I knew the school year started August 25th only because I had Googled it. I began coming into work full-time a week beforehand. That's when I learned that I was supposed to have already hired my course assistants for the term.
The CS department at CMU pays undergraduates to work as course assistants (CAs) for the intro CS classes. And like everything else here, it's entirely up to the professor to decide what to do with them. You can hire any number of them. The only rules are that they shalt not introduce new material and collectively they shalt not work more than 60 hours per week (since I'm teaching 3 sections). And where does one get CAs from? Some sort of CA tree? Nope. From the students you taught last term. Which is when you were supposed to have asked them to CA for you. Thankfully, after a desperate email to the group of strangers I'd be working with, one future colleague saved me by sending a couple of CAs my way, and others referred a couple of students looking for last minute positions to me, and I had hired my first four employees. So far they don't look very happy to be working for the new and confused guy. I don't think they know what do make of me. Am I young and inexperienced, or just the classic absent-minded professor?
Since it's my first semester here, I was encouraged to work with one of the three other instructors teaching CS2 this term. The one I chose to work with has proven to be a great pick. He's made a lot of time to show me the ropes and share his materials with me. I'm determined to make my sections match his for as far into the term as I can. This is the first time I'm teaching with someone else's materials, and it's very much against my nature. But I have no sense for CMU culture and expectations about workload and grades and what exactly CAs do, etc. I didn't want to do things my way until I understood the CMU way. Plus, the four of us teaching CS2 have to give a common final, and the contents of that final are very poorly documented. I was afraid that if I charted my own course, I might lead my students astray in their preparation for the final.
So, I'm not preparing my own materials, and I'm lecturing just 7.5 hours a week. What AM I doing? I'm making arrangements with my CAs and managing my rosters.
The roster thing is inane. Lots of CMU students each term don't get into the courses they register for. Each section has a wait list, and each student can be on only one wait list. So the students have to pick which of the 11 CS2 wait lists to sign up for. Then it's up to the instructor to notice when a space opens up in a section, and to move a student in from the wait list. And the instructor can choose any student he likes from the wait list, and can even take a student who isn't on any list. Part of the problem is that every now and then a student who successfully gets into one section will need to switch into another because of some unforeseen scheduling conflict. But you can't be on a wait list for CS2 if you're already enrolled in another section. Even worse, if the section is limited to 25 students, the instructor is still allowed to take on additional students and let them sit on the floor. And the students know this, so they come in and beg with their puppy-dog eyes, making the prof out to be the bad guy if he tries to stick to the 25-student limit. And then there's the game you can play where you take on more than 25 students, betting that one or two will drop by the time you need to administer an exam on the 25 computers in the classroom. The instructor has to deal with all this roster stuff, and to make matters worse, the roster also changes on its own as other CMU employees add/remove students from sections. All of this makes a lot of work for the professor that could have been handled better in software.
Feeling overwhelmed by all this and very alone at CMU, it was a really nice treat when a few of my former high school students began appearing on campus and dropping by my office.
And so I began teaching. One of the hardest things to get used to has been not having my own classroom. Before every class I have to pack a backpack of all the materials I think I might need: the roster, handouts, various kinds of paper and markers, my laptop with appropriate cables, etc. I teach in 4 identical classrooms, separated from each other by movable partitions. These do little to block the sound of the lecturer projecting his voice on the other side of the partition, literally just two feet away from me. When I arrive at the room, I wait outside with my students until the previous class ends. There are no bells, so the timing of this changing-of-the-prof is a bit unpredictable. When I enter the room, I often have to close the giant partition. And of course I have to plug in my laptop and battle with the projector, toggling its input setting and my laptop display settings, disconnecting and reconnecting the cable, and sometimes rebooting, before my desktop appears on the big screen. Then it's time to figure out which students showed up. Because if someone on the roster isn't showing up, that might mean an opening for one of those students begging to get in. And I have to know which students showed up who aren't on the roster, so I know who to let in if an opening does arise. At the end of lecture I'll need to pack all my stuff up again and talk with lingering students as I scramble to make room for the next class.
Well, I'm a week in now, and I can't say I'm having much fun yet. Part of that comes from being at a new place and learning the ropes. And I think part of that comes from using someone else's stuff, instead of teaching my own way. The way the course is structured so far really doesn't feel like me, and I'm finding that some of the ways I used to interact with the students at the beginning of the school year don't seem to work in this format. I'm really looking forward to starting over my way next semester. I'm supposed to find out what I'll be teaching some time in the next few weeks. But being the new guy, I've got last choice, and I'm sure my teaching assignments will keep getting shuffled around for a while.
One thing I was looking forward to about teaching college is the informality of it. But as much as I've insisted on being called "Dave," my students are still throwing a lot of icky titles at me, like "Professor" and "Sir."
One of the toughest things about teaching here is the freedom to not teach. In high school, you have to see the students an enormous number of hours each week, grade their work, etc. But here, I can choose to lump all my students together in one room, conduct two 80-minute lectures each week, have my course assistants hold office hours and do all the grading, and ultimately not really be teaching at all. And it's going to be really hard to resist those sort of temptations. But at the other extreme, if I run all my own recitations then I won't be giving my course assistants opportunities to teach, and if I try to be available to help them in the lab evenings and weekends, then I won't get to enjoy spending time with Virg. Lots to figure out for next term...
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Carlos Times
Friday, August 8
Carlos (renowned coin flipper, and editor of The Carlos Times) arrived in the evening. The three of us got dinner at the Murray Ave Grill and then filled Carlos with ice cream at Bruster's, which turned out to be a great find.
Carlos made good on his threat to bring Virg some NY memorabilia.
Mr. Moustache closes his eyes and muses that Carlos is simultaneously
half alive and half made of Coke.
Saturday, August 9
A day of ill. Virg made sure Carlos had the full midwestern experience by stuffing him with Bob Evan's breakfast food in West Mifflin. Then we drove up the Mt Washington lookout to stand above the Pittsburgh skyline, and headed home. Afterward, Carlos and I went for a long walk around our neighborhood, CMU and Shadyside, making sure to stop for the obligatory Coke to keep Carlos running at peak efficiency. Then we all attempted to finish off an extra large pizza at Aiello's and found room for dessert at Aladdin's. We also taught Carlos to play Big Two, which he insisted on playing for the rest of his visit.
Sunday, August 10
Began the day with coffee and muffins at the nearby 61C Cafe. Then Virg took us to the Andy Warhol museum. We had heard from people here that it's so much more than a museum, that there's so much to do there. Wrong. It was your standard art museum. If you're willing to stretch the meaning of the word "art" to include the works we saw there.
Carlos was deeply moved by this painting.
We then introduced Carlos and ourselves to another essential Pittsburgh experience--hot dogs at The Original Hot Dog Shop near Pitt. Supposed to be the most incredible hot dogs. Wrong. They were hot dogs. Nothing original about them. And the place was hot and dirty.
Greasy french fries. How original.
