PSA: Startling conversation in the marketplace -- though I guess we are a consumer-democratic nation.

Here's something I found while looking over the Amazon review of my pastor's most recent and only book (about which I have no opinion, having not [yet] read it): A conversation about what to do if your child declares herself an atheist.

Interesting, but exhausting stuff.

New word: Music-cool

adj. a person or media presentation (i.e. movie, TV show, powerpoint presentation) that displays a musical knowledge and comprehension of songs and artists that are just about to "break out," especially in the cutting-edge genre of its time (i.e. grunge rock in early 90s; indie pop/rock in the late 00s); music-cool people can lay claim to "discovering" at least one group in said genre before anyone they know, and evangelizing said group to others.

PSA: Grey's Anatomy will make you music-cool.

I've been rewatching Grey's Anatomy, which I used to view as "appointment television" with my roommates in DC three and four years ago, recently. I've had a significantly different reaction to the show the second time around.

For one thing, watching all the episodes in a row without commercials makes me feel less annoyed at Meredith Grey, who, unlike her predecessing whiny sisters (think Ally McBeal and Grace from Will and Grace), actually has a lot of trauma in her life, stuff that justifies the whining.

For another, since 2006, I've become infinitely more music-cool. And it turns out that Grey's Anatomy has been music-cool all along. Admittedly, some of the indie music they play is still middling -- Snow Patrol is addictive, but more like crack than wheat crackers and hummus; Bird and the Bee have that one awesome song, but the rest seem just okay -- but when in the middle of season 4 I said to myself "well, they haven't played The National yet," they did...and a song that I wouldn't really have expected -- a kind of obscure, appropriate song.

The show has its share of treacle, but then so does the indie music scene (see again: Snow Patrol).

Now I'm waiting for Animal Collective and Matt & Kim. They're probably in there somewhere in season 5, or about to go up in season 6.

Confessions XLIII

I bought 8 boxes of cereal at Target over the last 2 days.

I did this even though I don't need cereal, and with the intent to give 3 boxes of it -- maybe 4 -- to P.C. because I already had like 7 boxes of it at home. I did it to get 2 $5 gift cards to Target so I can buy DVDs in the future and not feel like I'm a spendthrift.

I fully expect to sit in front of the giant TV P.C. bought himself for hours at a time after these purchases, watching those DVDs while eating generic Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Mini-Wheats until I'm fat and lethargic.

PSQ: Half-hour comedies

Would anyone recommend a half-hour comedy available on DVD to follow Arrested Development when P.C. and I inevitably finish watching season 3?

I've heard Pushing Daisies is good, and I've seen a few episodes of Better Off Ted, which is pretty funny and also continues the Portia de Rossi kick of AD.


*Here's a partial list of shows (I)we've watched, so you can avoid repeating recommendations and get a sense of our tastes:

30 Rock
Big Bang Theory
Scrubs
The Office (American)
Weeds

Local Trivia, flood edition: Charles overflows

P.C. and I walked up past the Charles in Waltham on Tuesday, enjoying the awesome post-deluge weather that hit during the weekend and ended on Monday night with some kind of weird hail. As we often do, we took the "river walk" that runs along the river toward Moody Street, which is one of the two streets with stuff on it in Waltham.

We were greeted by two kids on bikes riding in the opposite direction, advising us not to continue. When we continued anyway, we ended up walking on the grass between the flooded river path and the also-flooded parking lot on the other side -- until we reached the gate between path and parking, which dipped lower and had several inches of water over it, and between us and the other side of the grass median.

We turned around and approached Moody Street from another direction, and when we got to the dam, there were gawkers staring into the water. Like any good rubberneckers, we went to see what it was about: the river hadn't overflowed up onto the street, but the overflow basin had overflowed into what appeared to be the yard of a former mill; the wooden bridge now connected to a small island on the mill-side of the river, which explained why it was all cones and "caution" tape on the dry side.

There were Caterpillars and sand bags, police and a news van. It was fun to see -- or at least more fun than the fried water heater and furnace in my apartment basement that left the house without heat or hot water for two days.

Having to wash your hair in a bucket seems more justified when you're staring at an overflowing dam, is all I'm saying.

PSA: Dangerous Assignment old-tyme radio

Hey, guys -- here's a taste of what my 1950s TV project/independent study has dug up: old-tyme samples of the radio show that preceded the 1951 television show of the same name, Dangerous Assignment.

You'll learn a bit about the genre and radio show here (as well as getting a sample episode), but if you just want to cut to the action, this is a better bet.

It's no This American Life, but then again, white people were different in the 1950s. Enjoy!

Local Trivia: Another annoying thing about Brandeis University

The default search engine is "bing."

Local Trivia: Conferenced and cancelled

Well, I read my "Offline" paper -- or a 7-pg version of it (I know, you're thinking "why didn't you post THAT version here??" Suck it up) -- at the Cultural Production conference yesterday. It went pretty well, though I had to read fast and the discussant asked each panelist a question relating to how our projects would work in conjunction with various James Cameron films...and my comparison film, he said, should be Titanic. Considering the question, I think I acquitted myself well.

Unfortunately, by the time I went on, about half the people I knew at the conference had left, and I was an hour late for work.

Even more unfortunately, this is probably the last CP conference for Brandeis, which has decided, bizarrely and opaquely, to end the Cultural Production program. The most frustrating aspect of the process is that despite our protests -- well-written, well-spoken protests that were supposed to go to the heart of what they objected to in continuing CP (which is a money-making program, by the way, cut by a committee designed to cut costs at the university) -- the committee, provost, and other decision-makers simply and continually averred that there were "other reasons" and "hidden costs" to the program that they then refused to name.

