It really starts to get complicated when the character finds that all the music, literature, and culture he's absorbed in the dream was in fact his own imagination and music in the real world is entirely different, so he sets out to record his own music, the ideas being his, and becomes the most respected musician ever. Or, the plot could delve into the real world's music being much better than that in his imagination.

A film directed by a collective of John Carpenter, the Wachowski Bros., Stanley Kubrick, Tarantino, the Cohens, David Fincher, and Ridley Scott.

Based on the book penned by Mark Z. Danielewski and James Joyce's brain in a jar of Irish wine.

The title is an unpronounceable squiggle.

Falling Down
 

Today has been a day of unsettling revelations and clarity about the world around me.

I'll be the first to confess that I have significant gaping holes in my understanding of contemporary society and culture, but I am doing my very best to overcome this. But from what little understanding I do have, I’ve failed to grasp how our economy functions at all with regard to the creative arts. I could not fathom how digital media markets were still a functional concept in 2016. I've had several discussions in various communities where I posed the question, “how does an industry exist selling goods which are infinitely replicable and distributable at no cost to the consumer?”

Please do not misinterpret my intent - I am a tremendous advocate for compensating content creators for their work, but the current “legitimate” system of compensation is fundamentally broken. Streaming services fail completely at this task, as only .3% of unsigned artists and 2% of signed artists featured on the world’s largest streaming network earn royalties equivalent to or exceeding that of minimum-wage. (The situation is even more dire on the largest media website, YouTube, where the percentages of minimum-wage earners are only .07% of unsigned and .5% of signed artists, respectively.) So in an economy which has completely forsaken the arts, and in light of the inherently ungovernable nature of digital media, I was perplexed how is anyone in the media arts is to make any sort of living.

And the corruption of this system continues with the purchase by the customer, as iTunes media loses 100% of its value after first-sale and purchased content can never be resold. Does this not plainly demonstrate the nonsensical nature of the digital market? How does such a business model sustain itself when it in no way rewards the efforts of the content creators whose product it sells? This was a critical fault of the music industry for nearly half a century where labels engineered a system from which artists could never profit, but which has been infinitely refined to a corrupt perfection with the latest digital model.

And if my understanding of this is at all correct, then I must ask how is this matter not the paramount priority of our culture? Artists are a society’s means of grappling with all the troubles of the world and expressing all the horrors and beauties, both intrinsic and extrinsic, which encompass its very identity. It is how we understand ourselves. Shouldn’t the well-being of the arts be regarded as something of importance?

And the ludicrousness in no way ends with the media marketplace. After today’s conversations, it would appear that my error was apparently in my attempt to apply rationality and reason to an entirely illogical system. We as a nation produce very little, so there is no means of production for the workers to reclaim. Nearly our entire brick and mortar market system is comprised of foreign (or even virtual) goods.

I worked fox a big box corporation in 2012 with entire aisles of empty boxes priced at $30-$300 containing tiny slips of paper with a download code. It made absolutely no sense. Why would a brick and mortar market exist selling literally empty boxes with a markup on a virtual good which you could simply download online, legitimately or otherwise? These industries are consuming themselves and consolidating to fewer and fewer, larger and larger corporations in an effort to maintain a positive cash flow but an ever-increasing percentage of consumers are becoming sensible enough to purchase goods direct from producers or from virtual vendors with no overhead via the web, so the days of corporate brick and mortar are truly numbered. And more and more, mass produced goods have become obsolete with the advent and affordability of on-demand custom consumer goods via services like Redbubble, Skinit, Decalgirl, and a flood of on-demand web-based businesses, rendering the traditional print and textile industries practically irrelevant.

Evidently, in a phantom economy which produces nothing and does not adequately compensate its creators nor its workers, we are all just wage slaves living day in and day out as servants of illusory corporate stability which has no real foundation nor conceivable longevity.

I need a drink.

http://i.imgur.com/wb47yqQ.jpg
Irrelevent adorable puppy in a teacup

Innerspace you should learn to play an instrument

You're gonna have to explain that one. How can you clothe 7 billion people without mass produced goods?

A curious statement! May I ask what inspired that comment?

You were born to play the hurdy gurdy.

Well, there's one thing you can't consume digitally. :)

I was talking to Qwertyy about it earlier. But I could see you playing in some weirdo electronic or folk outfit.