it. Owing a great deal to this, and to its genuine scares and great performances, I named The Exorcist my favorite horror movie, ranking among my all-time favorites.

Having found the experience of confronting my fears around Halloween gratifying, I decided to do the same last year, in 2017, by reading the book of the same name on which The Exorcist is based. The movie proved to be a mostly faithful adaptation of the book, with most of the few changes it made benefiting the story and not harming it.*

I started the book about a week before Halloween last year. On the evening of that Halloween, I had about 30 pages left. And then I realized something: I not only lived in the same city in which the film's famous climax takes place, but could easily access that infamous set of stairs in Georgetown (recognized as a historic landmark by D.C. on Halloween 2015, and up for national recognition). And since Halloween was a cool, pleasant night, and the area around the stairs was well-lit, I could finish the book there. As a bonus, I would get to see what it's like to be at the location of one of the most famous scenes in horror on Halloween. And so my plan for Halloween 2017 came to be.

The scary thing is that the guy walking down the stairs wasn't behind me when the picture was taken. I'm kidding (or am I?)

Reaching the steps around 6:30 pm, I found a comfortable position to sit, read, and observe. First, of course, I spent about a half-hour reading the climax of The Exorcist, during which one character takes a deadly tumble from the top of the steps down. This marked a first for me: the first time I had ever read a book at the exact location of its resolution, or perhaps any part of the book at the exact location at which it is set. As a result, I was better able to visualize precisely what I was reading better than ever before, helping the text to come alive.

But finishing the book was only the beginning of my night at the steps. Not long after arriving, I saw either a priest or someone dressed as one for Halloween approaching the steps to descend them. With the book in had, I warned him to be careful. He laughed. steady stream of hesitant tourists, of varying ages, walked by the steps and searched for some sign that they were in the right place. Showing them my copy of the book, I assured them that they were. To one of these tourists, I related a trivia fact about the book: When the filmmakers were capturing the stunt of the movie's climax (for which the stairs were covered in foam), students at Georgetown with roof views of the steps charged people to watch it from their vantage points. I volunteered to take many pictures of pairs or groups of people who came by to see the steps (one of whom reciprocated for me). Most surprising: Throughout the night, a consistent group of people were just using the steps to work out. And, finally, in the climax of my evening, at the request of one pair of horror tourists, I gave a dramatic reading of the book's dramatic resolution. I did not throw myself down the stairs at the end, but I did my best in every other respect to make it seem real. All in all, a good place to spend Halloween.

My happiness should be evidence

After leaving the steps, and in the year subsequent to my evening there, I have thought a lot about why I felt the need to go there, and why so many others did as well. The Exorcist doesn't even take place on Halloween (although at least one or two scenes seem to take place on it). So why would people go there then? To confront their fears, as I did? Because The Exorcist, as a horror movie, has become so indelibly tied up in the holiday associated with the genre? Because maybe some were hoping something might happen in that famous place on that auspicious night? Probably for all of these reasons, and more.

But whatever the reason, I highly recommend checking out The Exorcist steps this Halloween. It's a fascinating cultural experience to see who shows up there, and why. A few people may just use it to work out, but most others go to it for some ineffable, spooky, quintessentially Halloween reason(s). If you have the chance, you should join them. Just be careful not to fall down the stairs.

I hear it's happened before.

*The one exception to this might have been dropping some of the obscure references that the demon Pazuzu makes to the Bible, John Milton, C.S. Lewis, and other sources.

How my visit to an anechoic chamber changed the way I understand sound

Get you someone who looks at you the way I look at an anechoic chamber

We live in a very loud world. All around us is ambient noise: cars honking, people talking, phones ringing. One can achieve a sort of quiet by escaping to nature, yes, but even nature offers its own background sounds: birds chirping, brooks babbling, branches rustled by gusts of wind. It is hard for us to imagine what a truly soundless existence is like.