Having filled him with hot dogs, pancakes, coke, and ice cream, we sent Carlos on his merry way back to the futures that awaited him in NY.
In the evening we ate healthier at Rock Bottom and then watched Shaun Of The Dead on DVD. It was entertaining, but no Hot Fuzz.
Carlos (renowned coin flipper, and editor of The Carlos Times) arrived in the evening. The three of us got dinner at the Murray Ave Grill and then filled Carlos with ice cream at Bruster's, which turned out to be a great find.
Carlos made good on his threat to bring Virg some NY memorabilia.
Mr. Moustache closes his eyes and muses that Carlos is simultaneously
half alive and half made of Coke.
Saturday, August 9
A day of ill. Virg made sure Carlos had the full midwestern experience by stuffing him with Bob Evan's breakfast food in West Mifflin. Then we drove up the Mt Washington lookout to stand above the Pittsburgh skyline, and headed home. Afterward, Carlos and I went for a long walk around our neighborhood, CMU and Shadyside, making sure to stop for the obligatory Coke to keep Carlos running at peak efficiency. Then we all attempted to finish off an extra large pizza at Aiello's and found room for dessert at Aladdin's. We also taught Carlos to play Big Two, which he insisted on playing for the rest of his visit.
Sunday, August 10
Began the day with coffee and muffins at the nearby 61C Cafe. Then Virg took us to the Andy Warhol museum. We had heard from people here that it's so much more than a museum, that there's so much to do there. Wrong. It was your standard art museum. If you're willing to stretch the meaning of the word "art" to include the works we saw there.
Carlos was deeply moved by this painting.
We then introduced Carlos and ourselves to another essential Pittsburgh experience--hot dogs at The Original Hot Dog Shop near Pitt. Supposed to be the most incredible hot dogs. Wrong. They were hot dogs. Nothing original about them. And the place was hot and dirty.
Greasy french fries. How original.
Having filled him with hot dogs, pancakes, coke, and ice cream, we sent Carlos on his merry way back to the futures that awaited him in NY.
In the evening we ate healthier at Rock Bottom and then watched Shaun Of The Dead on DVD. It was entertaining, but no Hot Fuzz.
Making Friends
Monday, August 4
Ravi's stay with us ended. Virg and I tried India Garden in Oakland, supposedly the best Indian food in the city. The food was pretty good, though not amazing, and the waiters were impressively unpleasant. Watched the Bourne Ultimatum on DVD in the evening. It was entertaining, but I think if you never saw a Bourne movie, you wouldn't be missing out.
Tuesday, August 5
On their way back from DC, Virg's parents stopped by for lunch with us at Aladdin's.
Wednesday, August 6
Tried Lucca's pizza for lunch. It was a much nicer place to eat than the many other pizza places near us, but the food wasn't nearly as good.
Many of our friends have tried to fix us up with their friends in Pittsburgh. We've now met a couple "friends of friends" here. It's pretty much like going on a blind date, where at first you're not sure who in the restaurant you're supposed to be meeting with, and in the end you're wondering how long you should wait to call them again. The asymmetry is that we need friends and they don't.
We met some friends-of-friends for dinner at Ka Mei--a chinese restaurant so close we can almost see it from our home. Had a nice time there, and the food was ok.
Thursday, August 7
We ate a delicious but microscopic lunch at the Tango Cafe. Then I had dinner with a high school student of mine at the Union Grill.
Friday, August 8
Another friend-of-friend meeting. We met a tech writer for lunch at Tamarind, not far from CMU. The Indian buffet there was delicious, and we had a good time chatting with her. Then Carlos arrived in the evening.
Ravi's stay with us ended. Virg and I tried India Garden in Oakland, supposedly the best Indian food in the city. The food was pretty good, though not amazing, and the waiters were impressively unpleasant. Watched the Bourne Ultimatum on DVD in the evening. It was entertaining, but I think if you never saw a Bourne movie, you wouldn't be missing out.
Tuesday, August 5
On their way back from DC, Virg's parents stopped by for lunch with us at Aladdin's.
Wednesday, August 6
Tried Lucca's pizza for lunch. It was a much nicer place to eat than the many other pizza places near us, but the food wasn't nearly as good.
Many of our friends have tried to fix us up with their friends in Pittsburgh. We've now met a couple "friends of friends" here. It's pretty much like going on a blind date, where at first you're not sure who in the restaurant you're supposed to be meeting with, and in the end you're wondering how long you should wait to call them again. The asymmetry is that we need friends and they don't.
We met some friends-of-friends for dinner at Ka Mei--a chinese restaurant so close we can almost see it from our home. Had a nice time there, and the food was ok.
Thursday, August 7
We ate a delicious but microscopic lunch at the Tango Cafe. Then I had dinner with a high school student of mine at the Union Grill.
Friday, August 8
Another friend-of-friend meeting. We met a tech writer for lunch at Tamarind, not far from CMU. The Indian buffet there was delicious, and we had a good time chatting with her. Then Carlos arrived in the evening.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Teaching Teachers
Realizing I needed something to do during the summer, and opportunities to meet people, I offered to help out at CMU's summer workshop for AP Computer Science teachers. I was immediately roped into leading some of the sessions.
The best thing that came from it was that I got to practice using a Mac and teaching in the same classroom I'd be using in the fall. The classroom has 25 Macs in it with huge screens separating the teacher from the students, which is great for a lab, but terrible for a lecture or class discussion. And with so many computers in such a small room, there's no space to squeeze behind the students to see what they're working on and help them. But the lamest thing about the classroom is the whiteboard. There's just one small board, and it's hanging in an unlit part of the room. There's a mark on the middle of the board, to remind the teacher that only half of the board is actually visible to all the students.
a look at one of our lovely classrooms
Finally, there's a ceiling-mounted LCD projector, aimed at a big screen which, on the press of a button, inches its way down from the ceiling--blocking the whiteboard. So, you can't project onto the whiteboard and draw on your projection. You can't leave something visible on the whiteboard while you're projecting. And you can't even alternate between using the projector and the whiteboard, because it takes a minute to raise or lower the screen. The only reasonable solution, therefore, is to give up on the whiteboard entirely, and stick to the projector. There is also a device that projects from a piece of paper onto the screen. But it still takes several seconds to toggle between that and the LCD projector, and of course you can't see both at once. Ah, where have you gone, sweet high school classroom, with your luscious wall-to-wall whiteboards?
The frustrating thing about doing a workshop like this is the huge range in the abilities of the teachers taking the workshop, from expert CS background but no teaching experience, to having survived years of teaching AP without knowing how to declare a variable--and everythig in between. So anything you teach is likely to bore half the group and completely run over the other half.
The format of the workshop is that we session leaders talk at the class and dispense our varied opinions from morning to dinner every day, and in the evening the teachers are given time to work on the many exercises and projects we touched on. In reality, the teachers are understandably exhausted by the end of the day, so not much happens in the lab. Maybe a better format would have been to alternate between instruction and lab time.
