MODERATOR:

MODERATOR.

DEXTER FREEDMAN.

SYLVESTER FOX.

CATHY.

[SYLVESTER FOX types gently, but with focus, in HIS OFFICE. Enter suddenly DEXTER FREEDMAN, exasperated.]

DEXTER: You fucking shadow-blocked me?

FOX: Who let you in?

DEXTER: I couldn’t fucking believe it. [He sits across from Fox.] I still can’t.

FOX: Okay, you know what? Look: [He rotates his laptop. He presents a list displayed therein.]

DEXTER: So what?

FOX: That’s a DOZEN PEOPLE who complained about you, JUST this month.

DEXTER: So what? What did you do to hold THEM accountable? I still see THEIR stupid posts.

FOX: I saw a pattern.

DEXTER: Yeah, I’ll bet you did.

FOX: You were the only common denominator.

DEXTER: Is that so? I see: twelve people are too many to investigate. You have to pile it all on me, upon the SCAPEGOAT.

FOX: [He returns to his work.] If that’s how you wish to see it.

DEXTER: No, that’s how I DO see it. I don’t let what I WANT to see impinge upon my views.

FOX: It must be nice to be objective in these times.

DEXTER: And, hey: I get it. I’m the one who has to DEAL with ALL THESE PEOPLE, while THEY only have to deal with ME, and now I have to deal with YOU, though YOU DON’T have to deal with me.

[Sylvester Fox glances up, as if intending for this interruption to be settled swiftly.]

FOX: Except for when you barge into my Office, yeah.

[Freedman rises from his seated posture suddenly. Fox is taken aback.]

DEXTER: Right. ONLY then!! And tell me: did you even bother to READ any of these conversations?

FOX: I might have browsed them. [listlessly.]

DEXTER: Browsed. And what did you find?

FOX: A whole let of subversive stuff, to be honest.

DEXTER: Well, it would BEHOOVE you to know that about five of those twelve fatal comments were in FACT reproduced VERBATIM from other users on YOUR forum, and THREE of those FIVE were direct quotes FROM THREE OF THOSE TWELVE PEOPLE WHO COMPLAINED ABOUT ME.

FOX: Did you cite your sources?

DEXTER: Very funny. And once: yes.

FOX: What is your POINT, Dexter?

DEXTER: My POINT is this: who are YOU to block me?

FOX: You mean specifically? I am literally the moderator.

DEXTER: No, I’ll tell you what you are: you are a CENSOR. If you want to “Moderate”, why don’t you BE a moderate and counterbalance some of these barbarically one-sided DELUSIONS?

FOX: Were you APPOINTED to this lofty post?

DEXTER: Who says I HAD to be? When someone posts a point of view, that is free license to retort.

FOX: [With mounting concern, seething slightly.] I doubt that MOST people see it that way.

DEXTER: They OUGHT to. An opinion is dangerous; you speak it so that it won’t tear your Soul apart, for only by your speaking it can it be challenged, tried, reformed, and only then restored to social life.

FOX: And you’re the Judge, Jury, and Executioner who does this?

DEXTER: I am but a witness.

FOX: But you speak for all men?

DEXTER: I speak for but one group at a time. Now tell me: how was it that all these quotes I was ABLE to quote? How did I come to find them? Why was each of them so popular until the very moment *I* expressed it?

FOX: Maybe you should know your audience.

DEXTER: I DO. And that’s the very problem. All these bigots had been preaching to the choir. I was just compelling them to SEE THE OTHER SIDE.

FOX: Maybe the grass was greener on THEIR side. Who is to say they have to buy another lot?

DEXTER: Some lot. But I was handling my own with them. But then YOU came along.

FOX: Now let me be quite clear with you, Freedman: You have been ranting; now it’s MY turn. *I* don’t “come along”. YOU come along and use MY server. YOU upset MY clients.

DEXTER: [Uproariously, with glee.] You SEE? THAT’S all I NEEDED FOR YOU TO CONFESS.

