good*night

So many things just happened, I don't know what to do.  So I'm going to blog about it.  This will either be a fun departure from the usual premeditated/educated entries, or a disorienting waste of (y)our time.  Preferably both.

Okay. Here's how it started. I came home from a meeting, considered conforming to adult midweek tradition and watching a sitcom (I classify myself as a 45 year old "life stage wise" sometimes in case you're wondering what I'm talking about), but opted to have a "ponder shower" instead (because really I'm not that old and resigned to it yet), which usually entails really good story ideas that I forget half of before I make it to a pen and paper. Tonight's ponderings instead included first, reminiscing fondly about a song I really like and about dreams and friends and names; second, blowing my own mind by realizing something super obvious that I never really thought about before; and third, racking my brain trying to remember a character from Jurassic Park's first name...Don Arnold?...Tom Arnold? (uh definitely not)...Sam Arnold?........ JOHN Arnold!! 

Then I decided I felt like sharing this song I keep replaying in my mind, maybe via Facebook....or a blog if I felt ambitious & like tying it into the other stuff I'd been thinking about... so enter Internet, link to YouTube to find the song... and WHAT to my wondering eyes should appear but a suggested link on the YouTube homepage to something called "Jesus Christ in Jurassic Park." 

I don't even care what the original this adaptation/dub is based on is -- (okay I did look it up and the audio is snatched from a typical pointless YouTube vid of some guy chasing/yelling at a dog that's chasing some deer or something, I don't know, I didn't finish watching it) -- you can mix anything with Jurassic Park and strike gold.  Add Jesus Christ to Jurassic Park, and well folks, roll credits because that was the Meaning of Life.  (I don't really mean a crazy man screaming "Jesus Christ" .. in case you aren't reading into this .. I mean Actual Jesus Christ.)   You might feel like I'm spending more time than I should talking about this, but if you do, you clearly don't know that probably the things I think most about in life are a) Jesus Christ and b) Jurassic Park.   I often wonder "how would this situation be different if there were veloceraptors in it?"  I'm not even making that up to sound interesting.  I really think that regularly.

What if Jesus was really hoping that like...for the Triumphal Entry his Dad would let him ride a T-rex in instead of the donkey?  Obviously he's a pretty confident guy and knew he didn't need to pimp his ride, so that's respectable.  But I really would love someday for him to sidle up on me and semi-secretly say "the T-rex thing..I totally thought 'if things were different...'"   The Jesus I know I think would for sure have thought of it laughingly in one of his private moments.  Maybe during a ponder shower. 


Anyways -- here's the song I sought :

Greg Laswell falls in the same category as William Fitzsimmons with me.  Well..not the melancholic albums-about-painful-divorces-that-make-me-content-for-some-reason category from the other post (actually pretty sure one of his albums falls into that category too now that I think of it), but more the I-can-listen-to-all-his-songs-for-years-over-and-over-and-never-tire-of-them category.  So lovely.  Go get them all and love them too.

The Question of the Day a couple days ago with Chay & Brodie at the cafe was something -- waaait! this actually ties into the Book Blog too!  It was a stolen "Hyperthetical" from Chuck Klosterman!  This keeps getting more and more enmeshed.  So good.  So yeah it was to the effect of "If someone offered you the power to watch your dreams the next day like a movie, but the catch was that you had to bring everyone you know (family, friends) to the viewing -- would you opt to do it, or turn down the offer?"   I would totally want to, and for sure want everyone to come, because my dreams are always exceptionally vivid and detailed and long and complex, and often better than movies -- I could totally charge admission and they would be huge, I often wish I can rewatch them.  Not to brag or anything.  But my unconscious brain is like 98% more amazing than most people's conscious ones.  (Including my own hahah.)   But yeah I very often dream about my good friends and it feels the next day like we got to hang out and it's so great.  Once I even dreamed about someone who was my best friend, except when I woke up I realized it wasn't an actual person, it was just someone imaginary who didn't even have a name, but I missed him that whole day like my best friend just died.  It was really rough!  hahah.  

This is where I was pondering -- while I was pondering dreams and friends and names earlier -- how part of why I love this song a lot is because it's so brief and fleeting and very much like a dream, or a dear friend whose visit always seems to be not long enough..  or something you can't quite put your finger on, something inside and around you that you can't nail down...  and how I couldn't remember the name of the song even though it feels like it's an inextricable part of me, and how I love mysterious, unnamable, unownable things..  and I can name all my dear friends that I dream of, so while their "presence" may be fleeting, their memory is lasting.  Except I guess for one, that one who never was.  And maybe one other one -- my dearest friend -- (and this is the part that blew my mind in all its hidden obviousness) -- did you ever think about how God doesn't have a name?

And you can throw all the Yahweh and Adonai and Elohim you want on the table, but if we're goin' Old Testament on this, I'll see your tetragrammaton and raise you an I AM.  I don't think you can get less-named than introducing yourself as I AM.  (or "I am that I am" or whatever extrapolation you want to use here)   ...what a guy.  (oh and in case you're saying "Shaina. You are obviously super immune to the obvious -- you actually SAID 'God' in the same sentence you marvelled at Him not having a name in," the thing about that is "God" is not actually a name -- it's just a denoting of Him as THE God -- in a sea of gods -- but I'm not here to teach that lesson tonight so we'll leave it be.) 

So yeah.  I love Jurassic Park, I love Jesus Christ, I love Greg Laswell, I love dreams, I love my friends, I love clever mysteries, and I'm going to bed because it's 10:15 and I'm an old person. 


sweet dreams * *

Christian Porn

...it opens with Katherine Heigl reclining romantically in a field of grass, the exchange of a few sweet sunkissed nothings and the casual quoting of scripture, finally a kiss that actually defies the laws of physics -- I'm pretty sure they were both lying on their backs and the only parts of their bodies that touched were their lips. (okay, I exaggerated that last part. But not by much: he was partially on his side..but I scrutinized it and am confident I can state only their lips touched. Junior high dance chaperones would LOVE this movie.)