Monday, July 28
First day. I introduced very simple objects and classes with a roleplay, and then asked the teachers to write the code for the objects they had acted out. Most people seemed bored with the roleplay, and then hopelessly lost with the code. I ran out of time before making much progress. That's ok, because the teachers are supposed to do most of their code-writing during the lab time after dinner. But I only ever saw one teacher come back to work on my exercises.
me (in the blue hat), asking one of my roleplay participants to "flip"
Tuesday, July 29
I presented my string lab, but never even got to the point in the lab where we start using strings. Only one teacher continued working on the lab later.
Next, I presented searching and sorting. People seemed to love it, but I didn't get to demo my lab, and no one ever worked on it afterward.
searching for some sun in Pittsburgh,
and having a logarithmic time
At the last minute, I got a chance to teach heaps and priority queues to the 8 AB teachers, who self-selected to be a little more advanced than most of the group. This was a lot of fun, because this group was truly ready to understand the material I was presenting. I would love to have worked with them more, but didn't get the opportunity.
Wednesday, July 30
I presented my much-abridged Tetris lab, walking the whole group through the first few exercises in my 90 minute session. By this point in the workshop, I had come to realize just how advanced this would be for many of the teachers. So, I encouraged people who knew what they were doing to go ahead, and I gave lots of time for everyone else to work on the first couple exercises, as I hovered around the room helping and finally revealing the answer so that everyone could move on. Most teachers never got to see a tetris block move, but I think this was much more successful than my other sessions, and I did see several teachers continue completing the lab later that day.
CMU Campus Map
(My building is the big concrete block.)
Date night. I walked back to Squirrel Hill to meet Virg for dinner. We tried a Middle Eastern place called Aladdin's, and it was awesome. Probably our biggest dining success yet here. Delicious salads with cool homemade dressings, and yummy marinated meats.
Thursday, July 31
There's a cafeteria in the building next to mine, but everyone kept dismissing it and urging that we go out to Craig St for the great food at Lulu's. So when I finally got to try the cafeteria, I was pleasantly surprised to discover they serve Lulu's food there, too. I can already tell I'll be eating this yummy stuff every day.
I presented for only 10 minutes. In that time, I finally demo'd my sorting visualization. I think people thought I was cool for having made it, but no one seemed to like it much. I also talked up my grid display framework for making arcade games and such, but having not had time to actually show how to write code with it, there wasn't much interest. But I did demo how to teach iterators with plastic eyeball finger puppets, and people loved it. Go figure.
lending a hand to comp sci teachers in need
Friday, August 1
For a little while, there were no other session leaders in the room, so I got to share my cynical views on the AP exam with the group. (Don't tell!) Also, had the teachers do a free-response question.
After checking out the Phipps Conservatory in the evening (where Virg joined us), the teachers played a wild game of Cancellation Hearts in the lab. It's like ordinary Hearts, only you use two decks of cards and have lots of people playing (we had 11), and when two of the same card are played in a trick, they cancel each other out, so neither can win the trick. It's actually a very interesting game, and a lot of fun. And unlike my previous experience with it at the AP Reading, I actually did pretty well this time.
The workshop ended the next morning, and Ravi arrived shortly afterward, which Virg has already blogged about.
The best thing that came from it was that I got to practice using a Mac and teaching in the same classroom I'd be using in the fall. The classroom has 25 Macs in it with huge screens separating the teacher from the students, which is great for a lab, but terrible for a lecture or class discussion. And with so many computers in such a small room, there's no space to squeeze behind the students to see what they're working on and help them. But the lamest thing about the classroom is the whiteboard. There's just one small board, and it's hanging in an unlit part of the room. There's a mark on the middle of the board, to remind the teacher that only half of the board is actually visible to all the students.
a look at one of our lovely classrooms
Finally, there's a ceiling-mounted LCD projector, aimed at a big screen which, on the press of a button, inches its way down from the ceiling--blocking the whiteboard. So, you can't project onto the whiteboard and draw on your projection. You can't leave something visible on the whiteboard while you're projecting. And you can't even alternate between using the projector and the whiteboard, because it takes a minute to raise or lower the screen. The only reasonable solution, therefore, is to give up on the whiteboard entirely, and stick to the projector. There is also a device that projects from a piece of paper onto the screen. But it still takes several seconds to toggle between that and the LCD projector, and of course you can't see both at once. Ah, where have you gone, sweet high school classroom, with your luscious wall-to-wall whiteboards?
The frustrating thing about doing a workshop like this is the huge range in the abilities of the teachers taking the workshop, from expert CS background but no teaching experience, to having survived years of teaching AP without knowing how to declare a variable--and everythig in between. So anything you teach is likely to bore half the group and completely run over the other half.
The format of the workshop is that we session leaders talk at the class and dispense our varied opinions from morning to dinner every day, and in the evening the teachers are given time to work on the many exercises and projects we touched on. In reality, the teachers are understandably exhausted by the end of the day, so not much happens in the lab. Maybe a better format would have been to alternate between instruction and lab time.
Monday, July 28
First day. I introduced very simple objects and classes with a roleplay, and then asked the teachers to write the code for the objects they had acted out. Most people seemed bored with the roleplay, and then hopelessly lost with the code. I ran out of time before making much progress. That's ok, because the teachers are supposed to do most of their code-writing during the lab time after dinner. But I only ever saw one teacher come back to work on my exercises.
me (in the blue hat), asking one of my roleplay participants to "flip"
Tuesday, July 29
I presented my string lab, but never even got to the point in the lab where we start using strings. Only one teacher continued working on the lab later.
Next, I presented searching and sorting. People seemed to love it, but I didn't get to demo my lab, and no one ever worked on it afterward.
searching for some sun in Pittsburgh,
and having a logarithmic time
At the last minute, I got a chance to teach heaps and priority queues to the 8 AB teachers, who self-selected to be a little more advanced than most of the group. This was a lot of fun, because this group was truly ready to understand the material I was presenting. I would love to have worked with them more, but didn't get the opportunity.
Wednesday, July 30
I presented my much-abridged Tetris lab, walking the whole group through the first few exercises in my 90 minute session. By this point in the workshop, I had come to realize just how advanced this would be for many of the teachers. So, I encouraged people who knew what they were doing to go ahead, and I gave lots of time for everyone else to work on the first couple exercises, as I hovered around the room helping and finally revealing the answer so that everyone could move on. Most teachers never got to see a tetris block move, but I think this was much more successful than my other sessions, and I did see several teachers continue completing the lab later that day.
CMU Campus Map
(My building is the big concrete block.)
Date night. I walked back to Squirrel Hill to meet Virg for dinner. We tried a Middle Eastern place called Aladdin's, and it was awesome. Probably our biggest dining success yet here. Delicious salads with cool homemade dressings, and yummy marinated meats.
