Friday, December 30, 2011
Thing I Love #18
I don't know this couple, but look how cute. It's sad to me that I found this at the Goodwill.
Thing I Love #15
I have two of these. This pattern of cheese plate follows me through Goodwills, which is nice because it's my favorite one -- and I own a lot of cheese-related dishware.
Thing I Love #11
David Sedaris reading any of his work...but in honor of the Christmas season, "Santaland Diaries."
Thing I Love #10
This will eventually have candy in it. Perhaps lemon drops. Yellow is my favorite color dishware.
Thing I Love #9
Kumail Nanjiani talking about Benjamin Button.
Here's him talking about crazy people on the train in NYC and riding the Cyclone on Coney Island. Go ahead and watch his bit about a "new drug" called "cheese," too. And his thoughts about Heavy Rain, a video game I've seen played -- it is as depressing as it sounds -- and, heck, everything he says that's been recorded on youtube. (His show stuff is better than his David Letterman appearance, where he's obvious nervous and does the same material, but not as well.)
Here's him talking about crazy people on the train in NYC and riding the Cyclone on Coney Island. Go ahead and watch his bit about a "new drug" called "cheese," too. And his thoughts about Heavy Rain, a video game I've seen played -- it is as depressing as it sounds -- and, heck, everything he says that's been recorded on youtube. (His show stuff is better than his David Letterman appearance, where he's obvious nervous and does the same material, but not as well.)
Happy New Year!
Happy impending new year, everyone. I, for one, will be glad to see the new year come.
In the meantime, feast your eyeballs on some of the things I've been loving lately.
In the meantime, feast your eyeballs on some of the things I've been loving lately.
PSA: Etsied
So obviously I've been up to other stuff that isn't this blog. There are SO MANY THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS, but most of them aren't things I'm writing about here.
They include re-dating P.C., my car dying and my trying to find a new car, my finding a new car and subsequent signing of many documents indenturing me to a credit union (they seem nice, though, so they probably won't have me building pyramids or anything), going on many, many trips to see various friends, and applying to new jobs that might not kill cars so quickly.
Some of those things are things I've been writing plenty about on Facebook -- like my Etsy store opening, which I suppose is the point of this post, and which indirectly leads to my next several photo posts, because I've learned to take better digital photos as a result of having to make product photos.
Here's my shop.
They include re-dating P.C., my car dying and my trying to find a new car, my finding a new car and subsequent signing of many documents indenturing me to a credit union (they seem nice, though, so they probably won't have me building pyramids or anything), going on many, many trips to see various friends, and applying to new jobs that might not kill cars so quickly.
Some of those things are things I've been writing plenty about on Facebook -- like my Etsy store opening, which I suppose is the point of this post, and which indirectly leads to my next several photo posts, because I've learned to take better digital photos as a result of having to make product photos.
Here's my shop.
Monday, November 28, 2011
New word: Secondy-first
adj. The second time for a "first" of something, when it happens; i.e., going on a "first date" for a second time with the same person after an interval of separation, as in "P.C. and I went on our secondy-first date tonight." Follows numerically (ordinal) with secondy-second, secondy-third, secondy-fourth, etc.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Web 12.0
New spam-mail from Skype:
"Adriana Sumner friended you on MySpace."
If the A.I. revolution really begins with Skype gossiping to me about what's going on in my nonexistent MySpace page using a verb I'm pretty sure is only relevant to Facebook, I think we're gonna be okay.
We'll also be guilty of having created one of the dumbest intelligences since Real Housewives came on the air, but at least it's not going to go all "Hal from 2001" on us. It will need us as fodder for gossip the way the Morlocks needed the Eloi for food, or the Matrix overlord dudes needed humans for...whatever that was.
Imagine if the cylons hadn't been able to resist gossiping aboard Battlestar Galactica. Shortest. Series. Ever. ("Who's collaborating with you guys? Gaius Baltar? What a jerk! If you bring him here to me right now I'll let you watch me send him out the airlock, and you can tell all your friends.")
"Adriana Sumner friended you on MySpace."
If the A.I. revolution really begins with Skype gossiping to me about what's going on in my nonexistent MySpace page using a verb I'm pretty sure is only relevant to Facebook, I think we're gonna be okay.
We'll also be guilty of having created one of the dumbest intelligences since Real Housewives came on the air, but at least it's not going to go all "Hal from 2001" on us. It will need us as fodder for gossip the way the Morlocks needed the Eloi for food, or the Matrix overlord dudes needed humans for...whatever that was.
Imagine if the cylons hadn't been able to resist gossiping aboard Battlestar Galactica. Shortest. Series. Ever. ("Who's collaborating with you guys? Gaius Baltar? What a jerk! If you bring him here to me right now I'll let you watch me send him out the airlock, and you can tell all your friends.")
Local Trivia: So THAT'S how that happens.
About two weeks ago, I was driving up a local road when a squirrel ventured out, crossing by fits and starts the way squirrels in that neighborhood always do. (I've also seen the "mad dash" method in other areas, but never on this high-squirrel-mortality street.)
As I got closer, I noticed he had one of those tiny, perfectly formed gourd pumpkins in his mouth, probably from someone's porch -- which, when I honked the horn, he promptly dropped exactly in the middle of the road before running off. I guess it was just too much of a liability to risk trying to carry it the rest of the way, what with the car barreling down on him at 12 mph. Probably a good call.
If I were this tiny pumpkin's owner, I would have been mystified to find my little gourd set perfectly on the yellow line somewhere down the street.
But now if it ever happens to one of us, dear readers, we'll know how.
As I got closer, I noticed he had one of those tiny, perfectly formed gourd pumpkins in his mouth, probably from someone's porch -- which, when I honked the horn, he promptly dropped exactly in the middle of the road before running off. I guess it was just too much of a liability to risk trying to carry it the rest of the way, what with the car barreling down on him at 12 mph. Probably a good call.
If I were this tiny pumpkin's owner, I would have been mystified to find my little gourd set perfectly on the yellow line somewhere down the street.
But now if it ever happens to one of us, dear readers, we'll know how.
Local Trivia: Sign out front for pest control company comma ones I would hire
The only
thing you
have to
fear is
fear itself
And spiders
thing you
have to
fear is
fear itself
And spiders
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Non-local Trivia: Pushing Daisies' family tree
Here are some of the delightful guest stars that have appeared in the also-delightful show, Pushing Daisies, who have also appeared in other delightful shows:
Mo Collins, as Sister LaRue in "Bad Habits" also appears as Joan Callamezzo in Parks and Recreation. She's also been on Modern Family and Arrested Development.
Andrea Parker, as Emerson's young mom in "Frescorts," was also Miss Parker on The Pretender. She was also on ER for several episodes in the early years and My Name Is Earl.
Hayley McFarland, as Nicki in "Circus Circus," is also Emily Lightman on the prematurely cancelled Lie To Me and appeared in an episode of Criminal Minds as well as ER.
Mo Collins, as Sister LaRue in "Bad Habits" also appears as Joan Callamezzo in Parks and Recreation. She's also been on Modern Family and Arrested Development.
Andrea Parker, as Emerson's young mom in "Frescorts," was also Miss Parker on The Pretender. She was also on ER for several episodes in the early years and My Name Is Earl.
Hayley McFarland, as Nicki in "Circus Circus," is also Emily Lightman on the prematurely cancelled Lie To Me and appeared in an episode of Criminal Minds as well as ER.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
PSA: Whitney is terrible and I agree with this.
Here's an article about how the new NBC sitcom Whitney is terrible, and doesn't belong in the otherwise stellar NBC Thursday-night comedy lineup. (Though it does make my Thursday night commute to work, always started at 9:30 p.m., much more enjoyable, since I know that I'm not missing anything I'd ever want to see on television.)
I was going to write my own post about Whitney and how it's terrible, and I could still be tempted to wax complainant in the future, but this is well-written and I already complain about Whitney a whole lot in real life. So enjoy.
I was going to write my own post about Whitney and how it's terrible, and I could still be tempted to wax complainant in the future, but this is well-written and I already complain about Whitney a whole lot in real life. So enjoy.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
PSA: No, they don't, headline.
"Women Consider Plastic Surgery as Early as Age 10"
Ten-year-olds are not women. They're girls.
Ten-year-olds are not women. They're girls.
Local Trivia: Random books I got from the library and intend to read fully
Spaceman Blues: A Love Song by Brian Francis Slattery -- From the science fiction section, and written by a guy living (or who was living at time of publication) in New Haven, CT, this book seems short (219 pgs) and (unrelatedly) Pynchonesque, as it was described on the back cover. For me, this means it reads like a lot of really tiny vignettes strung together as the protagonist looks all over the place for a guy who mysteriously disappeared.
But there's promise of the apocalypse to come, so I'm sticking with it despite that it skiffs along over an ocean of material rather than diving in like my fave-book-of-all-time, Middlemarch. And since it's more than 500 pgs shorter than Middlemarch, I think it will be worth my time.
Pick it up if: you think the apocalypse is interesting (or on its way), but want to read about it in a new voice; you like Thomas Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49; you like the work of sci fi don Damon Knight, particularly his wry sense of humor and timing and the way his writing appears to goad Asimov's somehow; you can find it in your local library or think it sounds worth $5.18 (or $10 for the e-reader version); you like criminal procedurals like Law & Order, but wish they would sometimes be more creative.
Everything Matters! by Ron Currie, Jr. -- From the fiction section, written by a guy who'd won critical acclaim for his short story collection God Is Dead. The hyperbolic title is what made me pick this one up. Really? Everything? But the quick writing drew me in more deeply and immediately than Spaceman Blues, and intriguingly, it starts out in second person voice, which only one other novel I've read has done (A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan). It shifts out of second person after the first chapter (much like Complicity by Iain Banks), but by then you're hooked.
Again about the apocalypse -- remember, I chose these at random and didn't choose any others, so perhaps it's a sign -- this book tells the story of a kid born knowing when the world would come to an end, who apparently then struggles to know what's worth doing, what's potentially history-changing, and what's significant, and what isn't any of those. I'm only a few chapters in, so I can't guarantee this, but my money is on the idea that what matters is "everything."