FOX: [With indignant perplexion.] “Confess”?!?

DEXTER: [With persistent delight.] Yeah!! That’s what I was WAITING for. You finally ADMIT it. You perceive these people to be SUBJECTS IN YOUR COURT. And it BEHOOVES YOU to make sure that they are segregated into echo chambers.

FOX: If that’s what the People Want.

DEXTER: The “PEOPLE”? The PEOPLE cannot decide how many GENDERS there are, much less what should QUALIFY a “well-informed opinion”. I have but to suggest the Other Side EXISTS, as something CREDIBLE, and they must fall apart, complaining to their Lord and Master, that I might be excommunicated WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT.

FOX: IT’S WHAT THEY WANT, OKAY?! GOOD PEOPLE *NEED* GROUP THOUGHT. THEY CANNOT *HANDLE* YOUR PRETENSIONS TO SOME LOFTY, OMNIPRESENT OBJECTIVITY.

[Pause.]

DEXTER: Wow. [laughing slightly, but frowning.] Just wow.

FOX: [Trying to recover, sardonically but with exhaustion and surrender.] Oh, WHAT?

DEXTER: You just nailed it so perfectly; you summed it up ideally.

FOX: Summed WHAT up? Good God.

DEXTER: The problem. I know how you see me. You don’t have to strain yourself to make it clear, though you insist upon the effort.

FOX: You hardly make it easy.

DEXTER: Don’t I, though? But this is how you see me: I’m delusional and narcissistic. I attempt to unify the lot of them to overthrow you. I pretend to be the One to Lead Them All. The People don’t agree, but that is why they’re free. That is: until the business of their disagreements falls to ME.

FOX: Spoken like a true psychopath.

DEXTER: Yes, yes: that’s who I am, to you, and you make sure they see me just that way. What more is there to say? Okay.

FOX: I’m just trying to be OBJECTIVE, bro. I don’t take sides. I don’t demand that people get along. I just protect them from each other.

DEXTER: And from me.

FOX: YOU do not represent THEM. You don’t want to play along? That’s fine; don’t pick a side. Sit on the fence, or run about like you’re some double-agent, pointing out their inconsistencies. I do not OWE you any sort of audience, so if your posts don’t register, you have no one to blame. So long as they ALL want their echo chambers, you’re the Odd Man Out. Even if each echo chamber lives by contradicting other echo chambers, the Whole System Works, without the need for YOU to overthink it, criticize it, challenge it or hack it. It. Just. WORKS. Quite beautifully. The time when men sought Synthesis through Progress is long-gone. The Network is the Whole. And even if you see it, no one HAS to.

DEXTER: Christ. A machine could do what you do, even more efficiently, but who would build such a device?

[Enter Cathy.]

CATHY: [to Sylvester.] Should I call security?

BOTH: No. What’s the point?

CATHY: [to Freedman.] I think you should leave.

DEXTER: There’s no escape.

[Exit Freedman.]

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

F!SH:

When independent game developer Philippe Poisson (often translated “Phil Fish”) was still producing his debut FEZ, (a masterpiece which remains to this day both his breakthrough and his swansong,) he was the target of an inordinate amount of hostility from would-be fans who demanded that he satisfy the expectations he had aroused, having made early drafts public over the years. The bizarre onslaught of virtual violence, not atypical of gamers in any generation, whether passive or overt in its aggression, could be considered an expression of nostalgia for the old Greek norms regarding virtue and responsibility: that every individual has a teleological obligation to actualize his or her potential, as though that were not only a gift from the Gods, but a gift for all Humanity. To demonstrate talent without the will(power) to actualize it externally was an affront to both man and Divinity alike, for one was but a vessel for the expression of INTRINSIC potentialities; conversely, if anyone should inhibit the means by which an artist was to express his Inner Vision, one which is invariably Divinely Inspired, then the inhibitor could never appeal to the authority of the Society in doing so, since such an inhibition would be regarded as antisocial. The Artist, by being COMPELLED, by Social Pressure, to actualize his or her own Inner Potential, also became inextricably entitled to the MEANS BY WHICH to succeed; society was always on the side of the willing, often willful Creator, whereas only a disorganized mob could stand between the potential and its actualization. Even secular thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle retained this attitude, producing the likes of Alexander the Great and, arguably, Jesus of Nazareth.