Thursday, July 31
There's a cafeteria in the building next to mine, but everyone kept dismissing it and urging that we go out to Craig St for the great food at Lulu's. So when I finally got to try the cafeteria, I was pleasantly surprised to discover they serve Lulu's food there, too. I can already tell I'll be eating this yummy stuff every day.
I presented for only 10 minutes. In that time, I finally demo'd my sorting visualization. I think people thought I was cool for having made it, but no one seemed to like it much. I also talked up my grid display framework for making arcade games and such, but having not had time to actually show how to write code with it, there wasn't much interest. But I did demo how to teach iterators with plastic eyeball finger puppets, and people loved it. Go figure.
lending a hand to comp sci teachers in need
Friday, August 1
For a little while, there were no other session leaders in the room, so I got to share my cynical views on the AP exam with the group. (Don't tell!) Also, had the teachers do a free-response question.
After checking out the Phipps Conservatory in the evening (where Virg joined us), the teachers played a wild game of Cancellation Hearts in the lab. It's like ordinary Hearts, only you use two decks of cards and have lots of people playing (we had 11), and when two of the same card are played in a trick, they cancel each other out, so neither can win the trick. It's actually a very interesting game, and a lot of fun. And unlike my previous experience with it at the AP Reading, I actually did pretty well this time.
The workshop ended the next morning, and Ravi arrived shortly afterward, which Virg has already blogged about.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Celebrating 2 Years and 2 Computer Platforms
Monday, July 21
When my dad, Hilary, and I walked around Shadyside a few weeks ago, Virg felt sure we'd return with the Chococat lamp she desperately needed from the Hello Kitty store there. We didn't, so it was inevitable that we'd have to go back to Shadyside for her silly lamp, and we used this trip as an excuse to try out lunch at Cappy's, which turned out to have delicious subs and salads.
a lovely tech writer finds illumination
When I checked my email in the evening, I learned that I had finally been assigned an "Andrew ID." Not sure what an Andrew ID is, but apparently it's a prerequisite for doing just about anything at CMU, so having one now is very very good.
Tuesday, July 22
I got a key to my new office, which is pretty dumpy--a windowless little room with broken furniture, broken lights, and broken ceiling tiles. And it's an ergonomic nightmare--a problem I really have to remedy soon.
Wednesday, July 23
I gave in to the power of the dark side--and got a Mac. But I swear I didn't want one. CMU intro CS classes are taught in rooms full of Macs, and I needed to make sure I could handle them. So I stretched my computer budget to include both a desktop PC for my office and a MacBook to use in class. And so it happened that, as a young hotshot computer science professor, I found myself glancing uncomfortably at my new Mac and asking the CS department's computing services manager, "Um, how do I turn it on?"--among other insightful questions. Turns out: the power button.
Then I remembered I'd need a VGA adapter cable in order to connect the Mac to a projector, so I got an insider's look at the long chain of bureaucracy required to spend $17 at CMU's bookstore. A few administrators, forms, and 30-digit account codes later, the computing services guy and I reached the end of the red tape at the bookstore, where they put our newly purchased cable in a bookstore plastic bag. When we attempted to decline the bag, we were told that the store's crazy rules required them to give us the bag even if we didn't want it, but that we could return the bag to a different cashier on the way out of the store. We did, and the employee there sighed, "I don't know why those guys at the computer counter insist on giving everyone bags." Ah, CMU... How many little slips of paper and plastic bags must we exchange just to move a 4-inch cable from one building to another?
By the way, the Mac has proven to be a little quirky, but I'm really liking it.
Dave embraces thinking different.
In the evening, Virg and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary by using a gift certificate at a Thai place in Shadyside called Thai Place, that claims to be one of the top ten Thai places in the country. We think not, but we did enjoy it very much. Then we had a nice walk around Shadyside, and ended the evening by wolfing down some Great Wall Of Chocolate cake in a big pool of delicious raspberry puree at P. F. Chang's at the Waterfront. It was the closest thing we could find to our wedding cake on short notice. We had a really nice evening together.
P. F. Chang's Great Wall Of Chocolate
[as stolen from someone's Internet photo album]
Thursday, July 24
Tried out lunch at Uncle Sam's Gourmet Subs at Forbes and Murray. Turns out they really only have many varieties of a single sub, and it was hardly gourmet. But it was a delicious cheesesteak that I'm looking forward to having again!
Friday, July 25
Back to CMU to get an ID card, so that I can get into the buildings on the weekend. Next month I get a new one which doubles as a bus pass, which, like so many things at CMU, I can't get until the official start date printed in my offer letter: September 1st. Which is stupid, because I start teaching classes in August, and need most of those things before then.
In the evening, Virg's parents came to visit, but of course you know that, because you've already read her blog entry about it.
Saturday, July 26
A month ago, when I learned that one of my new favorite bands, Lights Out Asia, would be releasing their third CD, I set an alarm on my Yahoo calendar so I could buy it the day it was released. So, when my package from the band's record label arrived, I tore it open excitedly, only to find they had shipped the wrong CD. I emailed the record label, and they didn't express any interest in having me send back the CD they'd sent me accidentally. And when the correct CD finally arrived a week later, they accidentally included yet another random CD with it. Not a good business model, but the music is excellent.
Of all the albums not about men dressed as bats,
this one is currently my favorite.
Virg and I spent the night at Pittsburgh's 4.5-star Omni William Penn hotel as part of our anniversary celebration. We had a great time there, even without our Lights Out Asia CD. The hotel treated us like royalty, and the room was really nice--a suite with great views of downtown. We enjoyed some room service for lunch. Then we discovered our room rate included free dinner at the Terrace Room downstairs, which turned out to be quite good.
in the hotel lobby, after dinner
We enjoyed free Sunday brunch there the next morning, and then walked around downtown for a bit before reluctantly heading back to real life at home, where an AP Workshop awaited...
Virg poses by a fountain in front of the hotel where we stayed
When my dad, Hilary, and I walked around Shadyside a few weeks ago, Virg felt sure we'd return with the Chococat lamp she desperately needed from the Hello Kitty store there. We didn't, so it was inevitable that we'd have to go back to Shadyside for her silly lamp, and we used this trip as an excuse to try out lunch at Cappy's, which turned out to have delicious subs and salads.
a lovely tech writer finds illumination
When I checked my email in the evening, I learned that I had finally been assigned an "Andrew ID." Not sure what an Andrew ID is, but apparently it's a prerequisite for doing just about anything at CMU, so having one now is very very good.
Tuesday, July 22
I got a key to my new office, which is pretty dumpy--a windowless little room with broken furniture, broken lights, and broken ceiling tiles. And it's an ergonomic nightmare--a problem I really have to remedy soon.
Wednesday, July 23
I gave in to the power of the dark side--and got a Mac. But I swear I didn't want one. CMU intro CS classes are taught in rooms full of Macs, and I needed to make sure I could handle them. So I stretched my computer budget to include both a desktop PC for my office and a MacBook to use in class. And so it happened that, as a young hotshot computer science professor, I found myself glancing uncomfortably at my new Mac and asking the CS department's computing services manager, "Um, how do I turn it on?"--among other insightful questions. Turns out: the power button.