* la la laaaah cue the sound of sweeping vistas and long, layered pioneer garb fluttering in the wind *

~ Love's Enduring Promise ~  

Oh -- hang on -- a weinery guy with a lot of swanky gizmos who looks like he wouldn't know which end of a hammer to hit stuff with has entered the plotline... brb, just gotta fall in love for a sec... 

Okay, back. So anyways, I know you're already feverishly adding it to your "must see" list, so I won't ruin the whole thing for you.  But for those of you who're like me and rarely actually get around to seeing your "must see's," I'll give you a brief synopsis for blog's sake:

*SPOILER ALERT!*

...so it's basically your classic girl meets older guy who offers her asylum via marriage when her age-appropriate husband is randomly killed in a freak pioneer accident / guy almost chops his leg off  while cutting wood and spends 3/4 of a movie on the brink of death / mysterious stranger saves guy and his farm and his family and woos his conveniently aged daughter who I'm pretty sure goes from being 11 years younger than Katherine Heigl to 3 years younger than her in the span of ... wait. oh.   This is where you find out that I'm actually summarizing two movies -- and that I've seen this one before and am watching it a second time, on purpose.  

I've taken to blaming Sandra Bullock for things this week, and I'm pretty sure this one is on her too.  (You may have been privy last week to the "Generation Boomerang" Facebook thread that was borne of my sentiments on adult-children -- after that gregarious evening of being an ambassador to Manhood, I decided I needed a "girl day" on the weekend to balance my gender identity back out -- enter: snazzy sleep-in hair, devil-may-care wardrobe [blankets are clothes, right?] and mid-90s Sandra Bullock romcom's) 

Anyways, I forgot I started this with a scandalous title, so I should probably explain that before I forget:

I can't remember for sure, but I feel quite certain that this phrase comes from my pal Hannah (Halloween Hannah if you recall her from previous namedrops) -- she works at the library (which I kind of am jealous of) and sees all kinds of atrocious things there.  And yes.  Christian porn is one of these things.  Only what she means by that (or now means via this scenario I'm inventing if I'm totally remembering things that never happened) is literally these exact movies -- it's a whole series apparently -- a Hallmark cheesefest of based-on-books "Christian Romance" that they offer on dvd via your local literature trove.  (Who wants to come over for a marathon?  Bring your best Snuggie and a bottle of merlot!  And don't forget your kleenex and shame!)  hahah oooh okay maybe that was mean.  There are a few redeeming moments in them.  Or something.  Maybe I just like farms and jarring musical cues that tell me exactly what to feel.    In any case -- I'm pretty positive Hannah and her handy vlogging skillz are to be credited.  (I considered googling the term to see if credit was due elsewhere but I thankfully realized what a mistake that would be.) 

And get ready to have your socks knocked off, as per usual, because YES -- 9 paragraphs in -- this does have something to do with the current (and almost only ever) book this book blog has been about. hahah.  (But look at this: 2 entire related entries in 1 week!  Progress!  Note this, Taylor -- and bring it up at work so I feel compelled to finally finish this book and move on to a new one.  Remind me that one of the next chapters is about my husband, Zack Morris.)   The next chapter of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs on the roster is actually simply entitled "Porn."  I was considering skipping it and moving straight to the Cereal chapter (yes, at long last the cereal reference will be explained!)  ... because most of the perspectives I have on porn are better "in the moment" discussions than blog fare ... but it all kind of came together in the perfect storm tonight, care of Hallmark and Britney Spears.

Britney Spears even makes a cameo in this entry, you ask?  Naturally.  Of all things/people/forces in this world, I feel Britney is the one I would be least surprised to see turn up in any given context.  This is a power not many humans possess -- and I can't tell if it's a power we should avoid tampering with or aspire to...

So, to recap:  Christians, porn, and Omnipresent Britney. 
Keep all your limbs inside the trolley, because I have no idea what's about to happen. 

"Everyone knows that the Internet is changing our lives...However, it certainly appears that the main thing the Internet has accomplished is the normalization of naked people on the World Wide Web, many of whom are clearly (clearly!) doing so for non-monetary reasons. Where were all these people fifteen years ago?" (p.110) 

[ reminder: this book was published in 2003 -- date accordingly ]

[ sidenote: I read this book while in California a couple springs ago -- then a while later I saw a rerun of The OC where Seth was reading it...in California.  I like things like this. ] [ also: I miss Seth and The OC ]


We are presently living in a culture where seeing Britney Spears at the local 7-11 probably wouldn't shock many of us -- and where seeing your third cousin from Nowhere, AB next to naked in casual Craven Facebook tags is an annual occurrance. 

What kind of massive sneaky neutralization is this, I wonder?  It's even stealthier than global warming.  Waaay stealthier.  Probably not as dangerous -- I doubt blurring the lines between celebrity and regular folk is going to cause massive global repercussions for mankind.  OR IS IT? 

Hahah okay those caps were silly ones, not super serious ones. 
But so as not to leave you feeling like I led you down an anticlimactic descent into madness here, I will substantiate the caps to some extent:

"In less than a decade, millions of Americans went from (1) not knowing what the Internet was, to (2) knowing what it was but not using it, to (3) having an e-mail address, to (4) using e-mail pretty much every day, to (5) being unable to exist professionally or socially without it," (p.114) 

Once, long long ago, in order to be a pinup girl (or a crooner, or a movie star, or anyone culturally noteworthy or "known") you had to have that middleman -- the machine -- of celebrity.  It was more of a verb.  Now, it's a noun.  An insta-designation.  The middleman has been unwittingly mowed down by tweens joyriding down the Information Superhighway, weilding more technology than they've been advised or educated enough to know what to do with, and EVERYONE is a walking editor-free tabloid. 

