Pulse Editor
Jacquelyn Lewis
jacquelynlewis@dailyemerald.com
Tuesday, December 3,2002
Oregon Daily Emerald
On Thursday
Sports editor Peter
Hockadayand Pulse
columnist Mason
West pull the old
switch-a-roo
Stamp out
impersonal
mail with
stationery
Nika Carlson
Living Columnist
The holidays are filled with easy ex
cess — high on quantity and low on
substance. We gorge ourselves on fat
filled foods, mall trinkets and empty
conversation. We inundate the post
with holiday greetings: Hallmark cards
with briefly scribbled hellos and pho
tos of Mom, Dad and kids in matching
festive sweatshirts.
While these cards are usually as
worthless as the superficial sentiments
behind them, they remind me of one of
the few Christmas thrills I wish lasted
all year round: receiving mail. The In
ternet initiated the slow death of the
hand-written letter. Bills and junk mail
now fill mailboxes. It is a rare occasion
when my mailbox is graced with a let
ter. As silly as it may seem, these infre
quent occasions are exciting.
In honor of the long-lost letter, two
friends and I began
a snail-mail corre
spondence last
year. Once room
mates and neigh
bors, we are now
scattered along the
West Coast. E-mail
proved unsausry
ing. Its intangibili
ty and ease pro
duced boring
updates when we D.I.Y. living
were used to the
intimate details of each other’s lives.
Letters, on the other hand, are treas
ured. They are touched, smelled, saved
and reread. That permanence elicits an
effort from the writer that most Inter
net communications lack. I love know
ing that someone took the time to write
me a letter when they could have spat
out an e-mail. A letter involves fore
thought and effort, and it has a person
al element that is nonexistent on a
sterile screen. Letters breed richness.
Good correspondence holds long, juicy
words and intimate details. E-mails ex
crete decapitated words like “u” in
stead of “you” and criminal mis
spellings like “boi” instead of “boy.”
As a writer, I value the technical
depth of a letter. As a sensory being, I
value the physical quality of hand-writ
ten mail. Letters carry more than
words. They bring a bit of the writer as
well. You can sense authors’ personali
ties in their handwriting, their choice
of stationery, their scratched-out mis
takes and the occasional smear of
breakfast that dropped onto the page.
I wanted my friends to have this
sense of me when they read my words.
Stationery in my price range, however,
failed to convey my personality. My so
lution was as always: Make it myself.
I dare not advise you to actually make
the paper yourself. I took the modem
Martha way out — I went to Kinko’s.
Step one was to find some interest
ing images. For my first attempt, I
clipped a few pictures out of an arty
magazine. While I do not recommend
you send stationary decorated with a
photo of a meat cleaver to Grandma, I
Turn to Living, page 6
Nika
Carlson
Game review
Aaron Shakra
Pulse Reporter
While the James Bond film series has
reached its 40th anniversary and cre
ator Ian Fleming’s novels have been
around even longer, the mingling of
James Bond and video games has
had a sparse history.
Research reveals long-forgotten
007 adventures from the 1990s
—such as “The Stealth Affair”
for the disk operating system
(DOS) and “The Duel,” for Sega
Genesis — but it wasn’t until
1997, when the Rare-developed
“GoldenEye 007,” was released for the Nin
tendo 64 console, that things started heat
ing up for the Bond license.
“GoldenEye” worked in so many ways.
Here was a game that was so good, it set
benchmarks not only for the world of Bond,
but for the first-person shooter genre as a
whole. Not to mention that it was based on
a movie license (the 1995 Pierce Brosnan
film of the same name), which has the ten
dency to result in some of the most atro
cious titles in the history of gaming (“Brave
heart” the game, anyone?).
“GoldenEye” became immensely success
ful and left other game developers scrambling
to capitalize on its success. Yet, while the oth
er Bond releases — spin-offs of the subse
quent “Tomorrow Never Dies” and “The
World Is Not Enough” films — were more
technologically advanced (in terms of both
visuals and game play), they have been un
able to match the “GoldenEye” quality level.
This is quite a statement, considering the
game is now more than five years old — in
video game time, a near eternity.