Then I remembered I'd need a VGA adapter cable in order to connect the Mac to a projector, so I got an insider's look at the long chain of bureaucracy required to spend $17 at CMU's bookstore. A few administrators, forms, and 30-digit account codes later, the computing services guy and I reached the end of the red tape at the bookstore, where they put our newly purchased cable in a bookstore plastic bag. When we attempted to decline the bag, we were told that the store's crazy rules required them to give us the bag even if we didn't want it, but that we could return the bag to a different cashier on the way out of the store. We did, and the employee there sighed, "I don't know why those guys at the computer counter insist on giving everyone bags." Ah, CMU... How many little slips of paper and plastic bags must we exchange just to move a 4-inch cable from one building to another?
By the way, the Mac has proven to be a little quirky, but I'm really liking it.
Dave embraces thinking different.
In the evening, Virg and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary by using a gift certificate at a Thai place in Shadyside called Thai Place, that claims to be one of the top ten Thai places in the country. We think not, but we did enjoy it very much. Then we had a nice walk around Shadyside, and ended the evening by wolfing down some Great Wall Of Chocolate cake in a big pool of delicious raspberry puree at P. F. Chang's at the Waterfront. It was the closest thing we could find to our wedding cake on short notice. We had a really nice evening together.
P. F. Chang's Great Wall Of Chocolate
[as stolen from someone's Internet photo album]
Thursday, July 24
Tried out lunch at Uncle Sam's Gourmet Subs at Forbes and Murray. Turns out they really only have many varieties of a single sub, and it was hardly gourmet. But it was a delicious cheesesteak that I'm looking forward to having again!
Friday, July 25
Back to CMU to get an ID card, so that I can get into the buildings on the weekend. Next month I get a new one which doubles as a bus pass, which, like so many things at CMU, I can't get until the official start date printed in my offer letter: September 1st. Which is stupid, because I start teaching classes in August, and need most of those things before then.
In the evening, Virg's parents came to visit, but of course you know that, because you've already read her blog entry about it.
Saturday, July 26
A month ago, when I learned that one of my new favorite bands, Lights Out Asia, would be releasing their third CD, I set an alarm on my Yahoo calendar so I could buy it the day it was released. So, when my package from the band's record label arrived, I tore it open excitedly, only to find they had shipped the wrong CD. I emailed the record label, and they didn't express any interest in having me send back the CD they'd sent me accidentally. And when the correct CD finally arrived a week later, they accidentally included yet another random CD with it. Not a good business model, but the music is excellent.
Of all the albums not about men dressed as bats,
this one is currently my favorite.
Virg and I spent the night at Pittsburgh's 4.5-star Omni William Penn hotel as part of our anniversary celebration. We had a great time there, even without our Lights Out Asia CD. The hotel treated us like royalty, and the room was really nice--a suite with great views of downtown. We enjoyed some room service for lunch. Then we discovered our room rate included free dinner at the Terrace Room downstairs, which turned out to be quite good.
in the hotel lobby, after dinner
We enjoyed free Sunday brunch there the next morning, and then walked around downtown for a bit before reluctantly heading back to real life at home, where an AP Workshop awaited...
Virg poses by a fountain in front of the hotel where we stayed
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Enduring The Dark Knight
This blog has clearly become unstuck in time, because Virg is blogging about stuff from a couple days ago, while I'm still 3 weeks behind...
[Imagine some squiggly effects here and harp-playing to signify our journey back in time.]
Wednesday, July 16
Ate dinner at a Thai place in Shadyside called Typhoon, which featured mediocre food at monster prices. We could only afford a few appetizers before going home hungry.
Thursday, July 17
Filed my I-9 with CMU, so now I am "in the system." [The word "system" should echo for a bit.]
Friday, July 18
Not knowing anyone in Pittsburgh, we made our first effort to meet "friends of friends" by getting together with another work-from-home Oracle tech writer and his wife at the Double-Wide Grill in the South Side. We had a pretty good time with them, and the food was good, too. At one point we were talking about the Dark Knight movie we'd be seeing the next morning, and they said their 10-year-old was begging to see it. Having read a little about it, I warned that it didn't seem like a good movie for kids...
Saturday, July 19
Caught a 10am showing of the Dark Knight, and Virg and I left the theater feeling we had been beaten down for 2.5 hours. The movie gave Virg a headache (like its predecessor), and cast a dark shadow over the rest of our weekend. Contributing to this feeling were the movie's two strongest elements: Heath Ledger and the movie score.
I'll begin this post as a standard non-revealing movie review. Then I'll warn you when I'm about to spoil the movie by picking apart the ending and its message.
Ledger's portrayal of the Joker was creepy and horrific to watch. He was an unpredictable psychopath. And what made him so scary was that there was nothing cartoonish about the performance. He made you believe that this was truly a real human being with an extremely twisted mind. I agree with many who feel that Ledger's Oscar-worthy performance has earned his Joker a place among cinema's greatest villains. Don't send your 10-year-old to see him. How this movie pulled off a PG-13 rating is beyond me.
The movie score was dark and unrelenting, and where necessary, supported the Joker with musical elements of an equally perverse and unpredictably violent nature. But for the most part, the score is Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's bigger, darker, and more tragic take on the beautiful work they began in Batman Begins. Their romantic and pounding music has been looping in my head for the past few weeks now, and I can't get enough of it.
There's no debate about Ledger or the music. The rest of the movie has been harder to wrap my mind around. My first impression was that it wasn't as rich as Batman Begins, and was far more chaotic. The movie tries to follow a lot of characters. Often it seems pretty rushed and muddled. And there was a lot of stuff that seemed pretty stupid in the last 45 minutes--particularly the ferry predicament and the rapid and pointless decline of Two-Face. And I didn't find the ending very satisfying.
Harvey Dent learns of the bat signal.
[stolen from thedarkknight.warnerbros.com]
But here's the thing. The Dark Knight is now listed on IMDB as the #1 movie of all time. And the movie really sticks with you. So, is it a smart summer action movie, or is it a sometimes flawed attempt at something much bigger? It took several days of searching the Internet to find an intelligent discussion of the movie, but I found it in a comment posted on The Washington Independent from user drvictordavishj. His look at the movie elevates the Dark Knight to something much smarter and even politically relevant. He begins by writing, "... I would argue that the film is not necessarily all that pro-Batman."
And suddenly all the things that Batman does that seemed out-of-character for a superhero are completely explained away. He's not supposed to be a hero. You're not supposed to feel good about Batman's actions in the movie. That's what makes him a dark knight.
If you haven't seen the Dark Knight, stop reading now and skip to my account of the next day, which has a very good bit about ice cream. But then please go see the movie, because I'm dying to discuss it.