But it is no longer hard for me. For last weekend, when I was in Nashville, Tennessee, I visited the anechoic chamber at Vanderbilt University. Break down the word into its roots and you'll understand what it means: "an" - Greek: "without," (see also, anaerobic, "without air); "echo" - sound feedback, or reverberation. If that still doesn't make sense, here's a simpler explanation: An anechoic chamber is a room specially designed to eliminate the reflection and refraction of sound after its origination. In the world outside anechoic chambers, if you clap, you don't merely hear the clap: You hear the clap as it bounces off the wall, the air, the objects around you. And ditto for every other sound you make.

This is not the case in an anechoic chamber. You hear only the sound itself. The chamber "captures" the echo, killing subsequent resounding. This creates a quietude unlike virtually any we can experience in the real world. In fact, the first I heard of such a chamber was in a news story that went semi-viral a few years ago, which claimed that spending 45 minutes in such a room will drive you insane. The reason? Being in a room that quiet allows you to hear noises your own body makes that are usually inaudible, like the movement of your blood, and the functioning of your organs. It also heightens the typically feint sound of the beating heart. And, above all, it cancels out the din of existence itself, the default level of noise that we've accustomed ourselves to living today. Some people, apparently, just can't handle it.

I have been desperate to find out whether I was one of those people ever since first reading about anechoic chambers. And just before leaving last weekend on my trip to Nashville, a piece of long-forgotten information resurfaced in my brain: Somewhere in the city, there was an anechoic chamber. So I did a bit of research and discovered that the chamber was housed at Vanderbilt University. A bit more digging, and I managed to find the Vanderbilt faculty member in charge of the thing. On a lark, I sent him an email, asking if it would be possible for me to go inside while I was there, on account of my longtime interest. He said yes, and I was set.

A friend accompanied me to the chamber that day, ostensibly because he was interested as well, but perhaps also to keep me from going insane; or, failing that, to manage my insanity upon its inception. As far as I could tell, only he, myself, and the Vanderbilt faculty member who agreed to let me inside were on the floor of its location when we arrived. It was quiet on that floor--or so I thought--when the unassuming man led us to the deceptively modest door of the chamber. Just outside the room itself was a set of diodes, control panels, monitors, and other such equipment, similar in array (if not in exact function) to what one would expect outside of a recording studio. But I did not come here for that. And soon, my guide brought me into what I had come all this way for: the chamber itself.

Abandon all sound, ye who enter here 

The anechoic chamber was unlike any room I have ever been in. From the moment I entered it, and without the door to the room even being closed, the sonic landscape I perceived was completely different. The ambient buzzing of lights, the scattered scuffing of shoes on floor--all vanished, replaced with nothing except perhaps a very light ringing in my ears that could have been how my auditory organs chose to register the extreme soundlessness. The room itself was huge: its dimensions stretched both above us, surely to the next floor, and under us, surely to the floor below. Between us and the lower portion of the room was a mat of thin yet springy wire, almost like mattress springs. What I can only describe as foam spikes, always in pairs, covered all four walls of the room, pointing out at us as though at any moment I would enter an Indiana Jones movie and they would start to close in on me. In the middle of the room was a single chair, surrounded by a large metallic ring*, off of which hung a circular array of small speakers. I would never dare to say such a place had a nefarious purpose, but this setup made it look like a place where James Bond might be tortured. It also reminded me, for reasons I can't quite explain, of something out of Inception. You'll notice that I keep reaching for fictional analogues to describe this place; that is because I can find no nonfictional analogue to it in my own experience--save perhaps a recording studio, albeit one on steroids.