So if we're all VIP celeb's, it would follow that we should aspire to the lifestyle, right?  Minus Middleman, the charmed, branded, upgraded, softcore shower scened, bulletproofed Britney'n'Clyde status update is what's awaiting all of us in life!  Hooray!  Dear government, I'd like my Lexus in gunmetal, and if you could pre-program all my fave movies (you can find them in my FB profile) into the interior theatre system, that'd be greeeat.    

I touched on this earlier in the "series" so I won't be redundant or draw this out much longer -- but I really am concerned with my generation's perception of their reality. 

I see people in my hometown trying to live like they're inhabiting a Britney video and I am genuinely afraid for their children.  Not just on a financial level, but on a familial level, a psychological level, and a spiritual level.   I have a hard time, just from maybe overexposure to it, sometimes taking scripture literally and at face value -- but when it tags money as a tricky master to be avoided, there are leagues of wisdom beneath it.  Stress where there should be peace, shame and debt where there should be stewardship and charity, time and space wasted on storage and accumulation where there should be time and space spent on family and community.  How much we forfeit to the almightly dollar. 

And not only am I concerned for these, but for the ones trying to live like they're inhabiting a Hallmark movie -- the aspiring Christian porn stars.  Alas.  They who might burn with me against the sacrifice of a family's life on the altar of Britney may first be required to remove the Katherine Heigl shaped planks from their own eyes...

Life is not a movie, of any genre.  Okay maybe it's one movie.  

( musical interlude )

I often throw an old William Fitzsimmons track or two on the shop mix and it hits me like a wave of outer space peace at an unexpected moment of a ridiculous day.  Is it weird to be comforted and calmed by a depressing song?  One of my best friends once told me I have a melancholic personality.  I never studied that strand of Personality Typing so to this day I'm not for sure sure what she was telling me -- (I should look that up) -- but I always remember it when I'm richly encountering a sad song or an Anglican flavoured church service in a minor key or a bleak landscape or a grey day...  

My last entry was about crossing paths with things in dark places that you probably don't want to... but I think there's a lot of treasure to find in "dark" places as well.  Some of my best spoils have been procured in voids and chasms many would dread to enter; ones some of me wants to forget -- expeditions gone awry... several I had no choice in taking.  

I don't think it's bad to be kindred spirits with melancholy pieces of this world.  They're some of the most honest things you'll meet. 



for those who have ears to hear

Paranormal Activities

I work in a building that some people think is haunted.  It's an old building, was a Masonic meeting place at one point, and it sits on top of underground tunnels that have an unsavoury (but super lucrative) 'history.'  I always thought I would NEVER ever do something like that -- make a "haunted" place a daily part of my life -- but most of the time I actually forget about it.  I don't think anyone's actually confirmed it to be "haunted." It's not like there's crazy poltergeist activity going on.  Or anything much really.  One time when I was alone late at night I heard a guy laugh behind me, and another night thought I could hear a girl talking from a spot that other people have said they heard/felt weird things when alone.  A different night I was listening to a song called A Vespertine Haunting, and twice, when the lyric that said "ghost" played, the whole sound system would shut itself down and restart -- on that same song.  Oh and then there was the time that I had to get something out of the basement (aka: part of the tunnels) before the staff down there was in for the day...had no idea where the lightswitch was...so literally it was like opening a maintenance hatch to the CATACOMBs and having to run in in the pitch black to get to the one light switch I knew was in the other room -- probably one of the worst feelings ever hahah -- luckily nothing happened.  That I noticed.  

I used to looove scary movies, and scaring people who were watching them with me.  If you know me and haven't heard the tales of "The Pants" or "The Balcony," ask for a re-enactment sometime, they're GREAT.  I also recently basked in the nostalgia that was the Scream reboot and a Halloween viewing of Halloween alongside my pal Hannah, who was just as stoked as I on these pieces of pop culture.  But I haven't really been on board much with scary movies for the past decade or so -- the turn "horror" and "suspense" took after the Freddie Prinze Junior-supersaturation of the early 2000's was just waaaay too gory and offensive (tips hat to Eli Roth & James Wan).  I mean, I'll watch an episode of Criminal Minds...and even be interested in the psychological/sociological drive behind a film -- but I think there's something just straightup sociopathic about voluntarily watching a movie that indulges in the perspective of someone who makes people rip themselves/each other apart.   But as the era of the Saw franchise has come to a close (according to me and the current limits of a viable fad, anyways), a clever new kid in town showed up at the theatre.

The new kid kinda turned up in second hand clothes, and was pretty unconventional, and even made an impression that would have you either loving or hating him.  That kid was Cloverfield.  I know, you thought I was going to say Paranormal Activity, right?  Well I am going to -- but I had to give a nod to its predecessor first, a movie that I really liked but that a load of people hated.  I super loved the perspective though, and the experience of watching that movie "in first person."  It, alongside Universal Studios' 4D experience movies (which are like..cute Shrek ones) inspired the idea in me of one-upping 3D movies (*rubs eyes*) with 4D movies -- how creepy would it be to be "walking" with the cast through a dank drippy tunnel and have drops of water falling from the roof of the theatre on you...to have surround sound speaker seats so when someone whispers suddenly over your shoulder...they are actually whispering over your shoulder...(it was at the point of considering mechanical hands waiting under seats to grab people's ankles that I admitted it would be a foolish investment, as people would have to sign waivers on their lives and anticipate potential heart attacks or leg injuries).   I have not seen any of the Paranormal Activity movies, but I feel like they probably achieve a lot of these same effect on a waaaay lower budget.