Pick it up if: you're intrigued by possible uses of second-person; you're intrigued by oracles, and their use in literature; you think the apocalypse is interesting (or on its way), but want to read about it in a new voice; you can find it at your library or think it might be worth $10.38 (hardcover); you're invested in stories of families, like The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, but are worried there aren't any other ways to tell a traditional story without being either Jonathan Franzen or extremely boring.
Absurdistan: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart -- On CD. I haven't listened to any of it yet, but who doesn't love a book on tape? They keep going through the boring parts, and you can listen to them in the car, if you've got a tape or CD player and you're not obsessed with Marc Maron's WTF podcast like one of us definitely is. (It's me. You should check him out.)
I picked up this book because it was on a featured display, and because I own (but like so many books, have not yet read) Shteyngart's The Russian Debutante's Handbook, which won awards, and interesting ones like the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. It's 12 hrs long, but if the reader's any good (like Jim Dale for the Harry Potter books on CD, or Stephen Fry for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) that time will fly by. We'll see.
Pick it up if: you want to beat me in reading a book I seem to be recommending, because who knows when I'll get to it, and then possibly lord it over me; you're interested in either Leningrad, where Gary Shteyngart was born, or the comedy show Laugh In, where the reader Arte Johnson won his Emmy; if you're taking a long car ride; if you can find it at your local library or think it might be worth $24.49 through Audible (or $10-15 in book form).
*Also note that these reviews of books I either haven't read or have read bits of, contain recommendations of actual books I have read and enjoyed. Do what you will with that information. Let me know how it goes.
But there's promise of the apocalypse to come, so I'm sticking with it despite that it skiffs along over an ocean of material rather than diving in like my fave-book-of-all-time, Middlemarch. And since it's more than 500 pgs shorter than Middlemarch, I think it will be worth my time.
Pick it up if: you think the apocalypse is interesting (or on its way), but want to read about it in a new voice; you like Thomas Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49; you like the work of sci fi don Damon Knight, particularly his wry sense of humor and timing and the way his writing appears to goad Asimov's somehow; you can find it in your local library or think it sounds worth $5.18 (or $10 for the e-reader version); you like criminal procedurals like Law & Order, but wish they would sometimes be more creative.
Everything Matters! by Ron Currie, Jr. -- From the fiction section, written by a guy who'd won critical acclaim for his short story collection God Is Dead. The hyperbolic title is what made me pick this one up. Really? Everything? But the quick writing drew me in more deeply and immediately than Spaceman Blues, and intriguingly, it starts out in second person voice, which only one other novel I've read has done (A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan). It shifts out of second person after the first chapter (much like Complicity by Iain Banks), but by then you're hooked.
Again about the apocalypse -- remember, I chose these at random and didn't choose any others, so perhaps it's a sign -- this book tells the story of a kid born knowing when the world would come to an end, who apparently then struggles to know what's worth doing, what's potentially history-changing, and what's significant, and what isn't any of those. I'm only a few chapters in, so I can't guarantee this, but my money is on the idea that what matters is "everything."
Pick it up if: you're intrigued by possible uses of second-person; you're intrigued by oracles, and their use in literature; you think the apocalypse is interesting (or on its way), but want to read about it in a new voice; you can find it at your library or think it might be worth $10.38 (hardcover); you're invested in stories of families, like The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, but are worried there aren't any other ways to tell a traditional story without being either Jonathan Franzen or extremely boring.
Absurdistan: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart -- On CD. I haven't listened to any of it yet, but who doesn't love a book on tape? They keep going through the boring parts, and you can listen to them in the car, if you've got a tape or CD player and you're not obsessed with Marc Maron's WTF podcast like one of us definitely is. (It's me. You should check him out.)
I picked up this book because it was on a featured display, and because I own (but like so many books, have not yet read) Shteyngart's The Russian Debutante's Handbook, which won awards, and interesting ones like the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. It's 12 hrs long, but if the reader's any good (like Jim Dale for the Harry Potter books on CD, or Stephen Fry for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) that time will fly by. We'll see.
Pick it up if: you want to beat me in reading a book I seem to be recommending, because who knows when I'll get to it, and then possibly lord it over me; you're interested in either Leningrad, where Gary Shteyngart was born, or the comedy show Laugh In, where the reader Arte Johnson won his Emmy; if you're taking a long car ride; if you can find it at your local library or think it might be worth $24.49 through Audible (or $10-15 in book form).
*Also note that these reviews of books I either haven't read or have read bits of, contain recommendations of actual books I have read and enjoyed. Do what you will with that information. Let me know how it goes.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Local "Trivia": Things that happened since Aug 5, and how they seemed
I learned that my brother had found my blog and told my mom about it, though he never contacted me or commented here -- ominous.
I closed this blog to the public and decided to make a "constellation of blogs" instead/in addition, which are still a work in progress, so that the MFHTDWF and Quantifiable Living, for instance, can have their own foci in their own internet searchable "spaces" -- like evidence of paranoia, but hopeful.
I learned two salient facts that made my previously formed plan to drive my mother and all her stuff and birds down to Florida (since she's moving there for Sept 1) unworkable, which were 1. that my brother's health restrictions meant he could only drive during the day and needed to sleep in a motel bed each night and 2. my mother expected her ten birds to be partially uncovered in the rental car I was going to drive down following the truck -- somewhat frustrating.
I imparted the following facts to my mother and brother: 1. I'd anticipated driving over the night, not day, and so P.C. was working during the day they'd intended to leave, and 2. since I'm allergic to birds, I would not be driving a car with partially uncovered cages -- like a logic-puzzle brain teaser.
While at work in the midst of a 55-hour work week, I got yelled at via telephone by my brother, who hung up on me because I was "changing the plan at the last minute" -- overkill.
I set up a "family meeting" to discuss possible solutions with my mom -- dreadful.
I listened to mom and my brother discuss what various airlines serve for food nowadays on flights, for ten minutes, as I sat waiting to begin the discussion of the plan -- excruciatingly boring.
I suggested the "new" plan, which took all restrictions into consideration (that mom and brother drive the bird car down at their own pace during the day; that P.C. and I leave with the truck late at night and arrive at the same time or before they would in Florida) -- the only reasonable option.
I got yelled at -- abusive.
I got yelled at a lot more -- abusive.
I refused to discuss in detail what allergy medications I would take that could theoretically mitigate my bird allergy, which I'd already stated I'd be doing in any case, repeatedly -- futile.
I refused to point out that no one else's restrictions were a point of argument, because health concerns were not up for debate -- futile.
I got yelled at -- abusive.
I was impugned for "interrupting everyone all the time," told to "shut up," told I was "holding the family hostage," told I needed to "think of the family" and told I had "control issues" (which explained why I was needlessly "changing the plan" three weeks before the move and the first time details had ever been discussed, aka "at the last minute") -- frustrating and abusive.
I got a text of support from P.C. -- comforting.
I got a text from my brother telling me that I "knew" they had already "caved into your demands!" and that I was "interrupting everyone all the time!" and that I was "so rude and disrespectful!" and that I needed to "go back to your Mom/FAMILY and work it out!" -- funny, because the name didn't appear initially and in the context of P.C.'s supportive text, it seemed an obvious satire sent by one of my friends.
I realized my family, when it's working most efficiently and as it's been designed to, is a crap factory, producing nothing but a pile of useless crap to hurl around, and that my refusal to question anyone's health concerns, refusal to name-call (hurl crap), and flexibility in offering another, better plan to supplant the first unworkable one, was a betrayal of Crap Factory ethos -- as a metaphor, illuminating to me, invisible though enraging to them.
My mom decided to re-price a POD, which came out to about the same cost as the truck -- so relieving.
The new plan was formed, for brother and mother to drive the bird car down, and P.C. and I to fly down, help unpack the POD, and drive the car back up to avoid the one-way fee -- also relieving.
My mom asked if I could rent the rental car on my credit card and she'd pay me back, and I agreed -- neutral.
She said to rent it from Tuesday - Tuesday -- agreeable, but flawed, as my original plan had included us leaving late on Tuesday and the new plan necessitated renting the car early Tuesday morning.
I said we'd need to rent it until the following Wednesday at 8 a.m., because driving back up from Florida in two days on Labor Day weekend left no guarantee we'd get it back by Tuesday at 8 a.m., and hourly late fees are heftier than the extra day's fee -- reasonable to me, extortion to her.
My mom "put her foot down" about the car rental, stating if it got back a day late, I would need to pay the extra day -- reasonable and disciplinary to her, ridiculous to me, the one who was supposedly reserving the car I wouldn't be paid back for.
I realized that I'd become invisible as a separate person in the process, and instead had become a body to be used however the Crap Factory dictated -- stressful.
I realized that it had become assumed, somehow, that despite my efforts to help as a favor, and despite all evidence to the contrary, I would be treated as an enemy in this endeavor, and that helping would be treated like it was my job -- illuminating
I quit the fake "job," which included unreasonable demands and was costing me a week's pay even without a rental car charge -- the only reasonable response.
P.C. decided he'd had enough and texted my mom that he was no longer available to help -- relieving in comparison to previous stress levels, but stressful in its own way.
P.C. and I had a sushi dinner -- good, but lacking in comparison to our usual sushi place.
I took the weekend "off" of family, finishing my work week with a 25-hour residential shift on Saturday/Sunday -- relieving, but still tense.
I had to watch the Glee 3D concert movie during that shift -- absurd.
I made sure to recharge my "normal" shields so as to be able to interact with Crap Factory workers "normally" after the previous week, which is the only way to try to trigger normal instead of pathological reactions -- difficult, but familiar.
I showed up at my mom's apartment to help begin loading the POD on Monday morning -- "normal" (shield)
The new plan was for brother and mother to rent the bird car one way, incur the one-way fees, and attempt to move things in from the POD on their own -- dumb, but now necessary.
It turned out she was mad at P.C. for texting because "you should call in those situations" -- baffling, but not worth the effort to understand or argue about.
