{"id":2512,"date":"2003-07-16T10:24:24","date_gmt":"2003-07-16T17:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/?p=2512"},"modified":"2003-07-16T10:24:24","modified_gmt":"2003-07-16T17:24:24","slug":"research-day-gout-tridents-and-high-concept","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/2003\/07\/16\/research-day-gout-tridents-and-high-concept\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Day: Gout, Tridents, and High Concept"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is gout?<\/b> While reading that Benjamin Franklin book<\/a>, I was struck by how many people of that era (including Ben himself) were afflicted with gout. Unfortunately, the book never explained the ailment, and these days you almost never hear of someone suffering from it. All of which got me wondering if gout hasn’t been eradicated or renamed.<\/p>\n

Well, according to this page<\/a>, gout is still around, affecting “275 out of every 100,000 people.” Gout is a form of arthritis caused by the buildup of uric acid crystals in the joints of the body, and is thought to be exacerbated by overconsumption of alcohol, red meat and rich foods (all of which Franklin enjoyed in bulk). The big toe is the most commonly affected joint.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure why gout is unheard of these days, since it’s incurable and seems to be as prevalent as ever. Perhaps it’s just lumped in with generic arthritis. Or maybe I’m not old enough to know anyone suffering from it (or to suffer from it myself): it tends to afflicted men after the age of 45 and post-menopausal women.<\/p>\n

What were tridents used for?<\/b>: Tridents are the weapon of choice amongst sea-faring fantasy races, Ocean Gods, mermen, and anthropomorphic tuna cans critters. But what were they used for?<\/p>\n

Fish-poking appears to be the original use of the trident, offering fishermen thrice the chances of stabbing a trout that a spear affords. Tridents were also employed as horse prods. But as with anything with a pointy-end, Tridents were soon adopted by warriors. In fact, the peak of the trident’s career seems to have been as a gladiatorial weapon in arena combat. There was even a type of gladiator called a “retiarius<\/a>” whose job it was to throw nets over opponents and then get all tridental on their ass. Good work if you can get it.<\/p>\n

By the way, tridental<\/i> is an actual word, meaning “having three points of prongs”. Neato.<\/p>\n

What does “high concept” mean?<\/b> Sometime, when encountering a new word or phrase, I immediately scurry off to m-w.com<\/a> to find out what it means; other times, when I’m feeling slackerly (i.e., 91% of the time), I just gloss over it. But after encountering the same unknown word on half-dozen occasions, I can usually pick up its meaning from context.<\/p>\n

Not so with the phrase “high concept”. Despite seeing this in countless movie reviews and articles about television, I’m still not entirely sure what it means. Basing a story on a single unusual idea or something? And if there’s “high concept,” is there “low concept” as well?<\/p>\n

According to this article about script writing<\/a> (which I found by typing the phrase “what is high concept” into Google — it’s amazing how well that works sometimes), “High Concept is STORY as star. The central idea of the script is exciting, fascinating, intriguing, and different. High Concept films can usually be summed up in a single sentence or a single image.” As examples, the article cites Liar, Liar<\/i> (lawyer is magically forced to tell the truth for 24 hours), Splash<\/i> (shy man falls in love with a mermaid), and some flick called Valley of the Gwangi<\/i> (cowboys discover a lost valley filled with dinosaurs). In regards to the latter, the author writes “The poster <\/a>shows cowboys on horseback herding and roping a T- Rex. When you see the poster, you almost do a double take. Cowboys? Dinosaurs? In the same movie? You want to know more. You want to see the film. That’s High Concept.”<\/p>\n

Contrawise, the term “low concept” is used to refer to scripts that are character- or plot-driven. In this interview<\/a>, screenwriter David H. Steinberg puts it this way:<\/p>\n

Look at a movie like As Good As It Gets<\/i>. Totally low concept. It’s a bunch of quirky characters who do some interesting stuff, but what really happens in that movie? I don’t know. TV is low concept too. Friends<\/i> is the ultimate low concept show. It’s like six people sitting around on a couch.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Previous Research Day entries can be found here<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is gout? While reading that Benjamin Franklin book, I was struck by how many people of that era (including Ben himself) were afflicted with gout. Unfortunately, the book never explained the ailment, and these days you almost never hear of someone suffering from it. All of which got me wondering if gout hasn’t been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}