My Facebook was blowing up with all the kids from my past posting about going to it a couple weeks ago -- and I was cringeing every time.  Not because I'm a stodgy old person or a weiner, I'm sure if I was 18 year old me I would be ALL over that.  But because I have friends who have had experiences with this stuff in real life.  I've had a creepy nighttime incident or two myself -- not fun!  Not something I want to hand a personal invitation to in the form of opening a theatre-screen-sized front door for.  And not to say simply watching a fictional depiction of supernatural/demonic activity is a sure way to lay out a welcome mat for unseen forces that may be out trick-or-treating during the witching hour or something -- but I mean it's kind of basic science -- open a door, things find their way in.  

One of my favourite recent examples of this is hilarious to me, because it's probably way worse to watch than a fake movie about it, but there's a show called Ghost Adventures -- and it's these three guys who travel to super "haunted" places (eg: closed down mental hospitals, prisons, tunnel systems of vaults 4 stories below ground, all kinds of charming locales), literally have the owners of the places LOCK THEM IN overnight, and wander around in the pitch dark with handheld night vision cameras, telling off "ghosts" they think are being bullies to the living, PROVOKING and inviting the "malevolent ghosts" to prove themselves.   Seriously mental.  And they SPLIT UP too, and perch themselves in the most "active" spots where they sit alone in the dark waiting for scary crap to happen.  Again, describing this, I can't believe I participate in it.  One of the guys actually had the others lock him in the drawer thing in the morgue of the mental hospital alone for an hour.  Sooo not okay.  And they do catch creepy stuff that is undeniably there, some of it seriously shocking.  Since I know my mom is reading this, I'll spare her and let you look it up on your own if you're intersted in finding out exactly what (I recommend the episodes where they are at the abandoned psychiatric hospital, Bobby Mackey's Music World, the prison, the Riddle House, or vaults under Edinburgh for some creepy solid instances you will see on camera as they happen.)  

So speaking of my mom (hi mom, if you've made it this far hahah), she is not a fan of any of this stuff, even the super cheesy contrived versions of it such as the Halloween episode of CSI:Miami my dad and I watched when I was home visiting and there was utterly nothing else to watch and escape the horror that is Horatio.   It was an episode loosely mirroring the Twilight book franchise/vampire obsession, and at some point my dad put on my favourite face of his, where he looks kind of hassled and tired but also interested and curious about a social phenomenon, and said something along the lines of "so what is this obsession with vampires about?  what's making people get so into it?"  Which I thought was a fantastic question that I guess I'd considered on a semi-conscious or subconscious level as it's been swirling aroung more prominently  in pop culture the past few years.  (I had this same discussion the next day with Halloween Hannah, and I appreciated that she pointed out the whole Anne Rice league and the further annals of human intrigue with the undead -- the recent "influx" or "normalization" kind of reminds me of the similar road Hardcore music has taken over the past few decades -- I remember one summer being the weird one for listening to it and the next summer everyone and their little sister watching its grandchildren playing house on Much Music) ...

Anyways, I don't remember exactly what I answered dear ol' dad, but I think it had something to do with my generation and the next one, particularly here in North America, being so devoid of any supernatural integration into our identities/worldviews/experiences, that those who have had little or no instruction or encounter with the supernatural (be that God, prayer, demonic forces, supersensory experiences, infinite concepts, the "afterlife," etc) cannot help but crave and desire it, and are finding it in Pop Culture Sacraments.  An undeniable facet of the Human Condition is to be preoccupied with either one's mortality -- or immortality.  Those who do not subscribe to the possibility of immortality will inescapably serve mortal causes, and those who believe in it will serve both.  So everyone is susceptible in some way to a mortal urge to connect to the supernatural -- be it the temporal, mortal forces of morality and justice and health and death that none may escape and that mimic the non-temporal forces the immortals see as spanning beyond Time and Space, or the Named and revealed forces in their full form.  We are created to experience revelations of immortal love and to be bound in eternal relationship, so why wouldn't thousands of half-loved, if that, teenagers (and adults, let's face it) flock to a mysterious, ageless and neverending pillar of exclusively inclusive consuming love that promises them Forever?     Hmmmmm...

"This is why men need to become obsessed with things...We are able to study something that defines who we are; therefore, we are able to study ourselves," (p.102) 

I know -- you thought this was a sidetrack not tying into the Book Blog, didn't you?  Admittedly, I've pulled this from a bland chapter in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs about team sports that I'll spare us all from.  But I think it's an interesting note on all of this.  And whether it's vampires or "ghosts" or even just a flickering conscience or peculiar feeling that can't be explained, I don't think any of us are exempt from the curiosities that dwell quietly in and around us. 

"[North] Americans have become conditioned to believe the world is a gray place without absolutes; this is because we're simultaneously cowardly and arrogant. We don't know the answers, so we assume they must not exist. But they do exist. They are unclear and/or unfathomable, but they're out there," (p.98). 


For better words than mine on some of these things, and a great expansion on pieces of the last quote here, check out C.S. Lewis' short science ficion story, The Great Divorce.   One of my faves. 

reality (rain)check

This morning I saw Snooki at Tim Hortons.

Okay, I didn't actually -- but I saw an aspiring Snooki. And to know that conscious, free-willed humans aspire to Snookihood...I can't even think of an end to that sentence.  That's what that knowledge does to me.

"In 1992, The Real World...was theoretically created as a seamless extension of reality. But somewhere that relationship became reversed...During that first RW summer, I saw kids on MTV who reminded me of people I knew in real life. By 1997, the opposite was starting to happen; I kept meeting new people who were like old Real World characters," (p.29)

(oh yeah, that's right -- return to Book Blog -- where I update semi-outdated pop culture perspectives a la Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs -- because nerdifying already nerdy observations is fun for everyone!)