I was told I "shouldn't have gone whining" to P.C. -- "normal" (Factory talk)
I said I hadn't -- "normal" (shield)
I helped load the POD -- slow and allergy-inducing.
I witnessed my mom standing in front of me in the kitchen say, looking away, "I don't have any help" -- sad.
I replied "I'm right here" -- "normal."
She did not respond -- sad.
At the end of the week, likely still finding me invisible as a volunteer helper, my mom had my brother's wife down to help pack the POD -- inexplicable, since I'd always said I would help but never seemed to count as "another person"
I became obsolete, as only one other person was necessary to help with what was left -- befuddling but in a shoulder-shrug-oh-well-I-guess-I'll-leave kind of way.
My sister-in-law thanked me six or seven times "for coming to help" on the last day with the POD -- weird? As if she were hosting? As if she belonged there and I was a guest? As if it hadn't been the plan for me to help all along? Befuddling, also.
My mom said "I love you" to my sister-in-law as she left to drive the several hours home, and I realized I couldn't remember when we'd last said that to each other -- understandable.
The POD got picked up -- relieving.
I used a groupon to get a massage -- relaxing.
I began to be able to look forward to my 30th birthday with only P.C. and roller coasters -- finally.
I closed this blog to the public and decided to make a "constellation of blogs" instead/in addition, which are still a work in progress, so that the MFHTDWF and Quantifiable Living, for instance, can have their own foci in their own internet searchable "spaces" -- like evidence of paranoia, but hopeful.
I learned two salient facts that made my previously formed plan to drive my mother and all her stuff and birds down to Florida (since she's moving there for Sept 1) unworkable, which were 1. that my brother's health restrictions meant he could only drive during the day and needed to sleep in a motel bed each night and 2. my mother expected her ten birds to be partially uncovered in the rental car I was going to drive down following the truck -- somewhat frustrating.
I imparted the following facts to my mother and brother: 1. I'd anticipated driving over the night, not day, and so P.C. was working during the day they'd intended to leave, and 2. since I'm allergic to birds, I would not be driving a car with partially uncovered cages -- like a logic-puzzle brain teaser.
While at work in the midst of a 55-hour work week, I got yelled at via telephone by my brother, who hung up on me because I was "changing the plan at the last minute" -- overkill.
I set up a "family meeting" to discuss possible solutions with my mom -- dreadful.
I listened to mom and my brother discuss what various airlines serve for food nowadays on flights, for ten minutes, as I sat waiting to begin the discussion of the plan -- excruciatingly boring.
I suggested the "new" plan, which took all restrictions into consideration (that mom and brother drive the bird car down at their own pace during the day; that P.C. and I leave with the truck late at night and arrive at the same time or before they would in Florida) -- the only reasonable option.
I got yelled at -- abusive.
I got yelled at a lot more -- abusive.
I refused to discuss in detail what allergy medications I would take that could theoretically mitigate my bird allergy, which I'd already stated I'd be doing in any case, repeatedly -- futile.
I refused to point out that no one else's restrictions were a point of argument, because health concerns were not up for debate -- futile.
I got yelled at -- abusive.
I was impugned for "interrupting everyone all the time," told to "shut up," told I was "holding the family hostage," told I needed to "think of the family" and told I had "control issues" (which explained why I was needlessly "changing the plan" three weeks before the move and the first time details had ever been discussed, aka "at the last minute") -- frustrating and abusive.
I got a text of support from P.C. -- comforting.
I got a text from my brother telling me that I "knew" they had already "caved into your demands!" and that I was "interrupting everyone all the time!" and that I was "so rude and disrespectful!" and that I needed to "go back to your Mom/FAMILY and work it out!" -- funny, because the name didn't appear initially and in the context of P.C.'s supportive text, it seemed an obvious satire sent by one of my friends.
I realized my family, when it's working most efficiently and as it's been designed to, is a crap factory, producing nothing but a pile of useless crap to hurl around, and that my refusal to question anyone's health concerns, refusal to name-call (hurl crap), and flexibility in offering another, better plan to supplant the first unworkable one, was a betrayal of Crap Factory ethos -- as a metaphor, illuminating to me, invisible though enraging to them.
My mom decided to re-price a POD, which came out to about the same cost as the truck -- so relieving.
The new plan was formed, for brother and mother to drive the bird car down, and P.C. and I to fly down, help unpack the POD, and drive the car back up to avoid the one-way fee -- also relieving.
My mom asked if I could rent the rental car on my credit card and she'd pay me back, and I agreed -- neutral.
She said to rent it from Tuesday - Tuesday -- agreeable, but flawed, as my original plan had included us leaving late on Tuesday and the new plan necessitated renting the car early Tuesday morning.
I said we'd need to rent it until the following Wednesday at 8 a.m., because driving back up from Florida in two days on Labor Day weekend left no guarantee we'd get it back by Tuesday at 8 a.m., and hourly late fees are heftier than the extra day's fee -- reasonable to me, extortion to her.
My mom "put her foot down" about the car rental, stating if it got back a day late, I would need to pay the extra day -- reasonable and disciplinary to her, ridiculous to me, the one who was supposedly reserving the car I wouldn't be paid back for.
I realized that I'd become invisible as a separate person in the process, and instead had become a body to be used however the Crap Factory dictated -- stressful.
I realized that it had become assumed, somehow, that despite my efforts to help as a favor, and despite all evidence to the contrary, I would be treated as an enemy in this endeavor, and that helping would be treated like it was my job -- illuminating
I quit the fake "job," which included unreasonable demands and was costing me a week's pay even without a rental car charge -- the only reasonable response.
P.C. decided he'd had enough and texted my mom that he was no longer available to help -- relieving in comparison to previous stress levels, but stressful in its own way.
P.C. and I had a sushi dinner -- good, but lacking in comparison to our usual sushi place.
I took the weekend "off" of family, finishing my work week with a 25-hour residential shift on Saturday/Sunday -- relieving, but still tense.
I had to watch the Glee 3D concert movie during that shift -- absurd.
I made sure to recharge my "normal" shields so as to be able to interact with Crap Factory workers "normally" after the previous week, which is the only way to try to trigger normal instead of pathological reactions -- difficult, but familiar.
I showed up at my mom's apartment to help begin loading the POD on Monday morning -- "normal" (shield)
The new plan was for brother and mother to rent the bird car one way, incur the one-way fees, and attempt to move things in from the POD on their own -- dumb, but now necessary.
It turned out she was mad at P.C. for texting because "you should call in those situations" -- baffling, but not worth the effort to understand or argue about.
I was told I "shouldn't have gone whining" to P.C. -- "normal" (Factory talk)
I said I hadn't -- "normal" (shield)
I helped load the POD -- slow and allergy-inducing.
I witnessed my mom standing in front of me in the kitchen say, looking away, "I don't have any help" -- sad.
I replied "I'm right here" -- "normal."
She did not respond -- sad.
At the end of the week, likely still finding me invisible as a volunteer helper, my mom had my brother's wife down to help pack the POD -- inexplicable, since I'd always said I would help but never seemed to count as "another person"
I became obsolete, as only one other person was necessary to help with what was left -- befuddling but in a shoulder-shrug-oh-well-I-guess-I'll-leave kind of way.
My sister-in-law thanked me six or seven times "for coming to help" on the last day with the POD -- weird? As if she were hosting? As if she belonged there and I was a guest? As if it hadn't been the plan for me to help all along? Befuddling, also.
My mom said "I love you" to my sister-in-law as she left to drive the several hours home, and I realized I couldn't remember when we'd last said that to each other -- understandable.
The POD got picked up -- relieving.
I used a groupon to get a massage -- relaxing.
I began to be able to look forward to my 30th birthday with only P.C. and roller coasters -- finally.
Friday, August 5, 2011
PSA: Looks at books
Now here's a site that made me glad I'd reshelved my books to look at least a tiny bit cooler -- some horizontal, some vertical, you see -- but still.
My bookshelves are not poems.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
PSA: Goodwillazilla
I created that other website like I said I would. You may also like it on Facebook.
Don't expect too much right off the bat -- tomorrow, for instance -- because I haven't even had a chance to buy another T-shirt yet, let alone paper my immediate area with "Godzilla vs." fliers, let alone paper YOUR immediate area with said fliers or tees. Expect a snowball, or for the religious among you, a mustard-seed start.
But I'm kind of hoping this snowball will go somewhere, considering it's my most coherent "art" project concept to date.
It totally figures it would also be my most absurd one.
Don't expect too much right off the bat -- tomorrow, for instance -- because I haven't even had a chance to buy another T-shirt yet, let alone paper my immediate area with "Godzilla vs." fliers, let alone paper YOUR immediate area with said fliers or tees. Expect a snowball, or for the religious among you, a mustard-seed start.
But I'm kind of hoping this snowball will go somewhere, considering it's my most coherent "art" project concept to date.
It totally figures it would also be my most absurd one.
Local Trivia: Godzilla soon to be unleashed on unsuspecting public.
Well, my dear 3 CU readers, I've been brainstorming a new series of projects based on a T-shirt I recently found 30 copies of at a local Goodwill.
I didn't buy all 30 copies, for reasons I think are obvious on viewing (what you can't see in these photos is the date September 13, 2009 just under the picture), but I did buy one copy for this express purpose: to add in a Godzilla in the background that would explain the pained and somewhat terrified look on the 2009 fun run tee man.
These are the results, of course.
I'm obviously not a professional draw-er, but neither is the guy who wants to draw a cat for you. And that's kind of the point, anyway: philosophically speaking, how could anyone make this fun run shirt (or any fun run shirt, or any of the other pointless t-shirts that can be found at any Goodwill on the planet) a unique and desirable product? And yet how could such a re-fashioning of an essentially unfashionable shirt also be made fun and borderline ironic, admitting its essential unfashionableness at the same time it's being made wearable?
I think the answer is Godzilla. This seems so obvious to me that I can't quite believe I haven't been seeing Godzilla drawn on Goodwill shirts every time I walk into a store since I was old enough to understand sarcasm.