A narrow view

Our Vanderbilt guide explained why the room was made the way it was. It extended to the floors both above and below it to minimize the amount of sounds that could seep in from the building itself: air conditioning, the functioning of other equipment, etc. The wire floor was enough to keep us from falling below while also not being substantial enough in its own right to provide an alternative source of sound refraction. The foam spikes, arrayed in outward-facing pairs, both absorbed sound and captured it, reducing echo by forcing it into the point between the spikes until it dissipated entirely. Think of it as a sort of reverse feedback. And the single chair surrounded by speakers was its primary research manifestation. In a room so thoroughly soundproofed, researchers could build an auditory landscape from scratch. You could sit in the chair in the dark and in complete silence and have sounds issued at you from any combination of the speakers, or all of them at once. In such an environment, you could convince your ears that you were in a location of entirely different spatial dimensions from the one you actually occupied, like a giant cathedral. There were no true medicinal purposes to this room; it was for research alone. Sometimes, they even accept requests from local music acts to record in it. Manufacturers of notoriously loud objects, such as airplanes, have rooms many times its size but identical in nature so they can test the sound generation of their equipment, as basically sonic wind tunnels. There are all sorts of thing one can do with an anechoic chamber.

The chair of sound

Which may be part of why this room entranced me from the moment I entered it. And the more our guide told me, the more fascinated I became. I could already notice a difference in the sound (or lack thereof) around us when we walked in, even though he hadn't even closed the door. Once he did that, all the eerie silence of the room kicked up a notch. Just talking sounded weird. In a few moments of silence, I could hear my heart beating, my blood moving, and my stomach noisily squelching and digesting my lunch. And clapping--oh, clapping! I struggle even to describe what it sounds like to clap in such a place. It was as though my hands were made of sponge. We don't realize, outside of such a place, how much of the noise of a clap is actually its echo. But in the anechoic chamber, you realize it by its absence. Never did I think something so simple as a clap could be so mindblowing.

Yet all this was a mere prelude to the peak of my experience in the anechoic chamber. On two occasions, our Vanderbilt guide allowed me in the room alone, with the door closed, in the dark. I would soon get the answer as to whether such an environment could actually drive me insane. On the first stint, I sat in the chair, preparing myself. First, the door closed. Then, the lights went off. I closed my eyes. After only a few seconds, I felt completely weightless, like I was floating in a pool, or perhaps in space. In the essence of quiescence that I experienced, I heard nothing at all, and I began to lose spatial orientation: up, down, right, left--all of this lost its typical meaning. My thoughts quickly drifted to where they usually only go on the edge of sleep, a twilight wasteland of fragmented cogitations. I felt like I could stay there forever.

Me, in my element 

Then the lights came back on, the door opened, and our Vanderbilt guide returned me to reality. It had somehow only been a minute. But I had experienced something more powerful than my deepest sleeps. And I had an identical experience when, as we were about to leave, I begged for another time in the chamber alone. The main difference between the first and second times was that, on the second time, I felt like I could have fallen asleep almost instantly; that, in fact, I may never be able to sleep anywhere else.

Alas, my time at the anechoic chamber had come to a close. Before we left, though, I had to ask our Vanderbilt guide whether what I had heard was true: Could prolonged exposure to this environment really make people go insane? Can we sound-accustomed humans really not handle such a deprivation? He said no: Indeed, he sometimes spends consecutive hours in it alone, with only a lunchbreak, and his sanity is still fully intact. He seemed like a pretty sane fellow, so I guess I have to take him at his word, for now.

And so we left the most incredible room I have ever entered. This despite the fact that I had so much left that I still wanted to do in there. I wanted to sit in there until I heard all of my organs churning. I wanted to wait and see if I really did go insane. I wanted to take a nap, because I've never been anywhere quieter and more conducive to sleep for the light sleeper than I am. I wanted to whistle in there, which I wish I'd had the presence of mind to think of doing. And, above all, I wanted to sit in the chair, turn off the lights, and blast Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon from all the speakers surrounding me and listen to the whole thing, which I think is how the band actually meant for it to be experienced. For now, these desires will have to wait until my next trip to an anechoic chamber. For rest assured, there will be another trip. I didn't even go to the one that inspired all of those viral stories; it's in Minneapolis. I will return to this kind of room while I have time left to do so. This kind of experience is not the sort of thing you only do once.