Now, I was 8 when Chuck was watching this sapling form of reality television take root, so I technically represent the bookend generation I guess -- the last segment of humanity who knew a time before every "brainwave" and bodily function of fellow non-celebrities was documented and marketed to the masses.  How many of us would have assumed, watching that guy on Survivor traipse around nude and blurred out, that that would only be the tip of the blurry iceberg...

Sometimes I find myself wondering if the kids of the next generation even cringe at or question the soused out crotch-flashing melodrama of the Tang Gang (<-- this is my new nickname for the orange Jersey Shore cast. Not that I'll get much use out of it, because thankfully few of my daily discussions centre on them... alas! A wasted rhyme is a tragic thing.)  

Here is something else I wonder :
(sidenote: I had a great 9th grade Social Studies teacher who gave us loads of diorama-worthy projects, and to this day one of them in particular comes to mind on an abnormally regular basis -- we were given the scenario that our class had gone on a trip and while we were away, in the woods, a nuclear blast levelled everything & everyone; we survived & had to rebuild society. WHAT was our gameplan. ...enter Lincoln Logs fortress, Barbie swimming pool/ocean, and toy sharks swarming sunken school bus)(man, I miss class projects)

SO -- say this nuclear blast/small segment of survivors thing actually happened -- imagine yourself stranded in this scenario with a group of today's young people, or your peers. Who would you hope was with you? Who would you be horrified to realize you have on Team Left Standing? Would you yourself have anything to offer or would you pretty much just be dead weight?   Does this hypothetical make you feel like you're in a conversation with Dwight Shrute?  

"...it became clear that the producers of The Real World weren't sampling the youth of America--they were unintentionally creating it," (p.28)

As the perennial Junior High Group Project MVP (aka: the person who did the work while most of the other group members sat around chatting in lazy ditz drawls about smalltown goings-on), I can confidently theorize that given the "skill sets" of many of my peers and the up-and-coming generation (and when I say "skill set" I refer to the ability to use a cell phone and tip the scales of consumption vs production like a precarious Cirque du Soleil performer), come Day 2 when batteries are dead and the realization that credit cards have been rendered moot has set in...the roles of an unfortunate populous of the "group" would be reduced to Bait.  As in, the goat from Jurassic Park -- for when we needed to lure meat to replenish the strength of the Useful People.   Ooooh hahah juuust kidding  . . .

There are 2 entire pages I would quote from S,D, and CP if I could (pp. 30-31) -- but that would be a lot and probably somewhat illegal.  So instead, here's a summary/segue.  Chuck goes on to say that he can talk about specific "characters" from The Real World, and you don't have to ever have watched the show to know who he's talking about.  And not in a Snooki kind of way, but in the way where the "personality template" of the referenced individual has become so much a part of our culture that you've likely seen countless movies or shows starring "that guy" (or you're waiting for him to show up whenever you watch one -- like how when a new season of The Amazing Race starts, I know there's going to be a busty blonde duo, a gay couple, a parent-child team, an obnoxious set of siblings, and an ageing couple).  OR you probably know 9 of "that person" personally.  And how is it that you could know "these people??" 

"When I say 'you know these people,' it's because the personalities on The Real World have become the only available personalities for everyone who's (a) alive and (b) under the age of twenty-nine,"(p.30)

I just had a conversation the other day about Project Runway in which Mister "Make it Work," Tim Gunn was referenced as having become a charicature of himself.  In keeping with the "you don't have to know who I'm talking about to know who I'm talking about" theme -- for those who have no idea who Tim Gunn is -- what I'm referring to is a person who is known for being a certain "character" with personalized tag-lines, predictable execution, or expected expressions.  Ellen: vest & sneakers, Zach Effron haircut, clever quips.  Lady Gaga: shoes, strained sincerity.  Indie Musician Boy: plaid shirt, lazy headgear, beard, whiskey reference.   You know -- any form of approaching life in a way that seems like you open your closet each morning in the fashion a cartoon character might and put on your personality.  Ready for another day of Being You for the audience of Us.  1-D is the new 3-D.

"...one of the keys to Alfred Hitchcock's success as a filmmaker was that he didn't draw characters as much as he drew character types; this is how he normalized the cinematic experience. It's the same way with The Real World. The show succeeds because it edits malleable personalities into flat, twenty-something archetypes. What interests me is the way those archetypes so quickly became the normal way for people of my generation to behave," (p.31)

For real though, next time you're out with your friends, play a game with yourself and compose an Opening Credits reel based on what "character" each of them is attempting to portray (not that they're necessarily consciously doing it -- but trust me -- almost everyone is subconsciously participating on some level).  Not that you should expect the reel to feature the likes of Snooki (I hope) ... if we had all devolved to the level she & her kin have, we would all be dead already.  I always think it's a fun moment when I suddenly realize what part someone I'm with is autitioning for.   I knew one guy in college who was on an endless quest to succeed Zach Braff as Zach Braff, and I was cast as Rachel Bilson or Natalie Portman or whoever in multiple impromptu scenes I didn't realize I was in until they were unfolding around me.  Such fun.  And by fun I mean awkwardly navigated golf cart rides back across the lot to Reality, sometimes with, sometimes without him.