It's enough to make a girl think in terms of conspiracy theory -- like how maybe these decision-makers are still upset at the protests over selling off art from the Rose Art Museum on campus, which was another hasty and opaque decision made by committee last year.

Perhaps the "hidden costs" of continuing a profit-earning Cultural Production program is the price of the art they'd be able to sell from the museum if people like us weren't there to stop them.

Personally, even in the midst of the conference-high, I feel insulted by the decision and by the apparent lack of concern and respect shown in not giving us real details on why our program should be expunged. I am going into debt to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars for this degree, paid to a university that not only doesn't value my education, but doesn't care enough to tell me why it doesn't care.

We were instructed, in our protesting and letters, not to make threatening remarks that wouldn't help us with the committee, remarks like "I will blacken the name of Brandeis with everyone I talk to for the next forty years," or "this is a stupid decision made by stupid people" or "are you on crack? Seriously, are you?"

Well, nothing will help us with the committee now, and so nothing will help the committee, administrative decision-makers, and provost's office with my wrath. This was a stupid decision, made by people I hope were on drugs, and I will be responding to every future "please give us money" alumn call with "sorry, you already took my money, and I am never giving you more."

PSA: Things that are insufficient, but still better than nothing.

1-ply toilet paper

Shoddy tent-building skills

Airplane blankets

Bathroom stall doors that leave 1" gaps on both sides

Kids' scissors

The current health care bill

PSA: War narrative for the 21st century

This is a very well-written article about how narratives, and war narratives in particular, can shape our experiences and memories...tangentially.

Basically, it's one of many perspectives from people coming back from war.

For another one, try Christopher Hedges' War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, or listen to the fictional Man in the Dark by Paul Auster (though beware the PAs) -- in addition to all the classics from Red Badge of Courage to All's Quiet on the Western Front.

Local Trivia: Thanks for letting me off the hook, guys.

An evangelical church near Waterbury, CT, has occasionally had sign messages posted on its church events sign that cause me evangelical concern -- thanks usually to their strange syntax, I find myself wondering if Jesus is telling me to go back to evangelical church.

Today, driving past, I observed a sign that snapped me out of the thrall leftover from previous signs: "We still believe in the the pledge of allegiance to God to country to our flag."

Since I know from all biblical evidence that Jesus didn't come to urge us to "pledge" to "our flag" as U.S. citizens -- and least of all during Lent (I mean, surely there are other things this church could be focusing on during this season??) -- this sign effectively relieved me of all concern that I should pay attention to this church's signs.

Thanks, evangelicals, for outing yourselves once again.

PSA: Aliens have good taste.

According to NPR on Monday, the Brits are beginning to get fed up with people using Freedom of Information laws there to get copies of reports of UFO sightings. The government feels it's a waste of money and time, and it has perhaps been part of the reason UFO sightings have gone up recently -- UFO sighters being, likely, highly suggestible people.

As a result, the Brits are now going to shred documentation of UFO reports 30 days after they're first reported.

That seems reasonable enough to me; I mean, if there really are aliens, and if they're interested in a hostile takeover (which is the only possibility that really could worry us), what good will govt. documentation of the impending attack do us? No good.

More important than all of this, I think, is the possibility that extraterrestrial life really IS visiting the UK more often than other places. Daytrip to earth? Hey, let's go see Bath! Or the Cotswolds! Let's go see that quaint walled-in city that defended itself against the Welsh!

I think the aliens and I might get along pretty well.

Local Trivia: Treasure, ho?

Observed: A pole sticking up from the iced-over lake on the side of the Mass Pike, near the 395 exit, with a pirate flag affixed to its top...as though a pirate ship had sunk and then been lost beneath the ice with only the mast showing.

PSA: I told you so.

Finally, the mainstream (or, heck, any) media says what I figured was true eight years ago: depression can be good for the soul, ultimately. There's a lot to learn from it, and you're generally better off when you come out of the stupor of self-immolation than you were when you went in.

Now if only we could see the economy that way, we'd probably all be fine.

PSA: Five ways to make your website instantly more tacky

1. Add clip art.

2. Add a .midi file that plays too loud "in the background"

3. Add an animation (i.e., "dancing Jesus")

4. Use colors and fonts that would have been popular in the 80's, without irony

5. Add one of those animations of actual people who "interact" with the "visitor" as though they were "really there"

Local Trivia: My new awesome coat

This is my new awesome coat from the Goodwill. It was made by "Town and Country Clothes" in West Hartford, CT, and it goes down to my knees and is made of wool.
(I can tell because it's itchy on my neck.)

Long live my new coat.

PSA: Horror Movie Recommendations

The Order -- That's right. The Order, with Heath Ledger and that guy from the TV show Sliders. It's creepy and has explicit theological underpinnings based in the idea of the "sin eater," an idea that's scary enough without an evil pope and asking dying hanged men for the secrets of the universe. Luckily, The Order has all of those things plus Shannyn Sossamon.

Battle Royale (Japanese) -- This is the only movie I've ever shut off when I was alone...twice. The uncanny first seven minutes or so creep me out as much as anything I've seen, but then give way to a kind of melodrama that nonetheless causes you to wonder what you would care about if you were about to die. While "wow, those Japanese are really weird and worried about population control issues" is a valid interpretation, there is more to get out of it than just that, if you can get past the uncanny beginning and soap-operatic follow-up.

Gremlins -- Cute fuzzy things will eat you from the toilet (Gremlins 2, but you get the point), and one gets microwaved. Enough said.