“James Bond 007: NightFire,” from EA
Games, is the most recent title. It was obvi
ously released to coincide with the media
flurry surrounding “Die Another Day,” the
latest Bond big screen adventure (which, in
its third week of release, looks to become the
highest grossing film in the series). However,
it sets itself apart because it isn’t based on the
film — it’s a standalone adventure.
It’s the second in a series, actually. “Night
Fire” is a follow-up to EA’s “007: Agent Under
Fire,” an altogether acceptable first-person
shooter that extended to driving cars and
performing Bond-ian stunts.
Whereas “Agent Under Fire” often seems
like it was created simply as an exercise in
the use of modem graphics technology,
“NightFire” improves by taking everything
that was good from the first game —using the
same characters to create continuity and the
same (albeit upgraded) graphics engine —
and improves upon it. Even Pierce Brosnan’s
likeness has been added to the character this
time around (in “Agent Under Fire,” Bond
was merely a generic face).
The result is a game that is more finely
tuned and intuitive than its predecessor. In
other words, it’s downright fun to play. But
does “NightFire” top “GoldenEye?” Only
time — that is, more hours staring at the
television screen with a video game
Turn to Bond, page 7
‘Journals’allows inside view of Cobain’s life
Book review
Helen Schumacher
Pulse Reporter
With its glossy, red cover, “Journals” is a col
lection of excerpts from Kurt Cobain’s diaries that
makes for an attractive coffee table read. Al
though it seems sad that Cobain’s personal
thoughts were published just in time for the holi
day shopping season, “Journals” does provide an
interesting glimpse into the mind of the North
west’s most notable rock star, as long as you can
get past the gimmicky-ness of the publication.
Most of the material in the book is about Nir
vana and Cobain’s love of music, such as his
retelling of seeing the band Air Supply perform
in the parking lot behind a Thriftway.
“They played faster than I had ever imagined
music could be played and with more energy
then my Iron Maiden records could provide,
this is what I was looking for. Ah, punk rock,”
Cobain wrote, describing his musical baptism.
“I came to the promise(d) land of a grocery
store. I found my special purpose.”
The story continues, describing how Cobain
gave himself a mullet.
“The next day I spiked the upper part of my
head but couldn’t quite part with my stoner
roots and the long hair in back, thus developing
the first bi-level haircut in Montesano history,”
he wrote. “I walked around for a week looking
like Rod Stewart.”
The lyrics to early Nirvana .songs'-are.
V.i . ,< -A l .Cij i i *vi.,r.W. ? 3 I S.*«
scrawled on spiral notebook paper: “Downer,”
“Paper Guts” and “Aneurysm.” Gobain also in
cluded music video treatment ideas for “Gome
as You Are” and “Heart-Shaped Box” and
sketches of possible album covers and T-shirts.
There are several letters to friends and oth
er musicians, starting with a note to Dale
Grover, drummer for the Melvins, a band
Gobain had an affinity for. In it, he discusses
Nirvana’s first recognition by Seattle record
label Sub Pop Records. Also included are let
ters Cobain wrote to members of Bikini Kill
and Screaming Trees, his father, high school
friends and former bandmates.
Seeing all these brings Gobain back to earth.
Despite the persona built around him by the
media, Cobain comes across as someone who is
passionate about music and his band — not
fame and fortune.
Part of what makes “Journals” worthwhile
are the drawings, observations and other ran
dom artifacts that have been preserved to the
page — a study guide for a driver’s test, a list of
songs for a mix tape and guitar illustrations.
There are also quotes that reassure fans Gobain
was planning to take corporate music down
from the inside.
“I like to infiltrate the mechanics of a system
by posing as one of them, then slowly start the
rot from the inside of the empire,” he wrote,
adding, “I like the comfort in knowing that
women are the only future in rock and roll.”
The book also shows Gobain’s darker side. He
writes about trying to kill himself shortly after
dropping out of high school, by lying on train
tracks — and about his addiction to heroin.
Reading another person’s diary has always
held a certain temptation because it offers the
possibility of getting an intimate peek into the
inner world of the writer. “Journals” is no dif
ferent, except that the reader is getting an inti
mate peek at Kurt Gobain. However, it’s no sub
stitute for the music itself.
Contact the Pulse reporter
athelenschumachen@dailyemerald.com