"Perhaps more than anything else, this is the ultimate accomplishment of The Real World: It has validated the merits of having a one-dimensional personality. In fact, it has made that kind of persona desirable, because other one-dimensional personalities can more easily understand you," (p.34)

"You need to be able to deduce who a given Real Worlder represents socially before the second commercial break of the very first episode, which gives you about eighteen minutes of personality," (p.34)

"Everyone was adopting a singularity to their self-awareness. When I had first arrived at college in 1990, one of the things I loved was the discovery of people who seemed impossible to categorize; I'd meet a guy watching a Vikings-Packers game in the TV room, only to later discover that he was obsessed with Fugazi, only to eventually learn that he was a gay born-again Christian...But somehow The Real World leaked out of those TV sets...People started becoming personality templates, devoid of complication and obsessed with melodrama," (p.39)

"I fear that The Real World's unipersonal approach will become so central to American life that I'll need a singular persona just to make conversation with whatever media-saturated robot I end up marrying. Being interesting has been replaced by being identifiable," (p.40)  

I recently spoke at a youth retreat, on the subject of "being a part of a bigger story."  The aim was to open kids' eyes to the "story" of society, of humanity, of them as viable, living characters who've got parts to play in it.  Which I think is not just something for kids to consider, but for all of us to ponder -- daily -- and which is something that obviously makes this line of thought relevant to me.  Everyone wants to be someone, to be a part of the story.  Kids (well, and grown-ups) dress up like Harry Potter characters and go to the theme park because they want to be part of that story... teenage girls swaddle themselves in Twilight parapharnalia and squeelingly see the movies multiple times because they want to be part of that story... loads of adults these days model their lives on the standard lives of their peers (materially mostly) or of sitcom inhabitants...  but are these glaringly 1-D applications really the path to becoming the compelling characters we want to be?  Sounds like little more than Extra work to me.  You can be relatable, initially likable (or at least blend in), and simple enough to be included in the story if you keep it vague, layerless, and present yourself as a human one sheet... but how great of a story is it really going to be once Day 2 rolls around and there's no story or script, just a bunch of people standing around adding each other on Facebook?  Worst group project ever.

I doubt there's any coming back from the hyper narcissism reality television has exponentially compounded in us -- it's interesting to look back over the past 20 years and see where it's led us -- and I'm sure it will be interesting to watch an entire generation born into it wield the future of mankind.  I just hope I don't ever have to rebuild society with a bus full of people whose list of daily accomplishments contain less than 5 vowels.

the mother's day incident of '92

I'm not actually sure what year "the incident" occurred, but my best guess would be around the age of 8. Regardless, it falls neatly in a timeline of Historical Family Events that more often than not features cataclysmic punctuations of Infamy on my part. If there is a holiday to be had, there is tale of "shainanigans" to reminisce or regale...

This particular communal memory is not so fond a one as "The Christmas Lip Gloss" (featuring pre-literate me slathering roll-on perfume all over my mouth, convinced, despite my mother's insistance that its label read 'perfume,' that it was the same so-cool roll-on lip gloss my friend Lea had) -- a family favourite that footage somewhere confirms -- but it is one that earns a similar sentiment at least from my brother, who enjoys reminding me (and everyone) what a villain I was. In true villainous form, I can never remember the particulars of "The Mother's Day Incident," aside from a general recollection of a mother-daughter feud erupting and culminating in my dad chasing me around the house to avenge my mom in the application of punishment.

I realized something today, as I "reminisced" of Mother's Days gone by, and as I finished Pride and Prejudice, which I'd been reading this week, and it made me laugh. I think most girls read that book (or watch the movies) and relate very strongly to one of the girls, deciding they are a Jane or an Elizabeth Bennet... and while a great deal of me was decidedly an Elizabeth (which I'm sure surprises none of us who're familiar with her), my heart in the end recognized that I was perhaps moreso none other than a real Mr Darcy! I won't be too proud to admit I'm maybe the proudest person I know -- to a fault even. Of which I'm very keen. Headstrong and hardly forgiving, with standards and expectations I know no one might endeavor or dare to grapple for. But I won't say sorry for it just now.

If you're not familiar with the story (which you should be, it's really a witty piece of literature), the most of it revolves around the Bennet family, which features a real ninny of a Mrs Bennet and a resigned Mr Bennet, who form a portrait of parenthood I'm quite glad to've not had to endure (mainly on Mrs. Bennet's side, at least Mr B had humour and cleverness on his). I read a bit today that made me ponder all these subjects at once:

"Had Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort. Her father captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour, which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind, had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence, had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice. He was fond of the country and of books; and from these tastes had arisen his principal enjoyments. To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted, than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement... Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father's behaviour as a husband. She has always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible."

These "light" observations of her parents on Elizabeth's end were much compounded on Mr Darcy's end in his consideration of her atrocious connections -- and in all cases struck me, their reader, as being delightfully and impertinently just. Fortunately for me, I am spared the grievous task of assigning fatal flaws and their fallout to my parents (who are both just as smart and savvy as me, I can *proudly* say, aha-hah) ... but unfortunately there are throngs of peers and elders about society who haven't a hope of escaping such observation...

After an extensive period (months I might even say) of my having adopted a more gracious and forgiving (or at least less audibly distraught) temperment, this past week we can thank Elizabeth and Mr Darcy, along with Taylor (not in the book, but a returned coworker and conversationalist) for the revival of my haughty social commentary.

So I thought I would reintroduce myself before launching back into "the book blog" -- because sometimes it's hard to hear the voice behind the words here in the Internet -- and I want anyone reading this to know that I am self-admittedly delighted to condescend with tongue in cheek, as a sort of Elizabeth/Darcy hybrid, and am entirely interested in plaguing a culture prone to assigning and assuming roles that produce nonsensically simple "this is me" excuses for remaining uninformed, or mediocre, or stagnant. And in much the same way 8 year-old Me would hideously remind my mother of an inescapable aspect of "the true meaning of Mother's Day" (that being the consequence of having to wrest and wrangle a heartless hateful child should you choose to bear one), Present Me will not resist the urge to horrifyingly remind you of an inescapable aspect of "just what is afoot here" (that being a whole lot of interestingly ridiculous nonsense.)

I rail not merely with a perfectionist aim of noting failure, or putting down, or laughing at (okay a little bit for laughing at) -- but to challenge our human failure, mediocrity, laziness, and foolishness -- to encourage growth and to spur conversation -- to acknowledge imperfection and to remind my friends (and myself) to take whatever strides may be made toward a less imperfect state. Constant improvement. This is the lens through which I read into all things, and would encourage everyone who hears me to do the same.