House of Sand and Fog -- This is one of those movies that most people think isn't horror, but that I think might be more horrific than most slasher flicks. Jennifer Connolly is good, but of course Ben Kingsley is better.

Psycho -- If you don't know the twist at the end, it's excellent; if you do know the twist, it's still excellent. For a Hitchcock runner-up starring Jimmy Stewart and featuring a much more philosophical take on murder that withstands multiple, multiple viewings, try Rope.

American Psycho -- Full of sex and gore, the real chill in this movie comes at the end. This recommendation is my concession to slasher-flick lovers, though again, it's got a philosophical flair. Whatever you do, do not watch the sequel.

Grindhouse (Planet Terror, Deathproof) -- Both of these movies are very, very well done, and should be seen by anyone who appreciates other Quentin Tarantino films (Kill Bill, for instance). They should also be seen by anyone who likes zombies or car chases.


That's all I can think of for now, but I'm sure I'll remember others. Leave your recommendations in the comments, too.

Movie Review: V-day double feature -- House on Haunted Hill (1999), The Lazarus Project

Well, the Valentine's Day horror movie marathon this year was only half a disaster, and that half was (disappointingly) the 1999 remake of the Vincent Price classic "House on Haunted Hill."

Instead of remaking the narratively complex original version, wherein the characters all turn out to be linked in unexpected ways, and human agency is responsible for all the "haunting" going on -- and in which a vat of acid figures prominently -- the makers of HoHH '99 seemed to feel that those 1950's writers had simply used storyline as a crutch because they hadn't had the advantages of the kinds of special effects that we have nowadays.

To correct the drama-heavy character-development of the past, the writers of HoHH '99 (or producers or what-have-you; everyone involved) squished in all the special effects available to them in 1999, thus realizing what they must feel was the original dream for the movie. "If they'd had CGI, they could have gotten rid of all this extraneous plot!" they must have been thinking.

Instead of human machinations leading to death and destruction, it was now the insane-asylum house itself that was getting revenge on the descendants of some other people who had died there. Instead of Vincent Price and his on-screen wife engaging in witty banter that only danced on the line between "sarcastic and sharp" and "going too far," the billionaire and his wife engage in a hate-fest that only cuts through the lack of plot thanks to the purity of its vitriol. Instead of doubles and who-done-its, we got actual ghosts. Instead of acid, we got a meaningless tank of blook that hurt no one, but was somehow meant to be creepy.

There were a few moments of good fun, but they're all tangential, and most happen in the first ten minutes. Lisa Loeb has a cameo, as does the guy who played "Spike" on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a stroke of genius in casting; Taye Diggs does a decent job at a terrible role, as does Ali Larter (Nicki/Jessica from Heroes), and Geoffrey Rush is brilliant as ever, but the inclusion of Peter Gallagher could only have been justified by an attempt at self-referential humor -- one that the movie did not make.

The movie is a failure, but many horror movies are. The difference with this one was the name-branding and the high expectations it created. I'm left now with more than the simple disdain I hold for "Gravedancers" or the strangely ambitious failings of "Unspeakable": I'm left with contempt for a movie that's probably ruined the chances of viewers going back in time to see the original, far superior, "House on Haunted Hill."

Our second feature, "The Lazarus Project," was a much more successfully done horror film. It, like HoHH '99, also features a prolonged stay at an insane asylum, but that is where the similarities end. It's in the vein of "Life of David Gale," though I know that movie doesn't read immediately as horror, and that makes "The Lazarus Project" unique in my experience: it is essentially a horror film for liberals.

The main character is basically innocent of all crimes, which is important to mention, and is convicted of assisting in three homocides in Texas, which is also important -- Texas being the state most likely to kill you. The main thrust of the movie's argument (I told you it was for liberals) is that we shouldn't get to manipulate people's lives, even if we're saving them. It's an interesting movie, even if the anti-death-penalty plot has been done better in "David Gale" and the crazy-guy-who's-not-really-crazy has been done better in a dozen other places (including a TNG episode).

At any rate, it was a fun night, started off with an episode of Criminal Minds, from season 1, which is always a good starter. As a celebratory drink, we had what you see above, which is not champagne -- it's actually Green Tea Pomegranate soda, which P.C. and I have taken to calling "fixins soda" because it tastes like all the extra ingredients on a fast-food hamburger -- and drunk from the plastic champagne glasses from my brother's wedding.

PSA: Arizona, in effort to be logically consistent, to abolish all speed limits

This morning on NPR, it was revealed that a certain portion of Arizona highway outside Phoenix has had speeding cameras installed for at least a year.

People are furious about this, probably because the tickets are something like $180, and up until then, they'd been getting away with driving as fast as they wanted with only the cops to worry about. Fortunately, 2/3 of drivers who have received camera-tickets have found a solution to the problem in not paying the fines. One driver, aware that the requirement for ticketing is to have a view of the individual driver's face, has been wearing a monkey mask and eluding possibly 37 tickets. (I say "possibly" because who knows how many people are actually under that monkey mask driving around in that same car every day?)

The new (Republican) governor of Arizona has lambasted the former (Democratic) governor of Arizona for starting the program, which she says was "only" to earn money for the state. She makes the choice to install cameras sound preposterous and malicious. (The government is trying to steal your money.)

Maybe she's been ticketed, too.

There's no other explanation for maligning a practice that has likely contributed to the 25% decrease in traffic fatalities, leading to less time state troopers spend driving from accident to accident (a savings, I would imagine, in time spent on that task and overtime pay) and, heck, fewer people dead: 81 fewer people, to be exact.

Unless she's against the idea of speed limits at all, even though they appear to keep us safe from maniac drivers who think they're capable of controlling their cars at 90 mph -- and who as often as not end up crashing into our cars, leaving us stranded, paying higher insurance rates, and possibly maimed or killed.