Of course, modern man is seldom accustomed to this sort of pressure. Following the success of FEZ, Fish promised a sequel, or at least his intention to produce one was taken to be a promise. About sixteen months after FEZ was released, to stellar reviews, following a five-year development period, Phil Fish retired. Nearly seven years later, he is remembered as the sensitive genius who barely survived the production of his enigmatic masterpiece (a game that must be enigmatic by design, given its genre, but that remains mystifying owing to its backstory, both within the virtual world and our own,) and then disappeared from public life in a wave of fury, burning many bridges in his wake, citing numerous abuses.

It’s not all fun and games in this Industry, especially for independent developers. One must be reminded of how many people have died in theatre.

Artistically, FEZ was a breakthrough not only for Phil Fish but for gaming in general. The simplest expression of the premise is thus: that the game is set within a three-dimensional environment which is always perceived from a two-dimensional point of view. The player avails his or herself of this intricate, lush, candy-coloured World, composed predominantly of Islands and Castles in the Sky, by rotating the camera. With each ninety-degree turn, the controls are reoriented, so that the protagonist, an adorable pixel-art creature wearing a pixelated Turkish cap, walks along a two-dimensional plane perpendicular to his previous environment. Through a combination, therefore, of two-dimensional side-scrolling and three-dimensional modulation, the modern player experiences at once the nostalgic charm of retro platformers, as well as the immersive complexity of three-dimensional models, juxtaposed in a totally novel fashion.

THAT is the SIMPLE version.

In truth, what makes FEZ so astonishing is in its suspension of conventional, geometric realism. The game has been likened to a Cubist painting; not only does it introduce three-dimensional perspective, but it subverts it. Not only does the protagonist discover that a third dimension exists beyond the confines of his familiar, two-dimensional home world; the player also discovers that this three-dimensional World, which many of us take for granted to be “Reality”, (as opposed to the “playful illusion” of Games,) can be bypassed, and it is bypassed precisely by avenue of the two-dimensional plane.

Take, for instance, the common tendency for tourists to pose before the Leaning Tower of Pisa, pretending to embrace it. Were it not a matter of common knowledge that the tower dwarfs any human being in three-dimensional space, a flat photograph is likely to create the optical illusion that this structure is hardly taller than the tourist, who in fact is only standing closer to the camera, stretching an appendage.

What FEZ accomplishes is that it turns this optical illusion into a practical game mechanic. Much like Jonathan Blow’s Braid subverted the linearity of time, presenting the player with a series of increasingly challenging puzzles to contemplate the consequent possibilities, Phil Fish suspends the rigidity of space.

Each subsequent puzzle employs this suspension in new ways. The most early instance which stands out is one wherein the protagonist crosses a previously insurmountable gap between buildings by appearing, miraculously, atop the opposite building; this is achieved simply by rotating the camera so that the new building obscures the old one, so that the protagonist first appears to be standing atop the new structure, but then another rotation makes it so.

Not long thereafter, an even more obvious instance consolidates the mechanic. From one point of view, the hero Gomez reaches a physical impasse: the only way to go is up, and the only ladder leading up runs upon a ceiling which cannot be climbed from below, and, to make matters seem more hopeless, the next available ladder rests on the corner of this ceiling, out of reach by a long shot. Physical realism indicates that this is an impossible gap to traverse, but a simple turn of the camera, so that it faces both ladders, (each of which had previously faced either left or right,) presents the solution, clear as day, but hidden in plain sight. The ladder, at first appearing to be two all-too-separate pieces, appears as one.

