Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2007 March 5

= March 5 =

Daniel J. Neumann
I saw a flyer for a teen author named, Daniel J. Neumann. He wrote some science fiction novel. It invovled five teens in armor suits. I think it was called "One Man's Army."??? I don't remember. Please help me out. I couldn't find a page on him at Wikipedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.251.148.193 (talk) 03:03, 5 March 2007 (UTC).


 * The book is called "One Man Army". See the Amazon page for more information. -- Chairman S. Talk  Contribs  03:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Mystery books/author
In my elementary school as a kid, there was a whole bunch of books by an author -- of a french/ belgian/ candian-sounding name? -- each of which revolved around some sort of fantastic, almost magical transformation of a character's flaws into his salvation, socially speaking. The only one I remember half-clearly was about a kid at a boarding school who was overweight and unloved, but he filled the whole goal, so they made him the goalie...and when the ice broke, he managed to stay with the net and save the day. Looking for book and author, so I can also track down the others. Please help? The elementary school has since closed... Jfarber 04:14, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Is/Was
For television shows that have ceased production, is it correct to refer to the show as a "was" or an "is." There is much dispute about this, particularly on the site for That 70's Show, where one persistent fan keeps changing it back to "is" saying that while the show has ceased production, it still exists. If this is true, then all of the TV shows listed on Wikipedia should have "is" but they don't, and frankly, using "was" seems like an ideal to immediately clarify that a show has indeed ceased production. I would appreciate knowing what the good folks at Wikipedia think, and I will edit shows accordingly. It really can go either way, but it should be only one way. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.228.62.152 (talk) 06:11, 5 March 2007 (UTC).
 * I would say it depends on whether the show is still airing somewhere. - Mgm|(talk) 11:07, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I disagree with MacGyverMagic.  In discussing or criticising literature, there is a convention called the "literary present" in which..."We write about written works as if the events in them are happening now, even though the authors may be long dead." source  Notably, this is not exactly the same as the same logic of the "persistent fan" above, but -- if this standard is consistent in multimedia texts -- it would allow for some use of present tense in writing about television shows.    Jfarber 11:29, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * To add to the above via illuminating example, I note the following "Literary Present" discussion section from Wikipedia's project Buffyverse, which provides both examples of how and when to use each tense in discussing shows...and a statement about how to use the literary present as a standard in wikipedia entries about television shows. Jfarber 12:46, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Me again.  The style manual page for writing about fiction WP:WAF is pretty clear about how to manage the issue of the literary present.    It does NOT specify whether one should treat a text itself -- book, movie, or telvision show -- as existing in the present tense or the past tense, BUT I believe the obvious implication of the literary present is that one should treat all texts as continually existing (unless all copies have been destroyed), as in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an American cult television series that aired from March 10, 1997, until May 20, 2003."  ([the Buffy page will be Wikipedia's featured article on March 10th!])  I will see if I can find an authoritative source for this; if there is such thing, I will add a note to WP:WAF.     Jfarber 15:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I mostly agree with Jfarber. If we refer to no-longer-airing TV shows in the past tense, then shouldn't we do the same for movies that are not currently in the theatres? For books that are out of print? But there's no issue about referring to old books and movies in the present tense. (For example, see the first sentence of the article Citizen Kane.) Also, I don't know if it's workable to have a subrule that "if all copies have been destroyed, then use the past tense". For one thing, what would you do if we aren't sure whether films of some old series from the '50s still exists in a vault somewhere? For another, what if we still have recordings of two or three episodes of an old series, but the majority of episodes have been permanently lost? --Mathew5000 21:42, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Just for fun: even the Epic of Gilgamesh is referred to in the present tense in its first sentence, though all complete copies of this epic were lost centuries ago.  As such, here we have a text that "is" -- although it isn't, any longer.   Mathew, I intended to leave open the possibility of "lost" texts, but I agree this leaves us in a mess, and have no idea what the academic standard is; if we leave that hypothetical aside for a moment, or indeed adopt at least the "gilgamesh standard" (if even a fragment exists, the text exists in present tense), where do we disagree?  Jfarber 22:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know; from a cursory reading of the article I get the impression that we still have most of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Is that not so? A modern analogy is films like The Magnificent Ambersons (film), where a coherent version exists today but parts of the original (several minutes) have been permanently lost. It still is natural to speak of the film in the present tense but when we do so we aren't really referring to the complete/original version of the film but rather to the film as it exists today. If I said to you "The Epic of Gilgamesh is my favourite poem" then clearly I am referring to a version of the poem that is extant, not the original complete version. But maybe that is not such a good example; for example, I would also use the present tense to say "Winston Churchill is my favourite UK prime minister" or "Beethoven is my favourite composer" even though I'd use the past tense to say "Winston Churchill was a British person". In short I'm now totally confused about this issue. I checked Fowler's but couldn't find any reference to this issue. Anyway I would say that TV series should be referred to in the present tense if recordings are extant of the bulk of episodes, even if a few have been lost. However, I am wavering on whether we should use present tense if no recordings at all exist today, or if most of the series is lost but recordings a few episodes or parts of episodes exist. For example, Twenty One (game show) uses past tense in its first sentence. So does Howdy Doody. Those uses of past tense seem appropriate to me, even though there may still be kinescope recordings of a few episodes of the series. Come to think of it, it might be impossible to form some kind of consistent rule, which of course would also have to cover fictional characters who may appear only in early episodes of the series (and may have died at some point in the series). For example, Wikipedia at the moment says
 * Teri Bauer was a fictional character played by Leslie Hope as part of the television series, 24.
 * but
 * Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero is a fictional mobster played by Vincent Pastore on the HBO TV series, The Sopranos.
 * Both those fictional characters die at some point during the series (fairly early on, relative to the length of the series) so shouldn't the same tense be used for both? I would say present tense. It may be that in the case of Teri Bauer it seemed more natural to use past tense since she died quite early in the series and has not reappeared via flashbacks or visions or otherworldly narration (cf. Mary Alice Young from Desperate Housewives).
 * Also compare the introduction of the article on David Palmer which begins in the present tense ("David Palmer is a fictional President of the United States of America") but switches to past tense for the second sentence, back to present tense for the third sentence, then past tense for the fourth and fifth sentences ("David Palmer appeared in 80 episodes"). In my view these should all be present tense, just as if it were a character in a novel who dies (e.g. Roger Chillingworth). But what about a character who dies before the action of the narration begins? (For example, Laura Palmer.) --Mathew5000 01:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * We seem to have discovered a serious and endemic quandry.  There surely is some sort of logic to be found here, and a heck of a lot of pages to be cleaned up.   I suppose there's no such beast as a tense-fixing bot, nor could we find and tag all pages of film/television/literature to address them with such bot.