Besides, people who hated being pulled over before should be rejoicing. At least they don't have to slow down and pull over now. At least they don't have to feel that shock of adrenaline when they realize that was an unmarked police car they just passed, and wonder if they're going to get snagged.

I'm not trying to go all Big Brother here -- it is scary that the govt. (or rather the private enterprise that handles these cameras and ticketing, which is based in Arizona) can look into our cars via cameras. But heck, a cop that pulls us over can see at least as much just from outside the car. And we all pretty much agree to speed limits, right? Which is a "violation" of our "rights" to drive as fast as we freaking want to begin with, right?

If we're going to complain about cameras reinforcing the law, then we should probably -- just for the sake of consistency -- be complaining about the speed limit laws, not the fact that they're now being enforced.

The way I see it, the only problem with speed limits (and I'm a speeder most of the time myself), is that sporadic reinforcement, and the subsequent stupid driving practices of people who think they can jimmy an extra 5 mph out of the system. With the cameras? Problem solved.

Past local trivia: Jenny found the quote wall

From Jenny, in the comments:

"So, during the snow days this week I was doing some cleaning and guess what I found! A few samples:


"I had to prostitute my kids to support my habit." - Carl, on spearmint Altoids

"It's like the eye of Sauron... but in a good way." - Jenny D"

And *I'm* the one who watches 'Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.'" - Christopher

"Something had to be pretty, and the world wasn't changing." - Alicia, on why she changed into a skirt

"Please come date us!" - Debbie, suggesting a possible ad for the Writing Center

"It's really bright in here. I feel like the Lord is coming." - Meredith

Ben: I'm more selfless than ever before.
Maria: Way to go, Ben! "


Everyone please excuse me while I laugh hilariously at (and with) our former selves. Ah. We were awesome then.

Quantifiable Living: Story-within-a-story/Paul Auster scale

Item: Story within a story (oral or written)


Unit of measure: Paul Austers (PA)


How It Works: This scale measures the levels of storytelling going on in any given storytelling experience. Each Paul Auster is equal to two stories, with one embedded in the other. If a person tells you a total of four stories within the aegis of one main storytelling experience -- that is, before they have reached the final purpose of the initial storytelling -- with each embedded in the last, for instance, that would be 2 PA.

This scale is especially useful when dealing with older people like Grandpa Simpson (or real-life equivalent), or younger people who tend to ramble, but it should not be applied too liberally. The stories that qualify for the "Story-within-a-story/Paul Auster scale" should be relatively high-quality; should have an identifiable beginning, middle and end, even if they're not as fully developed as they could be; should give the listener a sense both of the interconnectedness of life and the ultimate inability to articulate one's "real truth" or "real self"; should cause one to question whether the story has any ultimate or practical meaning; should leave one with a haunting sense that one has missed something essential in listening, something that could prove the key to the whole story if only the listener had caught it.

These criteria may be met by the quality and content of the story itself (stories themselves), or by the listener's respectful and listening attitude toward the stories, such that the listener's attitude adds gravitas and reflection to stories that may not demand it. Where there is no respect, however, there cannot be a PA correlation, as all stories tend to blend together and create a different experience related more to sheer length of talking rather than story embeddedness.


Examples:

Someone tells you a story about going to the store and finding a penny on the way, diverging into a parallel story about how he used to collect coins when he was young and trusted the government: 1 PA

The same storyteller augments the penny-finding and collecting story with scenes from his stint in Vietnam, adding the perspective of a young Vietnamese girl who causes him to ultimately question the government's motives and reason for being there: 2 PA

You hear a story about a woman who met her husband when he came from the fire department to rescue her cat from a tree, and you hear how she came to get the cat, the story of the previous owner of the cat's mother who had hung herself from a tree for unrequited love, and also the content of the short story she was writing at the time, which had a flashback in it: 3 PA


Limits: A story followed by another story does not meet the criteria for the story-within-a-story/Paul Auster scale. That would be a story cycle, or a series of stories, which can be measured by normal means: i.e., "one story," "two stories," "fifteen stories in a row," etc.


Elaborations: The borderline exception to this provision is if, at the end of the series of stories, the listener realizes that all the stories were actually interconnected in ways that became clear only through listening. In this case, either the usual method of story-counting (i.e. "five stories in a row") with an addendum of explanation (i.e. "and it turned out that all the people met each other at a party in the end") may be used, or the PA unit of measure may be applied, though carefully.

For instance, in the case of a series of five stories, all of which end up being the background of five people who show up at the same party, the PA measure is only 1, since the five stories are all embedded in the same overarching storyline, rather than being embedded in each other. Thus, the situation warrants the description "6 stories, 1 PA," indicating that there are six storylines (including the story of the party), with one of those being the frame and the other five being independent of all but the frame/overarching storyline.

More sophisticated methods of determining the relation between embedded stories and serial stories are in development.

PSA: Romance is undead.

P.C. and I are going to continue what will now have become "an annual tradition" for Valentine's Day tonight: a horror movie marathon.

I'm hoping to get into the remake of "House on Haunted Hill," as the Vincent Price version is probably one of my fave horror flicks -- and perhaps "Dead Silence" for melodramatic-macabre, or "Hellboy" for grotesque-heroic, or old videos of Sarah Palin interviews for realistic-terror-inducing (Bazinga!).