I'll begin spoiling the movie with the ferry scene. First of all, there's something very stupid going on here. The people of Gotham are placed in a "social experiment" where the rules of the game are given to them by the Joker--the character who has told us that "the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules." And true to his creed, the Joker has repeatedly lied to us. He tells Batman where he can find Rachel and Dent, but lies about who is at which address. He scares the people of Gotham into leaving the city without using the bridges and tunnels, apparently just so that he can trick them into taking the ferries he has rigged for his social experiment. Yet after all that, the people of Gotham continue to take him at his word regarding the rules of that experiment, and worse yet, the movie assumes that we in the audience will, too. This time, it turns out the Joker is not lying to us. But just a little while later, the movie assumes we'll believe his lie when he dresses his hostages up in the masks of his henchmen.
By the way, the Joker isn't the only one who lies to us in the movie, as drvictordavishj points out. Batman authors the biggest of these lies at the end of the movie, but Alfred also lies by burning Rachel's note, and Gordon lies to his own family by faking his death. Yes, these are all noble lies, but are we meant to applaud them, or to see them as tragic necessities? And even Harvey Dent lied to us when he told us he was Batman. Was he heroic, or was this perhaps the end of his heroism?
But back to the ferry. At first, I thought it was pretty lame that no one in Gotham was willing to save themselves by detonating the other ferry. Are we supposed to believe that Gotham is good after all? But after reading drvictordavishj's post, it's clear that the people of Gotham are not heroic. It would have been heroic to vote against detonating the other ferry, but that's not what they did. They voted to destroy it. They were just too gutless to fulfill that vote by taking the necessary action. They knew they needed to act outside the law, but were too weak to be vigilantes.
Another thing that bothered me at first, but I've since made peace with, I think. First, the Joker seeks to steal money and to charge the mob for his work. Then he burns his money anyway. And, first, the Joker tells us he wants to kill Batman. Then suddenly he's so strongly in favor of Batman's presence in the city that he decides not to kill Batman and even aims to have a man killed just for threatening to reveal Batman's identity. This inconsistency bugged me, but then I realized that inconsistency is the heart of the Joker's character. As he says, he is "an agent of chaos." He'll kill for sport, but then next time he'll spare a life just for the sport of it, too. Alfred has the key to the Joker's twisted mind when he says that "some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."
Maybe the Joker knows what Alfred has figured out--that Batman created the circumstances that allowed the Joker to come to power, that the Joker needs Batman, and that without the Joker, there would be no need for Batman. As Alfred tells Bruce, "You crossed the line first, sir. You squeezed them [the mob], you hammered them to the point of desperation. And in their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand."
On to the ending. IMDB'S Dark Knight page includes fragments of the movie's final dialogue:
BATMAN: Sometimes, truth isn't good enough, sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.
...
GORDON: We'll have to hunt you.
BATMAN: You'll hunt me. You'll condemn me, you'll set the dogs on me. But that's what has to happen.
...
GORDON: Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now ... and so we'll hunt him, because he can take it. Because he's not a hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector ... a dark knight.
I didn't understand the difference between the hero we deserve and the hero we need, but I was sure it was the key to the movie. drvictordavishj explains it as follows:
"The key is the way Gordon draws a contrast between Dent 'the hero we need' versus the Dark Knight 'the hero we deserve.' Nolan [the writer and director] is saying that we need a law-abiding idealist, but that we don’t deserve him. He’s not saying it’s good to have a president who’s a wire-tapping torturer, merely that we don’t deserve any better. Nolan is ultimately saying that strong societies don’t tolerate Dark Knights. If we do, it’s only because we lack confidence in the institutions and values that we’ve inherited. After all, with all his gifts, Bruce Wayne could have easily been Harvey Dent, but because he lacks confidence in legitimate institutions and his moral inheritance, he’s not the philanthopist and healer that his father was. He’s the sign of a sick society.... This movie is about the tragedy of the White Knight, not the vindication of the Dark Knight. Nolan has already decided what Bruce Wayne really is."
You can find drvictordavishj's full comment and its context at:
http://washingtonindependent.com/view/batmans-dark-knight#comment_26224
And so it took the dark knight, the hero Gotham deserved, to lie to them that Harvey Dent had remained steadfast as their white knight, the hero they needed. As Alfred says to Bruce, "Endure, Master Wayne. Take it. They'll hate you for it. But that's the point of Batman, he can be the outcast. He can make the choice that no one else can make, the right choice."
The movie questions what right Batman has to operate outside the law, and why others can't do so as well. But it's not clear what the movie's answer is. Maybe he has the right simply because he's willing to do what no one else can. But then why don't those people who imitate Batman have that right, too? Because they're too weak to survive in that role? Or maybe Batman has this right because the corrupt city of Gotham has in some sense surrendered that right to him, through their failing institutions. Or maybe Batman doesn't have that right at all.
The good cop / bad cop routine? Not exactly. [stolen from thedarkknight.warnerbros.com]
In one of the most powerful scenes of the movie, the imprisoned Joker at last finds himself face-to-face with Batman. And in spite of his grim situation, there's no question that the Joker still has the upper hand, that he's still pushing Batman. Here's a snippet of the dialogue from the scene (from IMDB):
JOKER: You have all these rules and you think they'll save you.
...
BATMAN: I have one rule.
JOKER: Then that's the rule you'll have to break to know the truth.
BATMAN: Which is?
JOKER: The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules. And tonight you're gonna break your one rule.
I didn't know what the one rule was in the theater, but the Internet tells me it's that Batman will not willfully bring about a person's death. It's debatable how true he's been to that creed until this point in the movie. But the more interesting question is whether the Joker's prediction is right. Does Batman go on to break that one rule? Maybe the Joker thinks he can bring about so much chaos as to force Batman to choose to kill the Joker himself. I was certainly rooting for Batman to kill the Joker. That seemed like the only way he could save Gotham, especially when even its prison fails to hold the Joker. If that's what the Joker was hoping for, then Batman is victorious. As the Joker says at the end of the movie, "You truly are incorruptible aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won't kill you, because you're just too much fun."
Does Batman break his rule when Two-Face is killed? I doubt it, but I look forward to getting a closer look the next time I see the movie. Perhaps the most interesting question is: who wins in the end? Does Batman win because he is incorruptible, because he finds he can endure, because he does make the choices that no one else can? Or does the Joker win, because he has corrupted and destroyed Gotham's white knight, leaving Bruce Wayne unable to retire as Gotham's dark knight?
You are certainly meant to feel that the Joker has corrupted Harvey Dent, but I felt this transformation was too quick and implausible. And although the Joker was certainly responsible for Dent's physical condition, it's not clear that he really brought about Dent's transformation in character. The Joker's speech to Dent in the hospital is great writing, but it's hard to believe that it convinces Dent to turn on Batman and Gordon, when Dent should be blaming the Joker himself. I would have preferred if Dent was corrupted into operating outside the law to destroy the Joker, because his going after Batman and Gordon is just stupid.