Me, laying down some sick tracks

As my friend and I left the building that housed the chamber, the sounds of the world began to creep back in: the cars, the people, the birds, the wind. But I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that they all sounded a little bit...different. If it's true that you can only truly appreciate a thing by experiencing its absence, then perhaps the chamber heightened my perception of the sounds I usually hear. It got me unused to them, if only briefly, making my reintroduction to them all the more noticeable. A week later, I don't think the experience of being in a soundless room has made me permanently unable to tolerate sound (a la Rick and Morty's "absolute level"), insane, or unable to sleep. Yet I do have some evidence it had an effect on me. As my friend and I walked around Vanderbilt's campus after leaving the chamber, I heard a light ringing on the ground. I stopped, turned around, and scanned the ground, discovering that I had kicked a penny. I joked to my friend that the fact that I had heard it and he had not meant that the anechoic chamber had improved my hearing to Daredevil-esque levels (we had joked beforehand that some bizarre mishap in the chamber would occur while I was inside that would give me sound-based superpowers). And when I picked the penny up, I noticed something strange: It was minted in the year of my birth.

Had my chamber-enhanced hearing not only allowed me to hear the penny itself, but also the slight variations in its grooves and etchings that would distinguish a penny minted in 1993 from one minted in 1992 or 1994? Who is to say? All I can say is that I must return to an anechoic chamber as soon as possible, and that I highly recommend you take a visit as well. In a loud world, they offer a quiet unlike anything you've ever experienced.

Unless, that is, you've already been in one.

*They are planning to add another ring, circling vertically, for maximum auditory landscape manipulation.

How my 2008 trip to Washington, D.C. became something more a decade later

Me, 10 years ago, in the place I now live. 

Readers of this blog, if there are any left, will know that I am prone to (excessive?) reflection, retrospection, and nostalgia, and obsessed with anniversaries. 10-year anniversaries seem particularly potent reflection-inducers for me, perhaps because as a relatively young person, I'm still weirded out by by the fact that I am now able to start thinking of my life in terms of decades.

So all week I've been thinking about a trip I took to D.C. in 2008, exactly 10 years ago. It was my first time in the city. I went with my father, and we went to all the sights: the Mall, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the National Archives, Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court, the White House (we got tours of both, thanks to Bush administration connections), Georgteown, Arlington Cemetery, Mt. Vernon, and perhaps other D.C.-area things I'm forgetting.*

At JFK's Flame 

At the Marine Corps Memorial, in front of which I would finish the Marine Corps Marathon 9 years later.

Haaaaave ya met Abe?  

At the front of the National Mall

With my father  

I stood in this very spot on Saturday

Showing state pride 

Statesmanship 

It had to be done

We also went to Annapolis to visit the Naval Academy, back when I thought I might be interested in that kind of thing. On the way back, we stopped at a theater (my father thinks it was this one) and saw The Dark Knight on opening day, which became important to me later for other reasons.

At the time, I had a vague interest in politics, stimulated by the ongoing election, which was only about to get weirder; the financial crisis of fall 2008 was still a few weeks away, though the price of oil reached an all-time high the week we were there. I didn't fully understand the world of politics, but was on the cusp of starting to. I didn't think I necessarily wanted to go into politics (whatever that means), though the 2008 election would ultimately help to change that. At the time, this was just a fun trip with my Dad.

But 10 years later, I live here. The sights I saw then I walk or run by almost every day; they haven't gone anywhere, and I know exactly where they all are, which makes it a lot easier than usual to place my nostalgia in context. It's also very easy to return to the exact same places. I mean, I live on Capitol Hill. It turns out this trip was more important than I could have possibly realized. It set in motion and prepared me for the next 10 years of my life, three of which I have now spent in D.C., with long stints during two others. That fact offers me more to ponder than the typical ruminations inspired by the mere passage of time. Among other things, it makes me wonder: What am I doing now that might actually be foreshadowing my future?

Obviously, right now I don't know. But I guess I'll find out with another ten years gone.

*But one thing I'll certainly never forget is getting rained on while walking by the Korean War memorial, and seeing the bronze soldiers there as they are meant to be seen: walking through the rain themselves.