There are always the Grindhouse movies, which are pretty awesome. And "Subject 2," which is a quietly horrifying low-budget feature, not least because it's set in an unrelentingly snowy, isolated location. I left "Dawn of the Dead," "Bug," "Killing Zoe," "Talk Radio," and "Unspeakable" (a horror in acting, directing and especially writing) in MA...but I think we'll have enough to keep us amused and unpalatable to the usual Valentine's Day audience.

Speaking of which, before I can get to that, I'll have to go see "Valentine's Day" for work.

I anticipate it will be more horrifying than anything I watch later tonight.

New Modern Deity: Kindermal

Kindermal is the Ur-god of punishing rotten kids, known in other cultures as Black Peter; the chupacabra; the boogeyman; evil Santa; Mrs. Trunchbull; various trolls hiding under various bridges, and several residents of the Black Forest. These lesser manifestations may be considered "messengers" or minions under Kindermal's jurisdiction.

Kindermal's main concern is making unruly kids more rule-y. One of Kindermal's most effective and insidious tactics is getting kids to police each other. Thus, Kindermal is something of a patron deity to the safety patrol, hall monitors, and honors students in general (non-reformed), when they themselves are not acting up -- which explains also why they so rarely do.

Kindermal can often also provide parents with creative inspiration when punishing their wayward children. (The most extreme versions of these punishments can be seen in Cinderella's excessive cleaning of the home, and in punishment closets such as The Chokey.)

Kindermal is not without deity enemies, as deities are often also unruly. Though some deities consider themselves neutral, Kindermal, in an effort to organize the world according to a system of rules, lists each as either "good" or "bad": this may be the genesis of the myth of Santa Claus's lists of the "naughty" and the "nice." It also makes for awkward meetings in Olympia, WA (where the gods meet for semi-annual conferences), but since Kindermal only retains jurisdiction over human children and is not by any stretch the most powerful of the modern deities, he remains mainly an annoyance to other gods and a scourge only to little kids who run around in stores, hit their siblings (except to enforce rules), or forget their homework.

Local Trivia: CO.M.G.

Last week I came home to an apartment with the distant sound of a four-beep alarm coming from the vents. I had no idea what it meant -- four beeps, then five seconds off (I timed it), then four beeps again -- so after a short investigation to figure out if it was coming from the other apartment on the second floor, or below me, I let it go.

It turns out that it was the carbon monoxide detector my landlords had installed. I found this out after several hours in the house, at which point the landlady came home and shut it off, figuring it was malfunctioning.

Which was pretty scary to me since, you know, you can't detect CO otherwise. But then we didn't die, so I figured things were fine.

Thanks to a weird smell coming up from the vents on Friday night, I slept with the windows open and my electric blanket, Weirdo Brown, on. I'd probably been primed by the CO detector experience, but this weird smell also tied my stomach in knots and gave me a headache, and I figured better safe than accidentally dead.

I thought all my smelly and non-smelly gas woes were apartment-bound -- but last night, here at work and only a half hour after I'd gone to sleep, the CO detector started going off around 1 a.m.

This was more panic-inducing than it had been at my apartment, since now I knew what it was and was responsible not only for myself, but for the girl I work with. What if she died of CO poisoning? Should I call the manager on call at 1 a.m.? Should I call the fire department? Should I open the windows and turn on a space heater?

I took it out of the plug, which turned out not to be the answer, since that caused it to sound continuously. Eventually, after covering it in blankets for awhile, I plugged it back in, pushed the "test/reset" button, which made it stop alarming, and went back to bed.

Then I got up, just to check on whether the girl was alive. She was.

I went back to bed.

And got up again to look at the alarm, which seemed all green lights and still-silenced alarms, so I went back to bed.

At 1:16 I got up again and looked up the alarm manual online. This is incredibly difficult to do without pulling up horror story after horror story of families who barely escaped death when their homes filled with carbon monoxide -- which was scary, but also annoying enough to make me more apathetic about possible death. ("How bad can it be compared to this?")

At 1:37, I solved the mystery. Apparently, if the alarm sounds, the thing to do is press the test/reset button. If the alarm goes off again within 6 minutes, you have a problem. Otherwise, you can go back to sleep.

So I did. But if one more CO detector does this to me, I might just go live in a tent in the woods.

You all are invited to visit.

PSA: The best actress

I've decided that Myrna Loy is my favorite actress, and I might even watch movies with her in them where she'd been digitally inserted into new-tyme plots.

Hint, hint, directors of the future.

Local Trivia: The funniest tutor evaluation comment I received

"She brainwashed me before I started a new paper."

PSQ: Do you visit museums?

If so, why?

And more importantly, if not, why not?

Is it because they're boring? Elitist? Can't be seen on TV? You have better things to do with your time? You'd rather do something active, like laser tag or Frisbee golf? Because they have no sense of humor? Because what's the point of museums, anyway?

(These are all reasons I've come up with, myself, and I lived in D.C. for two years -- so imagine how many more I must have. The point is, no reasons are stupid. [Okay, most reasons aren't stupid. {I haven't played laser tag in years, and never played "Frolf."}])

PSA: What I wish they'd told me when I moved (on) to Boston (Legal)

There are only three good seasons.

You may sometimes ask yourself why you stay, and occasionally your only answer will be "James Spader."

People may seem to be there long-term, seem to be permanent fixtures in your life, but they disappear without warning, and sometimes without subsequent explanation, often between seasons.

There are more transvestite and transgender people out there than you thought.

Politics are fun, but they're not enough.

PSA: "Pop" goes the...wait, is it a boy or girl?

According to this very interesting article, there's a couple in Sweden who are raising their child without specific gender identification. They dress "Pop" in clothes belonging (supposedly) to both sexes, and they refer to "Pop" (not the child's real name) with Pop's name rather than gender-specific pronouns.