After seeing the movie, I read a number of reviews that argued the movie should have ended 45 minutes earlier, with the Joker's speech to Dent and the image of him walking away from the exploding hospital in triumph. I admit there was probably a great ending there. Other people argued that including Harvey Dent made the movie too cluttered. Removing Harvey Dent would certainly leave us with a great summer movie, but it would also strip it of the richer questions of what it means to be heroic.
Early in the film, Dent tells Bruce Wayne that "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." The line struck me as a non sequitur introduced just to seem prophetic later, but I'm looking forward to watching the scene again. What does it mean? Does it mean that Dent believes no one can endure in the role of hero forever, that eventually any hero must sink to the ways of the villains? If so, Dent seems to acknowledge that he can't be triumphant in the role of hero--that it will take something less heroic in order to triumph. In the end, Batman endures, and perhaps triumphs, but not as a hero, for clearly he has sunk to the ways of the villains--in every way but one.
Ok. I promise no more about Batman.
Sunday, July 20
Trying to break out of our foul post-Batman moods, we forced ourselves out into the oppressive heat, beginning our outing by trying the tiny lunches at the non-air-conditioned Kiva Han cafe on Craig Street in Oakland. Then we went across to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (just days before I could have gotten my CMU discount). The highlight of the museum is definitely it's dinosaur exhibit. Not only do they have full skeletons for lots of dinosaurs, they've got them posed as if they're interacting among dirt and trees, or flying over your head. It doesn't have that sterile museum feeling, so it's really very cool. Also, it's literally very cool in the exhibit, so bring a jacket, no matter how hot it is outside.
"Dinosaurs In Their Time"
[stolen from a November 2007 article on www.happynews.com]
Next we ran down the street in the rain to get ice cream at Dave and Andy's near U. Pitt. I enjoyed some delicious cookies & cream with kahlua frozen yogurt, so glad to have finally found frozen yogurt in Pittsburgh.
[Imagine some squiggly effects here and harp-playing to signify our journey back in time.]
Wednesday, July 16
Ate dinner at a Thai place in Shadyside called Typhoon, which featured mediocre food at monster prices. We could only afford a few appetizers before going home hungry.
Thursday, July 17
Filed my I-9 with CMU, so now I am "in the system." [The word "system" should echo for a bit.]
Friday, July 18
Not knowing anyone in Pittsburgh, we made our first effort to meet "friends of friends" by getting together with another work-from-home Oracle tech writer and his wife at the Double-Wide Grill in the South Side. We had a pretty good time with them, and the food was good, too. At one point we were talking about the Dark Knight movie we'd be seeing the next morning, and they said their 10-year-old was begging to see it. Having read a little about it, I warned that it didn't seem like a good movie for kids...
Saturday, July 19
Caught a 10am showing of the Dark Knight, and Virg and I left the theater feeling we had been beaten down for 2.5 hours. The movie gave Virg a headache (like its predecessor), and cast a dark shadow over the rest of our weekend. Contributing to this feeling were the movie's two strongest elements: Heath Ledger and the movie score.
I'll begin this post as a standard non-revealing movie review. Then I'll warn you when I'm about to spoil the movie by picking apart the ending and its message.
Ledger's portrayal of the Joker was creepy and horrific to watch. He was an unpredictable psychopath. And what made him so scary was that there was nothing cartoonish about the performance. He made you believe that this was truly a real human being with an extremely twisted mind. I agree with many who feel that Ledger's Oscar-worthy performance has earned his Joker a place among cinema's greatest villains. Don't send your 10-year-old to see him. How this movie pulled off a PG-13 rating is beyond me.
The movie score was dark and unrelenting, and where necessary, supported the Joker with musical elements of an equally perverse and unpredictably violent nature. But for the most part, the score is Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's bigger, darker, and more tragic take on the beautiful work they began in Batman Begins. Their romantic and pounding music has been looping in my head for the past few weeks now, and I can't get enough of it.
There's no debate about Ledger or the music. The rest of the movie has been harder to wrap my mind around. My first impression was that it wasn't as rich as Batman Begins, and was far more chaotic. The movie tries to follow a lot of characters. Often it seems pretty rushed and muddled. And there was a lot of stuff that seemed pretty stupid in the last 45 minutes--particularly the ferry predicament and the rapid and pointless decline of Two-Face. And I didn't find the ending very satisfying.
Harvey Dent learns of the bat signal.
[stolen from thedarkknight.warnerbros.com]
But here's the thing. The Dark Knight is now listed on IMDB as the #1 movie of all time. And the movie really sticks with you. So, is it a smart summer action movie, or is it a sometimes flawed attempt at something much bigger? It took several days of searching the Internet to find an intelligent discussion of the movie, but I found it in a comment posted on The Washington Independent from user drvictordavishj. His look at the movie elevates the Dark Knight to something much smarter and even politically relevant. He begins by writing, "... I would argue that the film is not necessarily all that pro-Batman."
And suddenly all the things that Batman does that seemed out-of-character for a superhero are completely explained away. He's not supposed to be a hero. You're not supposed to feel good about Batman's actions in the movie. That's what makes him a dark knight.
If you haven't seen the Dark Knight, stop reading now and skip to my account of the next day, which has a very good bit about ice cream. But then please go see the movie, because I'm dying to discuss it.
--- SPOILER ALERT ---
I'll begin spoiling the movie with the ferry scene. First of all, there's something very stupid going on here. The people of Gotham are placed in a "social experiment" where the rules of the game are given to them by the Joker--the character who has told us that "the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules." And true to his creed, the Joker has repeatedly lied to us. He tells Batman where he can find Rachel and Dent, but lies about who is at which address. He scares the people of Gotham into leaving the city without using the bridges and tunnels, apparently just so that he can trick them into taking the ferries he has rigged for his social experiment. Yet after all that, the people of Gotham continue to take him at his word regarding the rules of that experiment, and worse yet, the movie assumes that we in the audience will, too. This time, it turns out the Joker is not lying to us. But just a little while later, the movie assumes we'll believe his lie when he dresses his hostages up in the masks of his henchmen.
By the way, the Joker isn't the only one who lies to us in the movie, as drvictordavishj points out. Batman authors the biggest of these lies at the end of the movie, but Alfred also lies by burning Rachel's note, and Gordon lies to his own family by faking his death. Yes, these are all noble lies, but are we meant to applaud them, or to see them as tragic necessities? And even Harvey Dent lied to us when he told us he was Batman. Was he heroic, or was this perhaps the end of his heroism?
But back to the ferry. At first, I thought it was pretty lame that no one in Gotham was willing to save themselves by detonating the other ferry. Are we supposed to believe that Gotham is good after all? But after reading drvictordavishj's post, it's clear that the people of Gotham are not heroic. It would have been heroic to vote against detonating the other ferry, but that's not what they did. They voted to destroy it. They were just too gutless to fulfill that vote by taking the necessary action. They knew they needed to act outside the law, but were too weak to be vigilantes.