In combination with this drawing-Godzilla-on-Goodwill shirts project, I've been inspired by these "pointless" street signs, which pretty much sum up my take on art, humor and public service. So I've made a few early prototypes of "Godzilla vs. XXX" fliers to post around, which I hope will really solve the questions of who would win in various fights, such as "Godzilla vs. 4 Batmans" or "Godzilla vs. Adam West in a Batman costume and also that kid who played Robin."
I'm sure I'll keep you posted on the developments in both of these interrelated areas, and if there's any demand at all, I'd be happy to post my flier template here, somehow, so you can survey those in your geographic location on the outcome of Godzilla vs. whoever. My long-term plan is to start a new blog just for fliers and shirts, so as to keep those 3 readers (strangers, presumably) who might find the flier on the street, from being frustrated by the years of diverse personal rambling here.
For you guys, more diverse personal rambling to come.
I didn't buy all 30 copies, for reasons I think are obvious on viewing (what you can't see in these photos is the date September 13, 2009 just under the picture), but I did buy one copy for this express purpose: to add in a Godzilla in the background that would explain the pained and somewhat terrified look on the 2009 fun run tee man.
These are the results, of course.
I'm obviously not a professional draw-er, but neither is the guy who wants to draw a cat for you. And that's kind of the point, anyway: philosophically speaking, how could anyone make this fun run shirt (or any fun run shirt, or any of the other pointless t-shirts that can be found at any Goodwill on the planet) a unique and desirable product? And yet how could such a re-fashioning of an essentially unfashionable shirt also be made fun and borderline ironic, admitting its essential unfashionableness at the same time it's being made wearable?
I think the answer is Godzilla. This seems so obvious to me that I can't quite believe I haven't been seeing Godzilla drawn on Goodwill shirts every time I walk into a store since I was old enough to understand sarcasm.
In combination with this drawing-Godzilla-on-Goodwill shirts project, I've been inspired by these "pointless" street signs, which pretty much sum up my take on art, humor and public service. So I've made a few early prototypes of "Godzilla vs. XXX" fliers to post around, which I hope will really solve the questions of who would win in various fights, such as "Godzilla vs. 4 Batmans" or "Godzilla vs. Adam West in a Batman costume and also that kid who played Robin."
I'm sure I'll keep you posted on the developments in both of these interrelated areas, and if there's any demand at all, I'd be happy to post my flier template here, somehow, so you can survey those in your geographic location on the outcome of Godzilla vs. whoever. My long-term plan is to start a new blog just for fliers and shirts, so as to keep those 3 readers (strangers, presumably) who might find the flier on the street, from being frustrated by the years of diverse personal rambling here.
For you guys, more diverse personal rambling to come.
Monday, August 1, 2011
PSA: I had a lot of things to say in July.
I just didn't write them down, unfortunately.
So, for August, expect at the very least a review of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, along with perhaps a defense of RPG games (though I've never DM'd anything in my life), and possibly some more complaining about my oil-burning Chevy, Maggie, as well as (I hope) a few funny/interesting/diverting photos of local trivia.
In the meantime, as a tribute to P.C. and "things on the Internet he finds hilarious," chive on.
So, for August, expect at the very least a review of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, along with perhaps a defense of RPG games (though I've never DM'd anything in my life), and possibly some more complaining about my oil-burning Chevy, Maggie, as well as (I hope) a few funny/interesting/diverting photos of local trivia.
In the meantime, as a tribute to P.C. and "things on the Internet he finds hilarious," chive on.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
The new V on TV
I'd considered making this a defense of poppery post, but I'd only have been defending this series from those who loved the old TV miniseries, and from those who like me had hated the original and needed to be convinced to give the new one a try.
So instead, for the masses: the first season of the new series V is excellent.
There are plot holes, which is typical for first-season dramas, especially when they only have half a season to prove themselves, and it's one of only two seasons of V that will be produced -- also typical for dramas these days, especially when they only have half seasons to prove themselves. But the reimagining of the "enemies among us" paranoia of the frumpy, stilted and oh-so-80s original version of V has been updated to great benefit for both the narrative and us, the modern audience.
Special effects aren't usually something I care about, and when I do I'm usually complaining about them and how they distract from the narrative (or lack of one, since they're often used to fill in gaping holes with spectacle rather than substance). The effects in V are, on the other hand, very well done, hardly noticeable (which is what I mean when I say "very well done") and necessary, since we're dealing with alien dudes with well-hidden reptilian skin and superhuman technology.
And the whole "sleeper cell" idea -- now there's a plot premise that's finally found its time. Soviet spies may have been scary in the 80's, but for real horror in that era, give me American Psycho, and for this one, give me the terrorist sleeper cell. The new V hooks directly in to post-9/11 paranoia (not much different than conspiracy theory paranoia pre-9/11, but more substantiated and widespread) immediately, giving us an FBI agent on the inside who's job is to focus on terrorist cell activity. And also, a priest. And an awesome dude who turns out to be a human-empathizing V.
It also does an excellent job of displaying the fear and pain involved in having an impossible task to do with the highest possible stakes for failure. Anyone faced with the technologies of these times and finding herself unconvinced that they're benign can get with that program.
And a bonus: if you've missed Firefly, you can get a small, but eviler, piece of it back with Morena Baccarin as Anna, the leader of the Visitors. Now it's a bit antifeminist, perhaps, to have an evil female overlord, but they're bugs, so who else would evilly lead them? Plus, it allows for an intense and intriguing acting-out of the Oedipus, one that might even be intriguing enough for me to write a long paper on the topic.
So instead, for the masses: the first season of the new series V is excellent.
There are plot holes, which is typical for first-season dramas, especially when they only have half a season to prove themselves, and it's one of only two seasons of V that will be produced -- also typical for dramas these days, especially when they only have half seasons to prove themselves. But the reimagining of the "enemies among us" paranoia of the frumpy, stilted and oh-so-80s original version of V has been updated to great benefit for both the narrative and us, the modern audience.
Special effects aren't usually something I care about, and when I do I'm usually complaining about them and how they distract from the narrative (or lack of one, since they're often used to fill in gaping holes with spectacle rather than substance). The effects in V are, on the other hand, very well done, hardly noticeable (which is what I mean when I say "very well done") and necessary, since we're dealing with alien dudes with well-hidden reptilian skin and superhuman technology.
And the whole "sleeper cell" idea -- now there's a plot premise that's finally found its time. Soviet spies may have been scary in the 80's, but for real horror in that era, give me American Psycho, and for this one, give me the terrorist sleeper cell. The new V hooks directly in to post-9/11 paranoia (not much different than conspiracy theory paranoia pre-9/11, but more substantiated and widespread) immediately, giving us an FBI agent on the inside who's job is to focus on terrorist cell activity. And also, a priest. And an awesome dude who turns out to be a human-empathizing V.
It also does an excellent job of displaying the fear and pain involved in having an impossible task to do with the highest possible stakes for failure. Anyone faced with the technologies of these times and finding herself unconvinced that they're benign can get with that program.
And a bonus: if you've missed Firefly, you can get a small, but eviler, piece of it back with Morena Baccarin as Anna, the leader of the Visitors. Now it's a bit antifeminist, perhaps, to have an evil female overlord, but they're bugs, so who else would evilly lead them? Plus, it allows for an intense and intriguing acting-out of the Oedipus, one that might even be intriguing enough for me to write a long paper on the topic.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
In which a perfectly reasonable call is made for Mark Driscoll to stop being a jerk, and some Christians insist that he be able to continue being one
Here's the post, by Rachel Held Evans.
The post itself is short and to the point, unless like me you read the articles linked within it, and the comments that overflow beneath it. I've been in the process of reading these for several days, enjoying the feeling of outrage at some commenters and at Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill church in Seattle -- whose youtube videos are easy to find, and who espouses views of manhood and womanhood that directly contradict my theology, experience, and most fervent hopes for the world -- and in that sense actually enjoying the toe-in-the-water experience of being reacquainted with some of evangelicalism's foibles.
There are so many of the foibles. But as an exangelical, I feel only we-the-formerly-initiated can truly understand and laugh at them. Only we can feel the bitterness of the prescriptions and proscriptions of contemporary American fundamentalism...and be sucked in by them again and again.
It's partly that evangelicalism has so much outrage within it, I think, that makes me insist on reading comments urging "men should be encouraged to act like men" and accusing Rachel Held Evans herself of bullying and slander. (The slanderer a woman, no less! Reading between the lines I feel this is implicit in every comment calling her a "gossip" and excoriating her character for pointing out the public faults in Mark Driscoll's. These sorts of objections all began when Paul said in the epistles that he doesn't permit a woman to speak in church. You know the ladies, always gossiping and saying nonsense before the lord.)
I enjoy the superiority of knowing these particular commenters are dumb, and that I know the truth. I enjoy the irritation at their ability to continually rehearse their ridiculous views. I like to be mad at idiots.
But of course, there's the regular human part of me -- the part that's more ex-evangelical than clinging conservative -- that feels pained by all of this. Without that part, I'd be a sociopath. Without that part, I'd never have been an evangelical at all.
Because here's the thing about evangelicalism, at least as I experienced it: it's partly about the pain, superiority and outrage. It's about the external pain, sometimes invented but no less painful for it, of being confronted and judged by the whole world while knowing you're saved. It's about the internal pain of knowing simultaneously that you have the only truth that matters and the injunction to disseminate it, and also that you don't entirely believe it yourself. It's about the pain of flogging yourself and others into service for Christ. It's about conflict, and debate.
I love this kind of stuff.
Reading and mentally repudiating (or "refudiating," more like) the positions of those who for no listed reason (other than Bible verses once again taken out of context and applied liberally only when we feel like it) decided that Rachel Held Evans calling for the end of an unapologetic bashing of "effeminate" worship leaders was actually her speaking out of turn and "slandering" the guy who keeps showing us he hates feminism...that is the work of an evangelical -- or an exangelical. It is the work of evangelicals to quote those Bible verses, applying them liberally only when they support existing doctrine. And it is the work of evangelicals to dispute them.
We are debaters. We are thinkers, but we are most importantly Think-My-Wayers. We are talkers, because if you don't say the prayer just right, Jesus may not understand you and you'll end up in Hell.