Perhaps more interesting than the practice, which to my mind is certainly not more disturbing than the way some ultra-conservative parents raise their children (to hate homosexual people, for one, and occasionally to hate themselves for BEING homosexual), are the comments on the article. As a recent queer theorist (at least I'm taking a "queer studies" class), I'm particularly interested in the input from "Bisonex," the male-identified intersex person who was raised "incorrectly" as a girl.

One wonders when reading queer theory how many people out there really ARE intersex -- not that the number of people affected is a valid question when you're dealing with human rights, but that it commands its own theorizing of "sex" and "gender," and a retheorizing of heteronormativity as a result of intersex people's existence and rights to remain intersex (rather than having gender assigned). So it's interesting to hear from someone who fits into that category and by doing so, destroys (or calls into question) all the rest of them.

Let me know what you think of Pop, Pop's parents' choice, and the comments that follow. I'll be interested to hear it.

New Modern Deity: Carteron

Carteron is the deity of previous era's horses and buggies, now god over shopping carts, go carts and bumper cars.

Carteron is particularly concerned with the regulation of shopping cart use. While Carteron may act as the patron deity of the homeless, allowing them to guard their valuables in shopping carts, he has no patience for those who misuse carts within their department or grocery stores. Misuse includes allowing carts to drift into the paths of others or into large displays of items, especially when distracted by chatting with others met incidentally at the market, leaving carts out in the middle of the parking lot, and shoving carts together in inappropriate ways without fixing them.

Rowdy children, who tend to fall under the jurisdiction of the deity Kindermal, may be encouraged by Carteron (thanks in part to the long-standing feud between Carteron and Kindermal) to misuse carts, including in ways associated with the legitimate use of go carts and bumper cars. Thus, children often escape punishment for misuse -- in fact, they may be used by Carteron as agents of punishment for adults who should know better.

Divine retribution for shopping cart misuse may include giving the misuser a cart with wobbly or squeaky wheels on the next shopping trip, allowing a cart to crash into either one's own vehicle on a subsequent trip, or into the vehicle of a high-priced attorney with a Lexus and a tendency to sue individuals "for the principle of the thing," or the subsequent inability to extricate two carts from each other, or from the cart corral, on the next trip.

Libations and sacrifices may be made to Carteron in the form of shopping cart wheel grease and courtesy in not blocking aisles and returning carts to proper places at the end of a shopping trip. As Carteron also functions as god of bumper cars and go carts -- and is thus something of a mischief-maker -- prayers for retribution involving getting hit by another cart are often efficacious.

PSA: My comment on SB article "How Obama is Bankrupting America"

Here's the article.

Here's my response:

A couple of points:

1. The stimulus, whether it’s working or not (and many pundits agree that it’s done good over the last year), and the need for it, is the result of deregulation that took place quietly under Pres. W. Bush’s administration.

2. Using the word “czar” to describe Pres. Obama’s advisors doesn’t make him sound more like a Russian; it makes your article sound more biased.

3. Just because Congress doesn’t want the coverage that they may or may not be voting for doesn’t mean it’s not still better than the NO health coverage that something like 20% of Americans rely on. (Incidentally, assisting with the health of anyone makes everyone healthier, as those who failed to vaccinate their children (leading to outbreaks of measles and the like) have learned the hard way. If everyone was healthy, there would be no one to catch swine flu from and all our health care costs would go down.)

4. Using phrasing like “questions have been raised” about global warming and saying that “someone hacked into the files” of a research institute makes it sound like your source is a chain-letter email. The scientific community is agreed on this, as they are on evolution – and take that as you will if you’re not a (theistic) evolutionist. But EVEN IF global warming were not linked to carbon emissions, CARBON EMISSIONS are linked to carbon emissions. In other words, Pres. Obama and environmentalists are trying to find ways to lower pollution levels around the world, which improves the planet for everyone and falls right in line with the command to steward the earth.

5. The war in Iraq is still happening, and it was never stopped when Pres. W. Bush was in office. Just because he hung a “Mission Accomplished” banner doesn’t mean that a single soldier was withdrawn from combat. At this point, though I may not agree with further prosecution of war, if we left Afghanistan and Iraq, they would be in worse international and domestic positions than they were before we declared war on them, and more global instability means more chance of trouble for everyone. We’ve made their problems our problems, and now fixing them is at least in part our responsibility. One would hope that some of the infrastructure and governmental issues in those countries would be on their way to resolution by June of next year. The billions spent on that are not more than was spent during the Pres. W. Bush administration, and they should go towards repairing our part of the mess.

6. The questions of national debt and personal debt are different. And yet, Americans DO spend more than they earn, and they ARE in a great deal of personal debt. Thanks to changed bankruptcy laws under Pres. W. Bush, most American will not be able to discharge their debt through declaring bankruptcy.

7. There’s no evidence that putting America into vast debt – a policy which began perforce thanks to policies that long predate Pres. Obama’s election and inauguration – would turn America communist. In fact, the best historical example of a people plunged into hideous debt who clamored for regime change is pre-Hitlerian Germany. In that case, you should be accusing Pres. Obama of being fascist, not socialist.

But he doesn’t sound or act like much like a fascist – and with Pres. W. Bush’s administration spying on the American people through illegal wire-tapping and checking up on what books they check out of the library, Pres. Obama doesn’t sound comparatively much like “Big Brother,” either – so maybe we should be looking out for a demagogue who promises to get us OUT of debt to “transform” our society into the nightmare you feel it’s becoming. Maybe we should be on the lookout for someone whose rhetoric sounds like Hitler’s.