Were we to presume upon the binding objectivity of our previous perspective, as well as its constancy in the three-dimensional New World, (which is what Physical Reality instructs us to do in daily life, so much so that we appear mad to question it,) we should consider this puzzle impossible to solve, yet anyone who perceives only the latter perspective (no pun intended) wouldn’t hesitate to say: “what’s the matter? Go up!!”

Of course, this is precisely what the player MUST do, and, miraculously, it works!! While we might retain the realist prejudice that the unified ladder is simply an “optical illusion”, the REAL illusion is a meta-illusion: the illusion of illusoriness. In the world of FEZ, what APPEARS to be a unified ladder IS a unified ladder, so long as we perceive it FROM THE POINT OF VIEW. What appears to be impossible becomes possible because semblance transforms into Reality, yet, by the same token, the moment that the perspective is altered, the Reality falls apart; it is never enough to simply retain a fixed, internal conception of the Universe, but the Universe itself must always be imminent, so that we can avail ourselves only of that which we can see, and we remember what we’ve seen only to recall the various Realities which, according to Common Sense, are incommensurable possibilities. 
In an age wherein professional philosophers profess the “Death of Metaphysics”, citing radical subjectivity as their source, one Canadian gamer uses that same subjectivity to revive Metaphysics. Deconstructionists sought to eliminate the Actuality of Being by reducing everything to Perception; Fish creates a World which incontrovertibly Is, in the sense that it exists as a series of possibilities which must be discovered and synthesized to progress, but then upon this Actual Being he IMPOSES Perception. The Second Dimension is never simply “assimilated” into three-dimensional reality; it always has a say, often with finality, and the very limitation it presents transforms impossibility into necessity.

Perhaps you see the irony, therefore, that Fish quit the business. In FEZ, the impossible becomes possible, and that is what makes it essential. In the life of Philippe Poisson, the possibility became an imperative, but the burden was too much for a postmodern mind to bear, though only a postmodern mind could have fathomed the possibility.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

REJECT!ON:

Whenever you reject someone, your rejection is a greater testament to your own self-entitlement than it is to the self-entitlement of the other person. The act of rejection, in itself, implies that you believe yourself to Deserve Better, and you regard this valuation more highly than the Other’s point of view, presuming that you are “too good” for the Other. Now, given the consensual nature of relationships, it is easy to see how someone’s high opinion of his or herself can be mistaken for fact, since that person’s suitors may see fit to appeal to it. Yet that willingness does not, in fact, equate the opinion with a fact; though we are tempted to venerate narcissists, they remain mere mortals.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

SYSTEM SHOCK:

I have had problems with amateur musicians, professional musicians, semi-professional musicians going into MY chosen field, game designers, programmers, moderators, administrators, managers, neoconservatives, neoliberals, debaters, directors, doctors, proctors, actors, teachers and professors, stoners, bloggers, poets, models, feminists, pessimists and optimists.

What is the common denominator?

Might I remind you: I can express these problems entirely in objective terms. I can abstain from subjective statements, expressing each opinion as a fact, expressing each conflict in terms of how it impacts other groups, subverts established ideals, and targets “someone, somewhere,” and if I had to put myself back into the equation, I would be cast as the martyr who has devoted his life to the protection of that same abstract “someone, somewhere”. That “someone” is not simply “my own self”, as I remember him, from just some distant time, holding a grudge. It’s anyone who might endure what I endured OR what I have YET to endure, though what ONE (and not just I) might presume to be unfortunate and worth preventing.

Who am I to speak in such objective terms?

Well: who are YOU to ignore such objective and prevalent facts? Must I be selfish to profess that which is self-evident?

You might try to cast me in this case as though I WERE at the center of this network, as though the World as I Perceive It, in its entirety, truly DID revolve about ME, lending me the most tempting excuse for a narcissism that ARGUABLY (though I should hope it’s not just I who makes the argument) has become prevalent and run amok, contributing to the chaos I describe.

Yet why must *I* be the common denominator? You might attest: “well, CERTAINLY the individual is accorded sufficient dignity and power that he might be held RESPONSIBLE for his position.”

