To Infinity...and Beyond?:
The best reason to read the News-Sentinel this week has been a mysterious series of advertisements touting something called "Infinity Tower." The first two ads proposed a development on the World's Fair Park including the aforementioned tower--"a monumental time capsule to house the personal remembrances of every person that visited"--along with a "Signature Wall," an "Eternal Flame," and the "Most Touched Place in the World." Wednesday's installment revealed the project as the brainchild of developer Christopher Gettelfinger, and added proposals for a comedy museum and theater. The full story--an eight-page advertising insert--is promised in today's (Thursday's) paper. The ads have more than a few economic development-conscious Knoxvillians scratching their heads and wondering if Gettelfinger has the political support or financing to back up his prodigious ideas. Stay tuned...
Jumping Ship:
Cyberflix storywriter and PR man Andrew Nelson, who largely wrote the plot and dialogue of their phenomenally successful game, Titanic, is leaving the company, he says, just to try out something new for a while. He's already been recruited by the high-profile talent agency International Creative Management (ICM), well-known for its herd of famous novelists, to join their new "interactive entertainment" stable. After a month in France, Nelson says he may retain his Knoxville residence while he tries the waters of the Bay Area. The oft-quoted Nelson, who in his four years at Cyberflix helped bring the maverick Market Square company national exposure with a big Newsweek profile a couple of years ago, and some national TV coverage--and got several city leaders to consider downtown's high-tech possibilities--says he's proudest of "helping to show there's another way of looking at gaming." Cyberflix is most recently best known for its complex, realistic CD-ROM games with historical themes.
No Jejune Enthusiasm Here:
The Washington Post questioned the existence of former Metro Pulse contributor Allison Glock last month in its "Media Notes" column. Critic Howard Kurtz was sharing his appreciation for GQ's July parody of "bad movies and the bad magazine stories that are written about them." The magazine had a full-length puff-piece about a movie called God, starring Brad Pitt in the title role with Elisabeth Shue as the love interest and Tom Hanks as "the senator who hates him." While Kurtz found this hilarious, he wasn't sure whether that issue's cover story--a profile of Matthew McConaughey by Glock--wasn't a parody as well in that it was almost as puffy as the God spoof. Kurtz comments: "And is this 'Allison Glock' a real person or the pseudonym of some clever parodist? After all, no self-respecting writer would want her byline anywhere near a paragraph like this: 'Watching him eye the ocean, you notice no cloud of brood or hostility that usually comes with a twentysomething man-child. There is no stink of fear, only the mind-addlingly seductive presence of jejune enthusiasm.'" Ouch. Then, with critical fearsomeness, Kurtz adds "Maybe magazines like GQ and Esquire wouldn't have to parody celebrity drivel if they didn't publish so much of it."