8. You suggest that we “stand” together and do something, but it’s unclear what you’re recommending be done. Elect Republicans in the next election? (Even though it’s the deregulation of the “too big to fail” banks that Republicans supported that has left us in this mess? Even though in deregulating these banks, Republicans have had as much to do with the failure of small businesses as Democrats possibly could?) Or would you support a third party? Or are you simply suggesting we pray for the second coming before we have to worry about it?

I’m interested to hear how you’d solve these issues...really. I'd like to see positive suggestions for these problems wherever I see critique of them. Maybe we could all collectively come up with something creative enough to work that way.

PSA: My response to "Make a Man Out of You" editorial from Swinging Bridge

Here's the article.

Here's my response:

Zachary,

While I appreciate your willingness to take on a topic that I think needs a lot of serious looking-into -- what it means to be a "man" in today's society -- and while I'm glad you're living up to the standards you've set for yourself in your (and your brothers') relationships, I'm disappointed to see that this article revolves almost exclusively around what men should not be doing with the women they date.

In other words, you've let the issue be determined by exactly those who are pressing us to get what we can (you're referring to sex, in particular, and virtually exclusively) rather than to suggest other things that "make" a man. There aren't even any really concrete suggestions on how men are supposed to "honor" the women they're with.

What I'd like to see, beyond this, is a constructive discussion of what it means to be human, and how humans may define themselves as men (or women). So much of the rhetoric of masculinity has been used, I believe incorrectly, to justify war and national policies based on the use of force or the loss of freedoms (see the Patriot Act) that I think there's a lot of potential material out there for this kind of discussion. What does it really mean to "be a man"? Is it a set of actions? How does being a man relate to having a male body -- are they always correlated? Or are there extra requirements for "manliness"?

I'd also like to see a closer look into how "honor" relates to women, and particularly to their status as virgins or not-virgins. How are these terms used, and how and why are they relevant today? How do they relate to past eras when women could be bought and sold, or rejected on the basis of non-virginity? How do they relate to questions (in the past) of determining paternity in a patrilineal society? In what ways do we need to redefine "honor" for women, to release the concept of "honor" from the historical trappings of property ownership, etc.?

On the other hand, I remember what it was like to be in the Messiah "bubble," where so much revolves around the opposite sex, how to interact with them and what a good result would be for those interactions (i.e. an engagement ring by spring senior year). I can understand how your article speaks more to that audience than to the world at large. I still hope you'll consider looking into the question of what "masculinity" is, and write a new article about being "a man" -- one that problematizes some of the assumptions that pervade both secular and Christian-college society.

(And on a personal note, I'm hoping you don't quote "Wild At Heart" as part of that...but that's just personal.)

I look forward to reading it.

Local Trivia, Waltham: A(wo)menities

In the women's bathroom in Brown, Brandeis University:

Two hooks inside the stall (for purse and coat)

Two sinks

Full paper towel dispenser

Full soap dispenser

Air freshener sprayer

Incense sticks and burner stand

Giant mirror that can be approached but is also full-length

Small stand for placing objects on, or changing diapers, outside the stall, with three drawers

Small stand for placing objects on, in the stall, with three drawers; in top drawer, a piece of paper that says "I wonder how many people look in here. Initial if you looked," and a pen. Nine sets of initials appear on the paper (including mine).

PSA: Movies in which the main characters really should have known better by then

Gremlins 2

Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves

Home Alone 2

PSA: My response to Gay at Messiah article comments

Here's the article site.

Ajay -- what evidence do you have that Republicans, or right-wing movements, have been protectors of "Judeo-Christian influence" in American society? Does free-market capitalism sound like the effective communism in the early church? Or does it sound more like the money-lenders and sellers in the marketplace that are condemned not only by the OT, but by Jesus himself (who never uttered a word on homosexuality)?

I think that if you check your American history, you'll find the rise of the religious right, of which I assume you're a part, is only recent, and is not without its biblical issues. Republicans are not God's chosen party. Then or now.

Dmm, in the epistles, Paul "gives in" to the idea that people might need to get married, even though he says it's better to remain unmarried -- he, not God -- because they may be weak. In those times, marriage was much more a practical matter, and much more likely to happen by the time a person was college-age; our times are much different. We probably DO have more unmarried people than they had in Paul's area in Paul's time, because we have more choice than we used to. People are basing marriages on very different factors than they used to, including romantic feelings of love. I'm not saying this necessarily changes the stance on extramarital sex, but it should be considered.

At the same time, your argument is more compelling than the arguments of people who say "you can't have sex outside of marriage! And gay people can't get married!" and then use that same argument to support their position against gay marriage. It's a silly, solipsistic way of thinking. If we'd LET gay people get married, they could have sex in the bounds of marriage as straight people are supposed to. If we're not going to let them, well, then what are they supposed to do? At least your answer -- remain permanently celibate -- makes some measure of sense. But it lacks any measure of the practicality of Paul's, and his advice on marriage was meant for a much different time in a different social situation.

I don't think the issue of the sexual slippery slope is a valid one, either. Homosexuality is not the same as pedaresty, which is not the same as bestiality, anymore than heterosexuality is either of those. That's why we have different words for those things. I understand that from a strict evangelical viewpoint, tainting yourself with any "sin" automatically leads to more and more, and more terrible, "sin," but I'd like to have more than a Wikipedia citation as proof that homosexuality and bestiality are somhow linked. (And then, that they are more linked than heterosexuality and bestiality. I doubt this is the case.)