But still, all this to make no apology for putting forth the ideas and sentiments I do -- I am and shall remain entirely comfortable entrusting the interpretations of my perhaps "haughty" expressions to their hearers -- in hopes the reception will be of an entertained dare or challenge... (or at least a charmed eye roll)

( sooo not impressed ... )

my old friend

and when i look at you
you're mostly black but blue
is pushing its way through
because
it wants to whisper its name
through the treetops
green and grown
over the black that's not its home.

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which those who dream only by night may miss.


-- Edgar Allen Poe

It Simmed Like a Good Idea at the Time...

Bet you can't guess how many hours I've spent playing video/computer games in the past year.

The answer: 1

If you don't know me well, this might surprise you because you would think a human under the age of 30 in 2011 would spend considerably more time doing so. If you know me well, this will surprise you because you would expect the answer to be 0. (right?! hahah I know -- I got sucked into Angry Birds one night...)

So we've finally made it to Chapter 2 in the Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs* saga, and get ready, because in case you haven't guessed yet, this chapter is about gaming. ("I think that's what the kids are calling it")

But in true geizer-before-my-time fashion, we'll be discussing one of the earlier breeds of computer games: Sims. But hey! Before you write me & Chuck off, take a moment to consider just what role this pioneer of a game has played in our current culture. Or even just consider how literal an ambassador it is for the general realm of online/computer/video games. What other generation of humankind has actually ever daily invested their own time and life-force into imaginary, inconsequential, terminable representations of their "selves?"

(Asking this made me imagine my great great grandfather coming in from a day of, oh say, building the farm he created out of a patch of barren prairie after moving to a new continent alone at age 18, and spending 3 hours re-enacting the things he did that day with a few sticks with faces drawn on them before tossing them in the fire. I think back then, that would've been called "crazy.")(Either that, or I wouldn't exist, because really -- where would a wife enter that picture.)

Before I go on, I have to say that here, I looked Sims up on Wikipedia and a couple of the basic notes just struck me as being so ludicrous that I have to share them here:

"The Sims is a strategic life-simulation computer game"
"It is a simulation of the daily activities of one or more virtual persons"
"Instead of objectives, the player is encouraged to make choices and engage fully in an interactive environment."

The first two there made me want to punch myself, just for comprising a fraction of a society that has produced the possibility for these sentences to be seriously said. The third one made me gawk in stupefied/bemused horror because, really? We needed to make up a game to do this in? I mean, I'm admittedly a fan of "the scenic route" but...too far, Sims. Tooooo far.

So the other interesting thing about this gaming phenomenon is maybe the (subconscious?) deification of ourselves that is (subconsciously?) assumed when we create and/or act through an avatar. This is the angle Chuck enters his chapter on Sims from:

"I am not a benevolent God. I am watching myself writhe in a puddle of my own urine, and I offer no response. I have not slept or eaten for days. My cries go unrecognized and my loneliness is ignored. I am watching myself endure a torture worse than death, yet I decline every opportunity to end this self-imposed nightmare. Darkness...imprisoning me...all that I see, absolute horror. I cannot live, I cannot die, trapped in myself; my body is my holding cell. I am the master, and I am the puppet," (p.12)

"...some things are just too enchanting (and just too weird) to ignore. Those were my thoughts when I first read about The Sims...a video game where you do all the things you would do in real life if you weren't playing a video game," (p.13)

Seriously. That's what the game is. I've never played it, and I would sooner lose all motor functions than voluntarily do so. Why on earth would I want to spend time I could be doing something in actual life with actual life results/consequences .. doing .. stuff I'm not actually doing .. with utterly no results/consequences ... ? (<-- that's my tie-in for anyone reading this who is (subconsciously?) talking themself out of acknowledging the applicability of this discussion to "games" that are not Sims/"regular-life-based")

(Hey, if I lost all motor functions and you had to take care of me, it would kind of be like Giant Actual Life Sims, huh?) (Wait -- wow -- maybe if we made sick/suffering/struggling people our "avatars"....naaaaah.)

Anyways, speaking of playing God with real humans, Chuck goes on to describe the mundane world of the Sims as the place where you order your Sim to do things like read the newspaper, take a nap, take out the trash, buy oak bookcases, and get a pizza from Domino's (p.13)

"This is the whole game, and there is no way to win, except to keep yourself from becoming depressed. The Sims is an escapist vehicle for people who want to escape to where they already are," (p.13)

My mind wants to take this in 38 directions, but I'll just pick a few for both our sakes.

1. I should shed some light on the dark paragraph I intro'ed Chuck with in this entry (the one about writhing in despairing darkness) -- he was speaking as the person behind the Sim avatar -- in the game there are different settings I guess, for Free Will (eg: if you don't enable some Free Will in your Sim, you literally have to order it to do stuff like "go pee" and "stand up" and "eat")(seriously. punching myself in the face over the fact that fellow human beings have actually done this with their time.) So if you just leave your Sim without giving it any direction...you could find yourself staring at this pathetic being, pointlessly and uselessly "existing." (re-read that sentence, but replace "Sim" with "self") Free Will is an innnnteresting thing, my friends...

2. So the "objective" if you can whittle it down, in this game, is apparently to just keep yourself from becoming depressed. HMMM. Does that sound like a familiar objective? I guess the way in the game to keep your Sim from becoming depressed is to keep engaging it in activities like upgrading its possessions. HMMM. I'm about to use a phrase that, in this context, will probably make a few of us puke or perish, so heads up.

If "art imitates life" ... are we seriously living in a society whose ultimate objective in life is "to just keep ourselves from becoming depressed?"