 * I'm intrigued enough to go out looking for some sort of rules, though temporarily I agree with both your instincts on where present tense is warranted (most texts of any medium), where past tense is probably warranted (texts which no longer have even a fragmented existence), and see that there is nonetheless some liminal space where writing could be clearer to make it more obvious which tense is warranted (I'd suggest "The character of David Palmer appears in 80 episodes" is clearer, isn't it?), and where the logic may break down (Laura Palmer).


 * On the bright side, I find no disagreement that That 70s Show, which is after all still in active reruns, should be presented in the present tense, so at least we've answered the original querent. Jfarber 02:50, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes. Incidentally I put a note at Reference desk/Language about this issue. --Mathew5000 05:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I also replied there on what I think it should be, as well as the logic. --Wirbelwind ヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * We seem to have consensus, I think -- at least among the three of us. Is that enough to support addendae or even a section in WP:WAF to that effect?   Does anyone know of any academic resource which we could cite to support our mutual instincts?   Jfarber 11:03, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I think you can edit WP:WAF to prescribe the limited guideline on which we have consensus (namely that a cancelled but extant TV series still is a TV series). But there are still various other issues that should be discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (writing about fiction). For example, look at the first sentence of NYPD Blue: "NYPD Blue was a long-running American television police drama set in New York City." (permanent link). I was about to change "was" to "is", but with the adjective "long-running" in the sentence, "is" would suggest that the series still is "running". Wouldn't it? Also see the edit I just made to the article on Sugarfoot (link). There is one sentence which I left in the past tense because it would seem a bit weird to cast it in present: "The movie Sugarfoot was directed by Edwin L. Marin and co-starred Raymond Massey." --Mathew5000 20:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * No argument here on the latter example. Directing is part of the creation process, not part of the fiction; as such, is it a historical fact that the movie WAS directed by so and so at such-and-such a time.   As for "long-running" -- this term is vague, as it could mean it's BEEN running a long time, or it could mean it RAN for a long time.   I'd vote for a sentence rewrite if we wanted to be clearest.