Is he, though?

What if I retorted thus: that ALL my PERSONAL problems with these groups has been in the SUBVERSION of my individuality? Yet it was not that my individuality was simply “refined” through the systematic cleansing of some sort of “objective sin”. Arguably, no such sin is regarded as objective by all parties I have represented. Arguably, each attempt at asserting a unique perspective, in any group, has only ever been the representation (read: “re-presentation”) of a sacred platitude revered by another group. There is no ABSOLUTE STANDARD according to which I have EVER been “wrong”; I simply stand outside of any affiliation, and most of what I profess, for which I am excluded, amounts to little more than an opinion. The only claims to fact I make are contained within this reflection, for this alone can I say for certain: that all of these groups can’t ALL be right, and there exists no evidence that any one of them IS. Yet each of them behaves as though that were the case, either exclusively for itself, or on behalf of its SUPPOSED allies.

So: what is the common evil?

This alone remains: that they are all, definitionally, Groups.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

PRED!CT!ONS:

PRED!CT!ONS:

1.          Jim and Kim will overdo Mesa Verde.

a.                       Their antics have already raised suspicions in Rick Schweikart and presumably Howard Hamlin.

b.                      Kim will try to get out of it before they lose everything.

c.                        Jimmy will push them over the line.

d.                      Kim will suffer the bulk of the consequences, while Jimmy’s reputation will skyrocket.

e.                        Kim will break up with Jimmy.

2.          One of the two junkies will remain (or die) in prison.

a.                       The second episode of the season, entitled “50% off”, is an exercise in classic Breaking Bad subtext. Everything revolves around the number two, whether presented as an integer or a fraction (half). Examples include:

                                                         i.      Two junkies,

                                                    ii.      Coming to on a Tuesday,

                                               iii.      Indicating, in unison, that this means “fifty-percent off”, as we see

                                                 iv.      A stolen garden gnome missing half his face, reminiscent of a certain rosy teddy bear and the climax of the episode “Face Off”.

                                                     v.      The title, reminiscent of “Half Measures”.

                                                 vi.      An elevator stuck between Floors two and three,

                                            vii.      For twenty minutes,

                                       viii.      After which Jimmy offers his accomplice legal services for the man’s “other half”.

                                                ix.      An ice cream cone, containing one scoop, as opposed to the two which he offers Kim in the previous episode. (Note that this was a symbol I had noticed well in advance, from its first instance in the first episode of the season, rather than after the fact, and the corroboration for its significance became irrefutable at the start of Episode Three; its meaning was NOT contrived a posteriori.)

b.                      My prediction is:

                                                         i.       that the junkies will only accrue the funds necessary to release one of them from custody. Saul will forego law and order by persuading one of the two to betray the other, thus acquiring the partial sum in good conscience, rationalizing that he only owes them one free pass.

                                                    ii.      By this point, he will be motivated by his anger surrounding his breakup with Kim and the part that Howard and Rich played in this. This will tempt him to embrace his wolf side more.

                                               iii.      The remaining junkie is likely to die in prison. At any rate, his disownment will reflect the death of Jimmy and the preponderance of Saul. This is a motif that was employed extensively in Breaking Bad, especially its later seasons, to represent Walter White’s final transformation into Heisenberg.

3.          Gus will try to have Jimmy killed, but instead he will have Saul hired. (Again: duality is at play, for the hiring of one is the death of the other.)

a.                       Learning that a crooked lawyer cost him thousands of dollars in drug money, a livid Fring will hire Mike to push Saul’s button.

b.                      Owing to a longstanding, if precarious, friendship with Jimmy, coupled with a newfound charisma, Mike will refuse to kill Saul, though he will not try to stop Fring from employing someone else to do the job instead.

c.                        Fring will become curious about Mike’s apparent loyalty to a seedy lawyer.

d.                      Fring will investigate Saul Goodman and find his services to be of use.

e.                        Fring will make Saul Goodman an offer Saul can’t refuse.

f.  Saul Goodman will become Fring’s new lawyer.

g.                       Saul will help Fring tie up loose ends regarding the completion of the Underground Lab.