Another thing that bothered me at first, but I've since made peace with, I think. First, the Joker seeks to steal money and to charge the mob for his work. Then he burns his money anyway. And, first, the Joker tells us he wants to kill Batman. Then suddenly he's so strongly in favor of Batman's presence in the city that he decides not to kill Batman and even aims to have a man killed just for threatening to reveal Batman's identity. This inconsistency bugged me, but then I realized that inconsistency is the heart of the Joker's character. As he says, he is "an agent of chaos." He'll kill for sport, but then next time he'll spare a life just for the sport of it, too. Alfred has the key to the Joker's twisted mind when he says that "some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."
Maybe the Joker knows what Alfred has figured out--that Batman created the circumstances that allowed the Joker to come to power, that the Joker needs Batman, and that without the Joker, there would be no need for Batman. As Alfred tells Bruce, "You crossed the line first, sir. You squeezed them [the mob], you hammered them to the point of desperation. And in their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand."
On to the ending. IMDB'S Dark Knight page includes fragments of the movie's final dialogue:
BATMAN: Sometimes, truth isn't good enough, sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.
...
GORDON: We'll have to hunt you.
BATMAN: You'll hunt me. You'll condemn me, you'll set the dogs on me. But that's what has to happen.
...
GORDON: Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now ... and so we'll hunt him, because he can take it. Because he's not a hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector ... a dark knight.
I didn't understand the difference between the hero we deserve and the hero we need, but I was sure it was the key to the movie. drvictordavishj explains it as follows:
"The key is the way Gordon draws a contrast between Dent 'the hero we need' versus the Dark Knight 'the hero we deserve.' Nolan [the writer and director] is saying that we need a law-abiding idealist, but that we don’t deserve him. He’s not saying it’s good to have a president who’s a wire-tapping torturer, merely that we don’t deserve any better. Nolan is ultimately saying that strong societies don’t tolerate Dark Knights. If we do, it’s only because we lack confidence in the institutions and values that we’ve inherited. After all, with all his gifts, Bruce Wayne could have easily been Harvey Dent, but because he lacks confidence in legitimate institutions and his moral inheritance, he’s not the philanthopist and healer that his father was. He’s the sign of a sick society.... This movie is about the tragedy of the White Knight, not the vindication of the Dark Knight. Nolan has already decided what Bruce Wayne really is."
You can find drvictordavishj's full comment and its context at:
http://washingtonindependent.com/view/batmans-dark-knight#comment_26224
And so it took the dark knight, the hero Gotham deserved, to lie to them that Harvey Dent had remained steadfast as their white knight, the hero they needed. As Alfred says to Bruce, "Endure, Master Wayne. Take it. They'll hate you for it. But that's the point of Batman, he can be the outcast. He can make the choice that no one else can make, the right choice."
The movie questions what right Batman has to operate outside the law, and why others can't do so as well. But it's not clear what the movie's answer is. Maybe he has the right simply because he's willing to do what no one else can. But then why don't those people who imitate Batman have that right, too? Because they're too weak to survive in that role? Or maybe Batman has this right because the corrupt city of Gotham has in some sense surrendered that right to him, through their failing institutions. Or maybe Batman doesn't have that right at all.
The good cop / bad cop routine? Not exactly. [stolen from thedarkknight.warnerbros.com]
In one of the most powerful scenes of the movie, the imprisoned Joker at last finds himself face-to-face with Batman. And in spite of his grim situation, there's no question that the Joker still has the upper hand, that he's still pushing Batman. Here's a snippet of the dialogue from the scene (from IMDB):
JOKER: You have all these rules and you think they'll save you.
...
BATMAN: I have one rule.
JOKER: Then that's the rule you'll have to break to know the truth.
BATMAN: Which is?
JOKER: The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules. And tonight you're gonna break your one rule.
I didn't know what the one rule was in the theater, but the Internet tells me it's that Batman will not willfully bring about a person's death. It's debatable how true he's been to that creed until this point in the movie. But the more interesting question is whether the Joker's prediction is right. Does Batman go on to break that one rule? Maybe the Joker thinks he can bring about so much chaos as to force Batman to choose to kill the Joker himself. I was certainly rooting for Batman to kill the Joker. That seemed like the only way he could save Gotham, especially when even its prison fails to hold the Joker. If that's what the Joker was hoping for, then Batman is victorious. As the Joker says at the end of the movie, "You truly are incorruptible aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won't kill you, because you're just too much fun."
Does Batman break his rule when Two-Face is killed? I doubt it, but I look forward to getting a closer look the next time I see the movie. Perhaps the most interesting question is: who wins in the end? Does Batman win because he is incorruptible, because he finds he can endure, because he does make the choices that no one else can? Or does the Joker win, because he has corrupted and destroyed Gotham's white knight, leaving Bruce Wayne unable to retire as Gotham's dark knight?
You are certainly meant to feel that the Joker has corrupted Harvey Dent, but I felt this transformation was too quick and implausible. And although the Joker was certainly responsible for Dent's physical condition, it's not clear that he really brought about Dent's transformation in character. The Joker's speech to Dent in the hospital is great writing, but it's hard to believe that it convinces Dent to turn on Batman and Gordon, when Dent should be blaming the Joker himself. I would have preferred if Dent was corrupted into operating outside the law to destroy the Joker, because his going after Batman and Gordon is just stupid.
After seeing the movie, I read a number of reviews that argued the movie should have ended 45 minutes earlier, with the Joker's speech to Dent and the image of him walking away from the exploding hospital in triumph. I admit there was probably a great ending there. Other people argued that including Harvey Dent made the movie too cluttered. Removing Harvey Dent would certainly leave us with a great summer movie, but it would also strip it of the richer questions of what it means to be heroic.
Early in the film, Dent tells Bruce Wayne that "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." The line struck me as a non sequitur introduced just to seem prophetic later, but I'm looking forward to watching the scene again. What does it mean? Does it mean that Dent believes no one can endure in the role of hero forever, that eventually any hero must sink to the ways of the villains? If so, Dent seems to acknowledge that he can't be triumphant in the role of hero--that it will take something less heroic in order to triumph. In the end, Batman endures, and perhaps triumphs, but not as a hero, for clearly he has sunk to the ways of the villains--in every way but one.
--- END OF SPOILER ---
Ok. I promise no more about Batman.
Sunday, July 20
Trying to break out of our foul post-Batman moods, we forced ourselves out into the oppressive heat, beginning our outing by trying the tiny lunches at the non-air-conditioned Kiva Han cafe on Craig Street in Oakland. Then we went across to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (just days before I could have gotten my CMU discount). The highlight of the museum is definitely it's dinosaur exhibit. Not only do they have full skeletons for lots of dinosaurs, they've got them posed as if they're interacting among dirt and trees, or flying over your head. It doesn't have that sterile museum feeling, so it's really very cool. Also, it's literally very cool in the exhibit, so bring a jacket, no matter how hot it is outside.
"Dinosaurs In Their Time"
[stolen from a November 2007 article on www.happynews.com]
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