 * Also, consider these two sentences from the article M*A*S*H (TV series) (permanent link): "As the series progressed, it made a significant shift from pure comedy to become far more dramatically focused. In addition, the episodes became more political, and the show was often accused of “preaching” to its viewers." By the new guideline, the first three verbs I have bolded should be changed to present tense: "progresses", "makes", and "become". But that's problematic because the last "was" needs to remain in the past tense, and it is a little jarring to say "The episodes become more political and the show was often accused of preaching." As currently worded ("became more political"), we clearly get the meaning that the accusations of preaching followed on the show becoming more political. But you lose that when you change "became" to "becomes". I guess the logical theory of saying e.g. "That '70s Show is a TV series" is that the series itself constitutes a work just like a single film or a single novel. But we know that with a typical novel, the author has designed it as a complete work. We can say "The protagonist becomes more callous in the final chapters of the novel" because we presume that the author intended this all along, and for all we know might have written the final chapters before any other part of the novel. But if you have a TV series that ran for many years, you don't have the same presumption, and you might actually want to use past tense to make clear that the protagonist becoming more callous resulted from an out-of-universe event. E.g. "The protagonist became more callous in season four after all the original writers of the series quit." How can you change that to present tense? Can we leave that sentence as is, or does it have to be clunkily recast as "The protagonist becomes more callous in season four, a result of the original writers of the series quitting in 1995." --Mathew5000 21:20, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Oy.  I think Thsat 70s show IS a series -- that's a fact of how it exists AS TEXT.   But I don't think the "new" guideline forces you to make the present tense changes you cite above.  Instead, I'd say those are, again, part of the creation PROCESS, which is historical fact -- kind of like saying "James Joyce continueD to tinker with the ending of Ulysses even after its first publication; as such, in later editions of the text, his main characters reemerge as existential characters, prone to dig deply into their pockets after finding nothing but lint the first hundred times."  (not "reemergeD").   Yes, the semi-colon makes it seem like tense changes in the same sentence, but in reality, that's because the subject of the discussion changes IN the sentence from Joyce writing (a historical event) to the fictional incidence in texts which can be read, and lived in as present-tense worlds, even today.   Jfarber 02:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Song from a Chevrolet TV commercial
This question was asked a few days ago, but I did not receive a very good answer.

I am looking for the name of a song which has lyrics something like:
 * ''The sun will shine
 * ''The moon will rise and fall
 * ''Will we get older
 * ''Or will we just grow tall?
 * ''We will be together
 * ''We will be the best of friends forever

The song has a female singer, and uses fairly sparse instrumentation (reminiscent of anti-folk musicians such as Kimya Dawson).

This song appears in a Chevrolet TV commercial—airing in Canada—which advertises the warranty that comes with all Chevy vehicles, and I think the car actually featured is the Chevrolet Equinox. There is a father (driver seat) and daughter (back seat) sitting in the vehicle, in their driveway.

I was recommended to Adtunes.com, where I asked my question, and have not received an answer there yet. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 09:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Possibly "Bring my love" by Starsailor? but that's a man singing and probably not the song, worth a try though. ny156uk 18:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Is the ad anywhere on the net? Neil   (not Proto ►)  21:56, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I've looked for it to no avail. You would think Chevy would put up their own ads on their website! − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 07:27, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Research on Prestigiou/Exclusive/High Class Events in South Africa
To whom it may concern

I'm researching on Prestigious/Exclusive events on the soiuth African Elite (eg.Laurie Dippenaar-RMB Holdings, Archie Aaron-Gold Reef City Casino, Patrice Motsepe- African Rainbow Minerals etc) What sort of exclusive events/functions would they go to? Any prestigious charity functions they would attend in SA, What sort of "elite/exclusive clubs" they would belong to.

What would an individual with a Net Asset Value of R100 million rand do for entertainment?

Your response would be highly appreciated
 * Puleng Mochela
 * 

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.4.0.2 (talk) 09:46, 5 March 2007 (UTC).

Sun City was the location for many such events. StuRat 18:49, 5 March 2007 (UTC)