It is the work of evangelicals to pretend to be nice, but to hide under politeness and "I'll pray for you"'s a warrior spirit that can cut down the non-believer, the dissenter, the back-slider. Instantly. As though the infected might contaminate you as well.
(We will, too. The infected will infect with doubts, alternatives and indifference.)
For that reason, I can kind of see the points of the commenters saying we should let Mark Driscoll do his thing without questioning him, because the point is not questioning, the point is answering, and Mark Driscoll is answering.
And for that reason, I doubt Mark Driscoll has much to fear from a bunch of emails asking his elders to ask him to stop being such a bully. Driscoll believes in warriors. He calls for Christians (men) to take on that character, and beat up the rest of the world with it. That's what evangelicals are doing, everywhere, laying waste to the flesh and the world like Sherman's army.
Rachel Held Evans' blog, and the comments there, just proved it.
The post itself is short and to the point, unless like me you read the articles linked within it, and the comments that overflow beneath it. I've been in the process of reading these for several days, enjoying the feeling of outrage at some commenters and at Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill church in Seattle -- whose youtube videos are easy to find, and who espouses views of manhood and womanhood that directly contradict my theology, experience, and most fervent hopes for the world -- and in that sense actually enjoying the toe-in-the-water experience of being reacquainted with some of evangelicalism's foibles.
There are so many of the foibles. But as an exangelical, I feel only we-the-formerly-initiated can truly understand and laugh at them. Only we can feel the bitterness of the prescriptions and proscriptions of contemporary American fundamentalism...and be sucked in by them again and again.
It's partly that evangelicalism has so much outrage within it, I think, that makes me insist on reading comments urging "men should be encouraged to act like men" and accusing Rachel Held Evans herself of bullying and slander. (The slanderer a woman, no less! Reading between the lines I feel this is implicit in every comment calling her a "gossip" and excoriating her character for pointing out the public faults in Mark Driscoll's. These sorts of objections all began when Paul said in the epistles that he doesn't permit a woman to speak in church. You know the ladies, always gossiping and saying nonsense before the lord.)
I enjoy the superiority of knowing these particular commenters are dumb, and that I know the truth. I enjoy the irritation at their ability to continually rehearse their ridiculous views. I like to be mad at idiots.
But of course, there's the regular human part of me -- the part that's more ex-evangelical than clinging conservative -- that feels pained by all of this. Without that part, I'd be a sociopath. Without that part, I'd never have been an evangelical at all.
Because here's the thing about evangelicalism, at least as I experienced it: it's partly about the pain, superiority and outrage. It's about the external pain, sometimes invented but no less painful for it, of being confronted and judged by the whole world while knowing you're saved. It's about the internal pain of knowing simultaneously that you have the only truth that matters and the injunction to disseminate it, and also that you don't entirely believe it yourself. It's about the pain of flogging yourself and others into service for Christ. It's about conflict, and debate.
I love this kind of stuff.
Reading and mentally repudiating (or "refudiating," more like) the positions of those who for no listed reason (other than Bible verses once again taken out of context and applied liberally only when we feel like it) decided that Rachel Held Evans calling for the end of an unapologetic bashing of "effeminate" worship leaders was actually her speaking out of turn and "slandering" the guy who keeps showing us he hates feminism...that is the work of an evangelical -- or an exangelical. It is the work of evangelicals to quote those Bible verses, applying them liberally only when they support existing doctrine. And it is the work of evangelicals to dispute them.
We are debaters. We are thinkers, but we are most importantly Think-My-Wayers. We are talkers, because if you don't say the prayer just right, Jesus may not understand you and you'll end up in Hell.
It is the work of evangelicals to pretend to be nice, but to hide under politeness and "I'll pray for you"'s a warrior spirit that can cut down the non-believer, the dissenter, the back-slider. Instantly. As though the infected might contaminate you as well.
(We will, too. The infected will infect with doubts, alternatives and indifference.)
For that reason, I can kind of see the points of the commenters saying we should let Mark Driscoll do his thing without questioning him, because the point is not questioning, the point is answering, and Mark Driscoll is answering.
And for that reason, I doubt Mark Driscoll has much to fear from a bunch of emails asking his elders to ask him to stop being such a bully. Driscoll believes in warriors. He calls for Christians (men) to take on that character, and beat up the rest of the world with it. That's what evangelicals are doing, everywhere, laying waste to the flesh and the world like Sherman's army.
Rachel Held Evans' blog, and the comments there, just proved it.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
I DON'T actually mean it.
Me, looking at a website forum: "Some of these people are dumb."
P.C.: "You should tell them that."
Me, to the computer: "You people are dumb."
P.C.: "When was the last time you actually told someone they were dumb?"
Me: "I tell you that all the time."
P.C., trailing off as he replies, to barely audible: "Yeah, but you don't actually mean it...do you..."
P.C.: "You should tell them that."
Me, to the computer: "You people are dumb."
P.C.: "When was the last time you actually told someone they were dumb?"
Me: "I tell you that all the time."
P.C., trailing off as he replies, to barely audible: "Yeah, but you don't actually mean it...do you..."
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Bratty brat brat brats on TV
Bill Henrickson (Big Love)
Serena VanderWoodson (Gossip Girl)
Lila (Dexter)
Dr. Romano (ER)
Serena VanderWoodson (Gossip Girl)
Lila (Dexter)
Dr. Romano (ER)
Saturday, June 11, 2011
This was silly because I was going 60 mph at the time, and they don't even speak English.
My reaction to seeing a group of adult and juvenile Canada geese on the median divider on Route 9, between the left lane and a left-side on-ramp, as they walked along the divider line:
"Oh! Guys! Get off the highway! [one mile later, on further reflection on how my alarm and genuine loving concern wouldn' t help them at all] ...Crap."
"Oh! Guys! Get off the highway! [one mile later, on further reflection on how my alarm and genuine loving concern wouldn' t help them at all] ...Crap."
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Boring vs. boring movies.
Thanks, friend Jenny, for pointing out this co-written NYT piece on movies and boredom, and soliciting my opinion on them.
My opinion in brief is that there are two kinds of "boring" at work in the movies presented in these generalized reviews of "boring" movies: as Manolha Dargis points out, there are the "slow and boring" ones that a previous NYT article/writer had compared to eating your "cultural vegetables," and there are the "familiar, frenetic and boring" ones that Dargis herself points out, using the apparently re-hashed and overly animated, underly signifying Hangover II.
And between the two kinds of boring, there is a giant chasm of conceptions of what movies are supposed to do and why we are supposed to watch them.
I was ridiculously disappointed with A.O. Scott's essay's beginning, which insisted that movies have been persecuted by those who feel they shouldn't aspire to being "real" art -- disappointed because he didn't even mention TV in those terms, as if while movies should and can be admitted to whatever ivory halls exist in those ivory towers of the people who tell us what "art" is, TV is just something we posers get to watch in the lobby. Seriously, Mr. Scott. TV has way worse of a deal when it comes to being considered art.
But I also think that the question of "what is boring" comes even more into focus when considered in terms of TV. Plus I don't know a whole lot about film, relatively speaking, so I'll just stick with what I've got a master's in.
There has always been the "high" and the "low" when it comes to culture, and cultural constructs such as art or entertainment. "Slow and boring" equals high art, in part because it is difficult to get through; "frenetic and familiar" equals low -- perhaps not even art, but culture -- because it seems "easy."
And it is easy. You know why it's easy? Because at the end of a long day, people want to kick back, relax, and be comforted, not challenged. That's why police procedurals -- which tell us that no matter what happens, the cops can solve the case and keep you safe, over and over again, night after night -- are so popular. Nobody wants to get home from work and be told by scripted fictional narratives that their lives are absurd, meaningless, and about to end.
And that's fine.
As far as "high art" and culture go, the slow and boring stands out as necessitating that exact kind of attention that a workingwoman would rather not come home to. Leisure time is required to adequately digest and "enjoy" -- a different proposition, I feel, than the fat-and-sweets enjoyment of a movie like Hangover II -- the slow and boring films. I mean, heck, one of the movies Scott references is frakking 8 hours long. That's a weekend day, gone. That's mowing the lawn time or buying groceries time right there.
So comparing the slow-and-boring to the frenetic-and-familiar, to me, isn't quite fair. They're doing different things.
Dargis might find frenetic-and-familiar to be boring, because it's familiar: but that's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to fill the age-old function of narrative, which is to affirm our values, our safety, and our humor in the face of adversity (because it will all be better by the end of the narrative). That's not just important, it's necessary.
And the slow-and-boring movies that take hours to watch -- or feel like they do -- seem boring to perhaps the masses, and perhaps Dan Kois (who wrote the original article), precisely because they are unfamiliar, and require an investment of thought and effort that the frenetic-and-familiar movies don't (or perhaps require a cultural education not available to particular potential viewers). But that's what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to fill the age-old function of narrative, which is to challenge our values, improve or reflect upon our actions and intentions, and show us the inadequacy of our efforts in the face of an unlaughing and absurd universe.
The thing I find most frustrating about the reviewers' insistence that the slow-and-boring need to be defended -- in the New York Times, no less, the country's most intellectual newspaper -- is that I think they're getting it precisely wrong. Especially if they want movies to be seen as a medium allowed to the ivory halls of high art, they need to admit and embrace the multitude of functions of film, and begin academically defending the purposes and executions of movies like Hangover II.
I mean, even Kois admitted the slow-and-boring were like "vegetables" -- and everyone with a fifth-grade education knows how good vegetables are for you, even while they're stuffing their faces with Big Macs. Nobody's disputing that. So somebody start studying the Big Macs, too, and show how they relate to the culture and to other foods, and why so many people enjoy stuffing their faces with them. Quit feeling persecuted when none of those Big-Mac eaters don't want anything to do with your vegetables. You haven't bothered to understand them, so why expect anything different in return?