3. Escaping to where we already are. Again, please apply this beyond Sims, and beyond the realm of gaming. Apply it to any escapist, consumption-based "vehicle" you get in on a regular basis. When it comes down to it, whether it's World of Warcraft or Twilight or sleeping in... we are essentially attempting to some degree to rewrite our reality. And it's not a bad thing necessarily. Imagining and venturing beyond the bland realm of "reality" as we tend to see it through our human eyes is a magical and fantastical part of what we do. But with great power comes great responsibility, right? (<--see, some of the best Truths come in comics)


I don't really have anything wise or clever to say about escapism to cap this entry off, but my old friend JRR Tolkien does:

("the flight of a deserter" vs "the escape of a prisoner")

"Why should a man be scorned, if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison walls?"



...

Use it wisely, grasshopper.

the sky is falling
falling
down
and i apply my
paper crown
to
matted hair
on
wounded brow
i sit alone
and wonder
how
the velvet on my
happy throne
has worn away
exposing bone
(the skeleton
of someone's son..)
but ho now!
where, praytell, have gone
the rubies
i had
set upon
my sceptre here
in yesteryear?
their light's gone out
for good
i fear
or is't mine eyes
that cannot see
their crimson lips
smile back
at me
i cannot tell
for darkness falls
across the the land
between the walls
like homeless
in a hearth
there sprawls
a lifeless ash
a soot the calls
away
the happy memory
of flames
that danced
in revelry
of home
that housed
a family..

Be Mine?

I was watching an MTV show the other day that reminded me of my last entry in the suspended Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs* saga, and it inspired me to pick the ball back up on that. The show was called My Life as Liz -- it appeared to be a documentary-ish project by a high school girl in a cookie cutter Texas town -- but then it turned out to be a disappointingly dramaticized variation on that theme, heavily scripted and influenced by what I'll assume are the musings of a twentysomething girl who perhaps lived (or imagined) a similar theme within the context of the recent era of high-school-movie social indoctrination.

What am I talking about? That's a great question. I think I'm getting to that... Right, so: ValVillage girl with edgy haircut in town of vapid Texan beauty queens aspires to escape drone culture with the aid of her loyal band of witty/geeky guy friends by making controversial film class projects, etc etc ... it's an interesting concept that I'll maybe save for a different entry, 'cause the tie-in to this entry is -- are you with me still? -- turns out that one of her geeky guy friends is in love with her. Of course, right! How can you possibly hang out with a fellow human and not fall in love with them!?

I think the last SDCP* entry set this up for a foray into the (now ancient) realm of When Harry Met Sally. I never actually saw this (1989) movie until I was in college, but as Chuck confirms (pg.8): I didn't really need to see it to know it.

If you haven't seen it, allow me to summarize: guy and girl meet, have discussion that lays down the thesis "men and women can never be 'just friends'," go their separate ways, meet back up, exist "as friends" through series of life events, and inevitably end up destined for each other (with a bunch of dramatic junk in between). Familiar, right? Basically every movie since this one has been a spin on that concept, with the exception of some horror movies I guess. (<-- maybe an exaggeration)(but maybe not)

Maybe this is a great time to write this entry -- Valentine's Day is fast approaching, which, when combined with this cinematically endorsed worldview, perhaps produces heightened levels of delusion in the friend-love cortex. Hmm..yes...

"When Harry Met Sally...gave a lot of desperate people hope. It made it realistic to suspect your best friend may be your soul mate, and it made wanting such a scenario comfortably conventional. The problem is that the Harry-Met-Sally situation is almost always tragically unbalanced. Most of the time, the two involved parties are not really 'best friends.' Inevitably, one of the people has been in love with the other from the first day they met, while the other person is either (a) wracked with guilt and pressure, or (b) completely oblivious to the espoused attraction. Every relationship is fundamentally a power struggle, and the individual in power is whoever likes the other person less. But When Harry Met Sally gives the powerless, unrequited lover a reason to live," (pg.9)

I suspect that the propogation of this notion is one of the core contributing factors of our current state of melodramatic narcissism. We are all walking around starring in our own personal reality shows, and this is the perfect torturous subplot. If we aren't seeking out "friendships" either to (a) comfort ourselves with (or practice on) a "friend" who admires us or to (b) get our foot in the door to become "the friend" someone we desire ultimately ends up destined to be with, chances are good our "friends" are secretly doing this to us. Whaaat?! I know, right?! A terrible thing to acknowledge.

I'm not saying all friendships fall under these shady umbrellas, but I think a lot of them do or will to some extent. But besides that, the main point Chuck and I are heading towards isn't that we all need to be suspicious of our friends' intentions, or that we need to gear up this week/end to overanalyze everything that happens (and doesn't) on Valentine's Day.

The point is: we need to stop and realize where our daily relational agendas are rooted and informed.

(see also: are you heading into your days subconsciously intending to hold the world and its inhabitants up against the plot of an 80s movie you never saw in hopes it all aligns?)

I've always loved fairy tales, and one of the great things about them is the practical social instruction inherent in them. Humans learn best through story, and what better way to learn it's a bad idea to wander into the woods alone and to trust strangers with sweets than to have the terror of a cannibalistic witch in a candy house branded into your brain?

Some folks suspect these types of tales are inappropriate or irrelevant, or even socially misguiding, including one of Chuck's college professors who accused them of being "part of a latent social code that hoped to suppress women and minorities," (pg.9) He and I will agree here that adults being concerned about the social damage fairy tales have the capacity to inflict on children isn't an issue.

"'The Three Little Pigs' is not the story that is fucking people up. Stories like Say Anything are fucking people up. We don't need to worry about people unconsciously 'absorbing' archaic secret messages when they're six years old; we need to worry about all the entertaining messages people are consciously accepting when they're twenty-six. They're the ones that get us, because they're the ones we try to turn into life," (pg.10)