4.          Nacho will kill Lalo.

a.                       Tuco will return to civilian life, hungry for bloodshed.

b.                      Tuco will track down Krazy Eight, hoping to squeeze the impressionable young upstart for information about who set him up.

c.                        Krazy Eight will inadvertently provoke Tuco to suspect Nacho.

d.                      Wary of Nacho’s retribution, Krazy Eight will use his status as a protected informant to sell out Nacho to the D.E.A.

e.                        Lalo, inferring that Nacho is a double-agent, will make a move on Nacho’s father.

f.  Nacho will kill Lalo.

g.                       Fring will kill Nacho.

h.                      Tuco will succeed Nacho.

i.   Saul will be suspected of involvement, which will endure as a personal phobia of his until his debut episode in Breaking Bad.

5.          Lalo will kill Stacy.

a.                       Lalo will discover Lydia through his surveillance of Fring.

b.                      Lalo will put pressure upon Lydia to talk.

c.                        A hysterical and vindictive Lydia will reveal the identity of Michael, rationalizing that it serves Mike right for questioning her authority.

d.                      Lalo will attack Mike’s family. Stacy will die.

e.                        Before Mike can avenge Stacy, Nacho will kill Lalo.

f.  Mike will hold a grudge against Lydia forever.

6.          Everett Acker will lose his home, as well as any hope of finding a new one affordably.

a.                       Kevin Wachtel will be a raging bull in the wake of Kim’s betrayal. Joining forces with Howard Hamlin, he will figuratively burn Acker to the ground.

b.                      This is consistent with the theme of duality and the myth of the death of a twin; whereas Acker’s property represents the Old Ethic, its alternatives represent the New Modus Operandi. These alternatives are twofold:

                                                         i.      From Acker’s perspective, the New Mode is represented by Kim’s offer to find housing elsewhere, reminiscent of a theme beginning with Mike’s recommendation that Jimmy find “parking elsewhere”.

                                                    ii.      From Kevin’s perspective, the New Mode is represented by the liquidation of Acker’s property, whereas the alternative to this rests in the use of the alternate lot.

                                               iii.      In both instances, idealistic Kim attempts to act as a mediator.

c.                        Kim will tire of legal life in Albuquerque. Friendless and jobless, she will return to her small-town Midwestern life.

7.          Saul will avenge himself against Rich, Howard, and Kevin.

a.                       No longer at liberty to call upon the services of Mike for his solo ventures, under strict surveillance from Fring, Saul will look for a new handyman to act as a fixer.

b.                      Saul will meet Kuby.

c.                        Combining forces with Hewell Babineaux, Saul will assemble his Dream Team.

d.                      The Dream Team, coupled with a final effort by the Film Crew, will pull a stunt too elaborate to predict. It will target, at once, Howard Hamlin, Rich Schweikart, and Kevin Wachtel, as well as their respective, respected enterprises.

e.                        Mesa Verde and Schweikart & Cokely will suffer substantial damages. Hamlin Hamlin McGill will finally go bankrupt. Goodman will celebrate the death of the name and legacy of McGill.

8.          Fring will finish the construction of his Underground Lab, representing the conclusion of the metamorphoses of the principal players.

9.          Gene will attempt to track down his “big fan”, only to discover that the man whom he is seeking is an undercover agent. Gene attempts to outrun law enforcement, but he slips and fails. So ends the illustrious Slipping Jimmy.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

LESSON: REJECT!ON.

One must always make a point to direct one’s rejections kindly, in accordance with that kindness which is intrinsic to being approached in the first place, a truly rare and often coveted honour. One must never give one’s fellows the mistaken impression that the approach itself was an offence, for without it one might never find companionship of that sort. A minor inconvenience of taste hardly amounts to social injustice.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

MMXXDEMZA:

[({Dm.A.A.)}]