Maybe by understanding the Big Mac, we can make films that give us the vegetables but with a Big Mac taste. I think TV has been doing an excellent job of this lately -- giving us some stellar and daring writing (watch Community, people) while also entertaining the socks off us. That makes it all the more annoying that TV wasn't brought up in these reviews...and all the more annoying that the dichotomies being used in these reviews make me think more of "jocks vs. nerds" rather than a more progressive reflection on "helpful hybrid forms -- let's play with narratives."
If Tree of Life is a psychedelic reflection on life, give us some gateway drugs to ease us in.
On a personal note, being someone who's watched plenty of both kinds of boring stuff, I'd also say that like certain vegetables, slow-and-boring movies are an acquired taste, one that becomes acquired by repeated exposure (and an attentive and adept cook/filmmaker). Scott and Dargis are understandably under the influence of a slow-and-boring-film Stockholm Syndrome -- one we might all aspire to, given a glut of vacation days and unlimited Netflix accounts.
But if your job isn't to watch movies, it should be fine to sit back and laugh at the stupid dudes in Hangover II, too. Permission granted unbegrudgingly.
My opinion in brief is that there are two kinds of "boring" at work in the movies presented in these generalized reviews of "boring" movies: as Manolha Dargis points out, there are the "slow and boring" ones that a previous NYT article/writer had compared to eating your "cultural vegetables," and there are the "familiar, frenetic and boring" ones that Dargis herself points out, using the apparently re-hashed and overly animated, underly signifying Hangover II.
And between the two kinds of boring, there is a giant chasm of conceptions of what movies are supposed to do and why we are supposed to watch them.
I was ridiculously disappointed with A.O. Scott's essay's beginning, which insisted that movies have been persecuted by those who feel they shouldn't aspire to being "real" art -- disappointed because he didn't even mention TV in those terms, as if while movies should and can be admitted to whatever ivory halls exist in those ivory towers of the people who tell us what "art" is, TV is just something we posers get to watch in the lobby. Seriously, Mr. Scott. TV has way worse of a deal when it comes to being considered art.
But I also think that the question of "what is boring" comes even more into focus when considered in terms of TV. Plus I don't know a whole lot about film, relatively speaking, so I'll just stick with what I've got a master's in.
There has always been the "high" and the "low" when it comes to culture, and cultural constructs such as art or entertainment. "Slow and boring" equals high art, in part because it is difficult to get through; "frenetic and familiar" equals low -- perhaps not even art, but culture -- because it seems "easy."
And it is easy. You know why it's easy? Because at the end of a long day, people want to kick back, relax, and be comforted, not challenged. That's why police procedurals -- which tell us that no matter what happens, the cops can solve the case and keep you safe, over and over again, night after night -- are so popular. Nobody wants to get home from work and be told by scripted fictional narratives that their lives are absurd, meaningless, and about to end.
And that's fine.
As far as "high art" and culture go, the slow and boring stands out as necessitating that exact kind of attention that a workingwoman would rather not come home to. Leisure time is required to adequately digest and "enjoy" -- a different proposition, I feel, than the fat-and-sweets enjoyment of a movie like Hangover II -- the slow and boring films. I mean, heck, one of the movies Scott references is frakking 8 hours long. That's a weekend day, gone. That's mowing the lawn time or buying groceries time right there.
So comparing the slow-and-boring to the frenetic-and-familiar, to me, isn't quite fair. They're doing different things.
Dargis might find frenetic-and-familiar to be boring, because it's familiar: but that's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to fill the age-old function of narrative, which is to affirm our values, our safety, and our humor in the face of adversity (because it will all be better by the end of the narrative). That's not just important, it's necessary.
And the slow-and-boring movies that take hours to watch -- or feel like they do -- seem boring to perhaps the masses, and perhaps Dan Kois (who wrote the original article), precisely because they are unfamiliar, and require an investment of thought and effort that the frenetic-and-familiar movies don't (or perhaps require a cultural education not available to particular potential viewers). But that's what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to fill the age-old function of narrative, which is to challenge our values, improve or reflect upon our actions and intentions, and show us the inadequacy of our efforts in the face of an unlaughing and absurd universe.
The thing I find most frustrating about the reviewers' insistence that the slow-and-boring need to be defended -- in the New York Times, no less, the country's most intellectual newspaper -- is that I think they're getting it precisely wrong. Especially if they want movies to be seen as a medium allowed to the ivory halls of high art, they need to admit and embrace the multitude of functions of film, and begin academically defending the purposes and executions of movies like Hangover II.
I mean, even Kois admitted the slow-and-boring were like "vegetables" -- and everyone with a fifth-grade education knows how good vegetables are for you, even while they're stuffing their faces with Big Macs. Nobody's disputing that. So somebody start studying the Big Macs, too, and show how they relate to the culture and to other foods, and why so many people enjoy stuffing their faces with them. Quit feeling persecuted when none of those Big-Mac eaters don't want anything to do with your vegetables. You haven't bothered to understand them, so why expect anything different in return?
Maybe by understanding the Big Mac, we can make films that give us the vegetables but with a Big Mac taste. I think TV has been doing an excellent job of this lately -- giving us some stellar and daring writing (watch Community, people) while also entertaining the socks off us. That makes it all the more annoying that TV wasn't brought up in these reviews...and all the more annoying that the dichotomies being used in these reviews make me think more of "jocks vs. nerds" rather than a more progressive reflection on "helpful hybrid forms -- let's play with narratives."
If Tree of Life is a psychedelic reflection on life, give us some gateway drugs to ease us in.
On a personal note, being someone who's watched plenty of both kinds of boring stuff, I'd also say that like certain vegetables, slow-and-boring movies are an acquired taste, one that becomes acquired by repeated exposure (and an attentive and adept cook/filmmaker). Scott and Dargis are understandably under the influence of a slow-and-boring-film Stockholm Syndrome -- one we might all aspire to, given a glut of vacation days and unlimited Netflix accounts.
But if your job isn't to watch movies, it should be fine to sit back and laugh at the stupid dudes in Hangover II, too. Permission granted unbegrudgingly.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
TDS: May 31, 2011
Today P.C.'s car broke down -- perhaps for the final time -- and he is now the proud new owner of a Gene Cranston.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
TDS: May 29, 2011
I went to my blog and there were weird characters on the top where the "search" and "new post" were supposed to be -- again -- and I wondered if I was drunk from that pre-mixed mojito stuff I got with a Groupon last week.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
TDS: May 28, 2011
Last night I scratched my side (over my shirt) with one good, normal scratch, and more than half ripped off a mole, which makes me wonder whether I might have some sort of skin cancer or possibly zombie virus.
Friday, May 27, 2011
TDS: May 27, 2011
Going to the post office feels like doing the dishes, particularly because I often have to trick myself into doing either one using radio shows.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
TDS: May 26, 2011
The other night I had a dream that I met Hilary Winston (who wrote My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me, and for My Name Is Earl, and now for Community), or that I was about to meet her, and mentioned to a coworker of hers in the elevator that I'd first encountered her through Twitter and enjoyed the little interactions, and her coworker said "oh, she HATES Twitter," and I said "oh, so do I, but Hilary Winston is one exception that makes me keep coming back to Twitter," but I don't think the coworker believed me.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
TDS: May 25, 2011
Yesterday I saw an old Cadillac, and I totally and finally understood why our Polish landlord in the 1980s wanted (and had) one of those -- even though our driveway was too narrow for it, and one side of said driveway was a scratchy rock wall -- because it looked exactly like the car a Polish man in America would want.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
TDS: May 24, 2011
"Assorted" usually means you'll get some things/sizes/flavors you like or need, crammed in with some things/sizes/flavors nobody likes or needs.
Monday, May 23, 2011
TDS: May 23, 2011
Gertrude hung up on him while he was still in the middle of a sentence because she thought she would rather guess at what he was about to say than to ever know.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
TDS: May 22, 2011
I may want to live my life thoughtfully and creatively and it may happen that it's much easier to do that as a lower-level employee than as a manager or boss.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Night at the High School Musical
Me: "So, anything on TV tonight?"
Girl: "Yeah, High School Museum 3."
Girl: "Yeah, High School Museum 3."
Sunday, May 15, 2011
PSA: Blogger ruins my one moment of inspiration in May
I did try to post something once this month. It just happened to be at exactly the same time Blogger was down.
I'll try to recapture the magic I'm sure was in store for us all then. I haven't quantified any living lately, or told famous people how they should live, or even complained a lot about my recent car quests, which have wiped out my brain and bank account. I've mostly (when I'm not complaining in person to P.C. about my car problems, or requiring that he give an opinion on something I've determined is a dilemma) been watching comedy TV and horror films.
Perhaps I'll elaborate on my recently invented half-hour comedy TV show category "observational comedy," as opposed to the "sitcom." Perhaps I'll give you all my opinion on Hostel as compared to the recently reviewed Saw movie cycle. Or perhaps I'll watch these two "trapped!" subgenre horror films I just rented -- Devil (trapped in an elevator) and Frozen (trapped on a ski lift) -- and review those.
But I think what you, my three-person public, probably want is something funny and possibly cute, and if that fails, something delicious.
I'll work on that. In the meantime, look at these delicious blogged things from friend Maryellen at Love & Scraps.
I'll try to recapture the magic I'm sure was in store for us all then. I haven't quantified any living lately, or told famous people how they should live, or even complained a lot about my recent car quests, which have wiped out my brain and bank account. I've mostly (when I'm not complaining in person to P.C. about my car problems, or requiring that he give an opinion on something I've determined is a dilemma) been watching comedy TV and horror films.
Perhaps I'll elaborate on my recently invented half-hour comedy TV show category "observational comedy," as opposed to the "sitcom." Perhaps I'll give you all my opinion on Hostel as compared to the recently reviewed Saw movie cycle. Or perhaps I'll watch these two "trapped!" subgenre horror films I just rented -- Devil (trapped in an elevator) and Frozen (trapped on a ski lift) -- and review those.
But I think what you, my three-person public, probably want is something funny and possibly cute, and if that fails, something delicious.
I'll work on that. In the meantime, look at these delicious blogged things from friend Maryellen at Love & Scraps.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
TDS: May 31, 2011
The other night I dreamed that bears were mauling everyone, like in a concerted effort to eat everybody, and we'd all already voted friend Carl into a spot for the ten people who would go into these escape pods and be saved; I realized just before waking up that this must have been the apocalypse that had been predicted, happening with bears first, and sure to move on to other plague-like, nature-turning-on-you disasters.
Friday, April 29, 2011
An account of my dream, obviously about the royal wedding
So P.C. and I and a bunch of other people were on this semi-tropical island for a medical conference that was also some kind of modeling competition, and his mother, who in the dream was cruel and spiteful toward all the other women in his life (and therefore played very ably by Angelica Huston, and definitely not his real-life mom), was also there, along with a long list of players who I don't know in real life.
The basic plot of the dream was that P.C. and I were in a solid relationship, but that for some reasons not made perfectly clear, he had to also pretend to be in a relationship sometimes with another woman (doctor) named Jane. And eventually, since he's a nice guy (and in the dream, he was less weird and silly than in real life, which was the first clue), the relationship with Jane began to make me question our relationship.
But there was also a young blond model named Crystal -- not the kind who are waif-thin and annoyingly obsessed with food, but a very cute young woman who was the "life of the party" sort (which was the second clue). P.C. paid some friendly attention to her as well, which in retrospect within the dream, also seemed somewhat alarming to me.
Then I was going to go to a community college in Michigan to study some course that only that community college had, possibly in storytelling. (Which is ridiculous, because the only college that has that course of study in the entire nation is ETSU in Tennessee.) But I wasn't sure I should, since the medical/model conference seemed to be pretty fun and suddenly I wasn't sure if P.C. would end up marrying Jane or not if I left.
Then the news hit: Jane had not been chosen for some sort of medical internship award. She wasn't good enough. Angelica Huston was very cruel, at this point telling her what a terrible person and doctor she was. I witnessed the whole thing -- and learned that Angelica Huston hated Jane at least as much as she hated me (the under-achieving, Michigan-community-college-attending girlfriend) -- but Jane rebuffed my attempts to comfort her at first.
We all went out (this being a semi-tropical island) to hear the presentation of awards along with a marimba concert on the patio area in the back of the very strange hotel we were staying in (third clue), and P.C. was emceeing. I finally cornered Jane -- literally speaking to her right in front of a corner, though one that poked out rather than in, so it shouldn't have trapped her -- and asked if she wanted a hug, which she did. She explained that she'd thought before that I was going to scold her just like Angelica Huston.
In this dream, there was also an ad (this being some kind of model conference) for "Eddy Waters Makeup." I thought even in the dream that this was an extremely clever and inappropriate name for a makeup company.
Then P.C. went up to emcee the ceremony, except that as soon as he started, he pointed back through the crowd along the side of the stage to where Jane and I were standing at a corner, and I knew he was calling Jane up to explain whatever recent work she'd been doing or to extol her virtues and generally redeem her. But she'd already headed toward the stage, so I pointed into the crowd where she seemed to be, and when I saw her step up onto it, I pointed to the spot where she'd disappeared onto stage with the marimba band.
It turned out P.C. hadn't been pointing at her, but at me. And also, he was holding a microphone shaped like a rosebud slightly opened, which he brought directly up to me, too close for me to comment. Luckily, I had nothing to say anyway.
And then he proposed, somehow. The dream logic is vague, but the important thing is that I suddenly realized that our relationship had been solid all along, and if it had ever been in danger from Jane or Crystal or Angelica Huston, it wasn't anymore.
And that was my dream, obviously, about William & Kate. I had that dream instead of watching them get married, though I imagine there'll be coverage available throughout the day, and I'll probably catch some of it.
Good luck to them.
The basic plot of the dream was that P.C. and I were in a solid relationship, but that for some reasons not made perfectly clear, he had to also pretend to be in a relationship sometimes with another woman (doctor) named Jane. And eventually, since he's a nice guy (and in the dream, he was less weird and silly than in real life, which was the first clue), the relationship with Jane began to make me question our relationship.
But there was also a young blond model named Crystal -- not the kind who are waif-thin and annoyingly obsessed with food, but a very cute young woman who was the "life of the party" sort (which was the second clue). P.C. paid some friendly attention to her as well, which in retrospect within the dream, also seemed somewhat alarming to me.
Then I was going to go to a community college in Michigan to study some course that only that community college had, possibly in storytelling. (Which is ridiculous, because the only college that has that course of study in the entire nation is ETSU in Tennessee.) But I wasn't sure I should, since the medical/model conference seemed to be pretty fun and suddenly I wasn't sure if P.C. would end up marrying Jane or not if I left.
Then the news hit: Jane had not been chosen for some sort of medical internship award. She wasn't good enough. Angelica Huston was very cruel, at this point telling her what a terrible person and doctor she was. I witnessed the whole thing -- and learned that Angelica Huston hated Jane at least as much as she hated me (the under-achieving, Michigan-community-college-attending girlfriend) -- but Jane rebuffed my attempts to comfort her at first.
We all went out (this being a semi-tropical island) to hear the presentation of awards along with a marimba concert on the patio area in the back of the very strange hotel we were staying in (third clue), and P.C. was emceeing. I finally cornered Jane -- literally speaking to her right in front of a corner, though one that poked out rather than in, so it shouldn't have trapped her -- and asked if she wanted a hug, which she did. She explained that she'd thought before that I was going to scold her just like Angelica Huston.
In this dream, there was also an ad (this being some kind of model conference) for "Eddy Waters Makeup." I thought even in the dream that this was an extremely clever and inappropriate name for a makeup company.
Then P.C. went up to emcee the ceremony, except that as soon as he started, he pointed back through the crowd along the side of the stage to where Jane and I were standing at a corner, and I knew he was calling Jane up to explain whatever recent work she'd been doing or to extol her virtues and generally redeem her. But she'd already headed toward the stage, so I pointed into the crowd where she seemed to be, and when I saw her step up onto it, I pointed to the spot where she'd disappeared onto stage with the marimba band.
It turned out P.C. hadn't been pointing at her, but at me. And also, he was holding a microphone shaped like a rosebud slightly opened, which he brought directly up to me, too close for me to comment. Luckily, I had nothing to say anyway.
And then he proposed, somehow. The dream logic is vague, but the important thing is that I suddenly realized that our relationship had been solid all along, and if it had ever been in danger from Jane or Crystal or Angelica Huston, it wasn't anymore.
And that was my dream, obviously, about William & Kate. I had that dream instead of watching them get married, though I imagine there'll be coverage available throughout the day, and I'll probably catch some of it.
Good luck to them.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
I'm dating a troll.
[That commercial comes on where the white man falls into the black family's living room couch, and the black woman kind of looks at him and then smiles knowingly.]
Me: "Now, that white hipster guy just drops into that family's living room, and the black family just sits there and the lady is like 'hey, white guy' and just smiles at him. Now imagine if that had been the opposite, and a black guy dropped from the sky into a white family's living room. Would their reaction be the same, just like 'hey, black guy, welcome to the living room'? No it would not."
P.C.: [playing Minecraft, does not respond.] ...
[Half an hour later, same commercial comes on again.]
Me: "See what I mean? See that white guy just fall into that family's living room?"
P.C.: "Hey, do you think that would be different if the white guy was a black guy?"
Me: "Are you trolling me? You better be trolling me. You're either trolling me or we're broken up."
P.C.: [Smiles] "What is trolling?"
Me: "Trolling means I'm gonna punch you in the face. Your choice is I can punch you in the face or we're broken up."
P.C.: [Thinks about it.] "Can it be both?"
Me: [Thinks about it.] "Yes."
Me: "Now, that white hipster guy just drops into that family's living room, and the black family just sits there and the lady is like 'hey, white guy' and just smiles at him. Now imagine if that had been the opposite, and a black guy dropped from the sky into a white family's living room. Would their reaction be the same, just like 'hey, black guy, welcome to the living room'? No it would not."
P.C.: [playing Minecraft, does not respond.] ...
[Half an hour later, same commercial comes on again.]
Me: "See what I mean? See that white guy just fall into that family's living room?"
P.C.: "Hey, do you think that would be different if the white guy was a black guy?"
Me: "Are you trolling me? You better be trolling me. You're either trolling me or we're broken up."
P.C.: [Smiles] "What is trolling?"
Me: "Trolling means I'm gonna punch you in the face. Your choice is I can punch you in the face or we're broken up."
P.C.: [Thinks about it.] "Can it be both?"
Me: [Thinks about it.] "Yes."
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Local Trivia: Subway sign update
Here's a pictorial update of what went down with that old Subway/Family Dollar/Liquor Store/Discount Tobacco sign being held up by a hefty yellow strap a few months ago, in picture form:
It completely fell apart. The bushes are all crunched up in the middle where doubtless the bits of Subway and Family Dollar fell on them. Today there were workers out there upgrading the sign to a form that will never be able to be held up by a strap:
And the punchline: the Subway shares space with Discount Tobacco.
It completely fell apart. The bushes are all crunched up in the middle where doubtless the bits of Subway and Family Dollar fell on them. Today there were workers out there upgrading the sign to a form that will never be able to be held up by a strap:
And the punchline: the Subway shares space with Discount Tobacco.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The 5 "people" who wrote me spam today.
"Congratulations!!!
CONGRATULATIONS
"Congratulations!!!
CONGRATULATIONS
Congratulations!!!
CONGRATULATIONS
"Congratulations!!!
CONGRATULATIONS
Congratulations!!!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
That depends on what the meaning of the word "sample" is.
Me, reading the subject of a spam-mail I received: "No risk Natalie Portman sample."
P.C.: "Ooh."
Me: "No, not 'ooh.' You'd probably get a toe or something. It wouldn't be something good, like an eye."
P.C.: "But it's no risk."
Me: "That doesn't mean you're going to get something good, it means you won't get a disease."
P.C.: "Well, I thought it would be a sampling of Natalie Portman over the years...and it's no risk, so you're not gonna get Star Wars."
P.C.: "Ooh."
Me: "No, not 'ooh.' You'd probably get a toe or something. It wouldn't be something good, like an eye."
P.C.: "But it's no risk."
Me: "That doesn't mean you're going to get something good, it means you won't get a disease."
P.C.: "Well, I thought it would be a sampling of Natalie Portman over the years...and it's no risk, so you're not gonna get Star Wars."
Sunday, April 10, 2011
MFHTDWF #12
Note: With the recent explosion in popularity of the already inexplicably popular Charlie Sheen, based almost solely on his antics as a famous person, we at Continue Unprotected have decided to resume publication of the “Manual For How To Deal With Fame.” We begin where we left off, at principle #12.
Principle: Do threaten to take other people to court.
While principle #11 states that you should never get caught up in a boring court case, the air of litigiousness surrounding famous people who threaten legal action can effectively add to their fame, but only if you never actually approach the courtroom.
Remember, your purpose as a famous person is to fascinate and terrify, which means you can go one of two directions in your faux-litigiousness.
First, you can focus on one individual who has supposedly harmed you. Make sure to choose someone for whom your fans have no sympathy, but don’t choose an easy mark either, like tobacco companies or people that hunt pelicans. The target of your supposed lawsuit should be surprising, but also someone about whom your fans will say “I always knew there was something wrong with that guy” – i.e. Steve Buscemi.
Make sure your statements in reference to the possible lawsuit, however focused on one person, remain randomly strewn about your speech. Do not give Steve Buscemi’s lawyers a chance to charge you with libel or you will end up in court.
The second direction you could take is a period of over-litigiousness, during which you may be prone to declaring that you will sue anyone who crosses your path for any reason whatsoever. The waitress brought your toast to you cold? You will sue her, sue the restaurant, sue the entire city! The cat groomer clipped your Siamese’s coat a bit too short? Threaten to sue Thailand.
If you take the second route, be sure to lay off the threats after a few months, or it will become as boring as an actual court case. During this time, you may choose to associate yourself with the church of Scientology, as such a church and over-litigiousness go hand in hand. Leaving this church at the end of your over-litigious period will also provide narrative closure for fans who wonder why you stopped threatening to sue all the time.
Examples of famous people who succeed at this principle: Charlie Sheen, John Travolta*
Examples of famous people who succeed at this principle inversely, by virtue of constantly being associated with lawsuits but never being the instigators: Steve Buscemi
Examples of famous people who fail at this principle: Everyone related to Anna Nicole Smith
*Scientologist
In Defense of Poppery, XVI: Saws 1-7
Pop example: Saw film cycle, I-VII
Problematic critical reception: “The Problem of Saw: ‘Torture Porn’ and the Conservatism of Contemporary Horror” by Christopher Sharrett – excerpts:
“Most important, [in the 1960’s] the horror film began to eschew the supernatural in favor of the psychological, as the genre looked to horror as the product of middleclass life, not caused by external demons or a mad scientist's freak accident. The genre investigated the neurosis that is basic, as the heirs of Freud inform us, to the creation of notions of normality and otherness.”
“The psychological themes of the horror film, with their adjacent social criticism, became grossly transmogrified into the misogynist teen-kill "slasher" films of the Eighties, the most degraded example being the Friday the 13th cycle.”
What redeems it: Oh, how sad for us. All the “good” horror happened in the 1960’s and had socially liberal messages. And now all we have is this unreasonable, meaningless Saw cycle and its subgeneric cohort to watch.
Anyone who cannot see a reason for a horror film or, even worse, a series of horror films, is not thinking creatively enough or is too elitist to see the truth. Christopher Sharrett seems to be both: calling a horror subgenre “misogynist teen-kill ‘slasher films of the Eighties” and then citing its ‘most degraded example,” the Friday the 13th movies, implies that those films weren’t expressing a real fear felt by people (perhaps particularly teens) at the time they were produced…and implying that there are fears that are somehow more worthy of expression.
Really? Fears that become ‘worthy’ of horror flicks? How does that work, exactly?
Acting as though certain types of fear are somehow more civilized than others, perhaps even assuming that on viewing these movies we’ll all instantly give in to our ids and become serial killers (assuming also that we’re all, at heart, serial killers minus opportunity), is acting as if we are all basically evil and must, even in our expressions of primal fear, strive to “rise above.”
We, the horror viewers, are not children. We know that this is make believe but also that it in some way reflects our reality. If there is misogyny in our horror films, that’s probably because misogyny exists and has to be dealt with. Showing women tortured may titillate as well as horrify, but if it does so, that’s because the problem of torturing women being sexy already existed. The job of horror is not to pretend these issues don’t exist, but to draw them out and resolve them.
This is not a problem, because horror isn’t an Aesop fable. Horror films are not normalizing. We do not learn how to be by watching horror films, not directly. Everyone knows you go to a scary movie to be scared and confront yourself and fears, not to figure out how to function properly in society.
Horror is a subversive genre, and while Sharrett says “the subversive component nearly vanished, as the genre was relegated to a lowbrow vehicle for shouting "boo!" that its snobbish attackers accused it of being since its inception” way back in 1980, I say this in reference not only to the “great” horror movies of the 1960’s (some of which are definitely great: Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, for instance. Watch them), but even to the “torture porn” we’ve been seeing recently.
Horror is about showing the unshowable truths that comedy and drama reign in. Our bodies degrade. We die. Time never returns us to where we think now we probably were happiest. And when we were there/then, we weren’t as happy as now we think we must have been. The things we love flee from us, somehow or other. We don’t get beautiful monologues on our deathbeds, declaring “the rest is silence” – it just is. Saying so subverts those narrative myths and the politenesses that allow us to live narrated lives.
Horror is unruly, and that should make analysis of it that much more rich. There are narratives that “don’t work,” that don’t function as they should, because those are controlled accounts of our lives (or the lives of characters), but horror films that terrify – ones that are popular being the best guess as to which ones definitely do terrify us – do “work.” They obviously work. They’re meant to scare us, and if they do, they’re working.
So this brings me to my defense of the Saw movies, which I believe this reviewer has completely – perhaps willfully – misunderstood. The premise of the cycle of films is, more or less, that a serial killer called Jigsaw has begun setting traps for his victims that end up with most of those victims murdering themselves, mainly through failure to adhere to the extremely rigid rules set by Jigsaw, or by being physically incapable of fulfilling them. (Spoilers to follow) Each movie reveals more about the previous movie’s events as well as furthering the torture in what becomes a smorgasbord of physical torture; Russian doll style, these films nest together such that layers of information filter down through the viewer’s understanding of each previous movie to change “what you know” to “what you thought you knew.” Jigsaw’s original intent, the one he repeats throughout, seems to be to teach people to “truly live,” in a needlessly complex set of Raymond-K.-Essel scenarios. What took Fight Club thirty seconds takes the Saw franchise seven movies.
Sometimes this seems ridiculous. And young teen boys, which over and over again I see listed as the supposed audience for these films, probably do have a stake in proving their nascent manliness by being “less scared” or “less grossed-out” than their friends at the extremely torturous traps set by Jigsaw, making the torture for them an end in itself. But set those imaginary boys aside for a second, and set aside the visceral gruesomeness of the movies, and take a look at what’s going on with Jigsaw’s supposed motivations, an “inane morality” that Sharrett dismisses without even bothering to interrogate it. You’ve missed the point, fellow reviewer. This statement of motivation, and Jigsaw’s moral system, is the point of these movies. The torture is about the morality, not the other way around.
Specifically, the torture is the effect of the stringent and extremely specific morality of Jigsaw. He creates these traps assuring the audience, whatever audience he can get, that if they play by the rules, his victims will emerge victorious and more full of life than they ever were. Most don’t survive, which he sees as weakness deserving of death.
But here’s the kicker, and for my part the whole meaning of the cycle (and a major spoiler): some appear to survive the torture. Some appear to go on living after their ordeals. But none of them do.
In the end, the Russian dolls, so brilliant in their constant re-framing of the events of previous movies, reveal the truth about Jigsaw’s hard-ass morality, which is that nobody ever survives it. Ever.
Jigsaw doesn’t survive, obviously, because he had cancer when he started his escapades. But every single victim he puts through “a test” or “a game,” as he likes to call them, either becomes one of his cohort, putting others to constant tests and being tested themselves, committing the same atrocities he does, in fact; or they die. Once you have started down the path of an absolutist morality that “takes no prisoners” and shows no mercy, you have already sealed your doom. You are already either also evil or dead by your own hand.
The fact that his victims die by machines, or die by their own hands in some way or another, or that they’re willing to kill others once they’ve been traumatized by their own horrible experiences, supports my hypothesis that the films are about the personal standards we hold ourselves and others to...and in fact the horror of believing that (in this modern, machine-filled, medically supported world) we have the choice to be perfect, but somehow can never make that choice, can never achieve it. If we could, somehow we could have lived forever.
No killer needs to lay a hand on us for us to “die” psychologically in this way. This level of stringent morality, this perspective on life, is suicide.
Jigsaw fails. He fails every single time to produce the effect he says he seeks, which is the production of a fully alive, grateful, absolutely moral human being. His failures betray the principle he adheres to. They show that such mercilessness cannot help but destroy.
And from that perspective, I can see the point of the torture. It’s a physical manifestation of a psychological reality – a physical inducement of that psychological reality, in fact. The physicality is not the point. “Mortify the flesh”: that is the point. "Mind over matter" is the point. The point is the psychological and metaphorical link between the body and “the flesh,” the parts of us that keep requiring critique, that keep failing at perfection, and the supposed liberation of the mind from that flesh that can only/supposedly be achieved through torture.
But then we torture ourselves, and the torture always fails.
My point, here, is that this is to me a revolutionary message for a horror film to be sending, that a judgmental eye will always end up gouging itself out. And it does not, definitely does not, read as a conservative message to me, something that Sharrett accuses it of doing.
In fact, to the contrary: I'd say Saw is one of the most effectively liberal cycles of film I have seen in a long time – more effective even (perhaps) than bleeding-heart documentary because, like a good bleeding-heart documentary, it gets us mad, but unlike many of those documentaries, it also makes us fear for our lives in our guts and not just in our brains.
What could be more internal and psychologically basic than that?
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