As for Christians changing society, I'm not sure Jesus came to change society. Jesus seemed to focus on individuals, not policies, programs or Caesars. Yes, this leads to a change in society, and yes, Jesus threw over the tables of the money-lenders in the temples, but Jesus also told us to pay our taxes. And Jesus did not tell the Samaritan woman at the well "well, it's a good thing you're not gay, because then I couldn't forgive you." I'm sure he would have mentioned something if he'd meant that.

Love covers over a multitude of sins. I know I won't change minds, and I'm not trying to (Ajay), but as slave-masters used to use Scripture to justify keeping people as slaves (and believe they were right), and as I know we all agree we're imperfect people with a bit too much pride, I hope to persuade you, if you come to a crossroads decision, to err on the side of love. It's the only thing that never fails.

Accusations XIV

People who have 8 flower-girls at their weddings

People who pay the babysitter $5/hour

People who curse out your boyfriend because they wanted to play professional-style, full-rules Texas Hold 'Em and he expected just a good time hanging out with friends

PSA: Give us your sick, huddled masses -- we'll make them sick the AMERICAN way.

According to this week's NYTimes magazine article "The Americanization of Mental Illness," definitions of mental illness around the world are being -- well -- Americanized.

There's a fascinating example of how anorexia used to present in Hong Kong patients, and how that changed after Hong Kongers were exposed to American definitions and interpretations of anorexia. The problem of anorexia got worse, and new patients gave different self-reports on why they were anorexic than they had before, saying they were afraid of being fat where previous patients had cited "bloated stomachs" as the reason for not eating.

This does sound American.

In fact, diagnosing mental illnesses with the DSM at all is very American. If we can pin down the constellation of symptoms for any given "disease" (some deserve this title; I'm not impugning the word's usefulness in every case), we can medicate it, and if we can medicate it, we'll eventually be able to cure it. That's the idea, anyway. Americans diagnose, medicate and cure. (Scientifically!)

A few years ago, I went to a medical conference on the mental disorder with which my mother was long-ago diagnosed. I read books about the disorder. I felt better, because researching and learning facts makes me feel prepared for the future and better able to interpret the past -- just like a good, educated American.

But I felt better despite the fact that this conference, and these books, all agreed that there was no definitive criteria for either diagnosing or treating this disorder. In fact, there are no prescription medications that are not off-label for it. It's known as "the garbage can diagnosis," one conference speaker admitted, and not only because doctors have to throw every medication available at it, and in different combinations, to try to "treat" the patient; since part of the diagnostic criteria for the illness is that patients are uncooperative with doctors, pretty much anyone who won't cooperate with diagnosis, the hospitals, the drug regimen, or anyone associated with the medical establishment, can be diagnosed as having this illness -- even when their uncooperativeness is not pathological (just annoying), or not diagnostically relevant and hiding a different illness.

No wonder there are no on-label drugs for this disorder. People who suffer from it are in the "misc." category, rattling around with other people who likely have completely different things.

So this is where our culture's take on mental illness and its treatment both succeeds and fails: I researched this illness and felt better, because research often makes educated Americans feel better; yet, the illness itself was not affected by my research, and the fact that it remains the "garbage can" diagnosis indicates that our tendency to "diagnose" every symptom is inadequate -- in at least this case, and probably many others.

Diagnosis gives the mentally ill an identity, and a goal (improving, or being cured); but it also identifies them in perhaps inaccurate ways.

Having lived in China, albeit several years ago now, I can see how this approach to life, spread over the whole world, might be highly problematic. China, and its lack of planning, and its "meiyou banfa," and its ridiculously overloaded bicycles that defied physical law, cured me of some Western illness: I stopped planning so meticulously, stopped trying to take responsibility for everything and let some things be, stopped trying to figure the limits of what was possible. It was lovely.

If we colonize the mental illnesses of people around the world, we may eliminate our own cures. We may eliminate the perspective that has to come with labeling anyone. We're endangering the species of preventive and ameliorative medicine that can come from cross-cultural encounters. It's the same as razing the rain forest without knowing whether one of its plants contain a cure for cancer.

I'm not sure what we can do about it. But I'm beginning to think anthropologists, sociologists and cultural studies students may soon become vital, as historians of diverse cultures that we need to carry on into the future, if only synthetically.

That's good news for me, I guess.

PSA: Boston to be renamed "David E. Kelleytown" when appearing on film.

So I've been watching Boston Legal this week, which long-term readers may have expected considering my long-term celebrity crush on James Spader, and with the American release of Ally McBeal in its entirety back in October, I've been thinking about David E. Kelley's dubious relationship with both the legal system and Boston.

Of course, living near Boston now, I find the references to 617 area-coded phone numbers charming and familiar; but I also find the visual references to the larger city buildings that open most episodes and are interspersed throughout like B-roll of the copier spitting out paper on the BBC Office, strange. I don't see those buildings on most days, partly because of the river problem (Boston is across the river from everywhere I'd actually go), and partly because they're just not that tall. Those buildings aren't Boston to me.

Maybe they are Boston to some people. But I don't think so.

Boston isn't a tall city like NYC, or made up of sprawling highways that necessitate helicoptery aerial shots from above like LA. It's a strange, quirky, kind-of-short, kind-of-cramped New England city. I'm not sure how I feel about the branding of Boston that happens on Boston Legal, or (as I recall) to a lesser extent on Ally McBeal.

To be fair, the show brands everything, which may be part of its genius: shots of lawyer's hands in the court room are focused on and refocused, given close-up time as much as their faces; Candice Bergen and William Shatner came on board as already-established brand names in their own rights; Shatner's "Denny Crane" is an obsessive and shameless self-brander who repeats his name to anyone who can hear anytime he says anything remotely interesting. David E. Kelley has always had a "thing" for this kind of self-promoting satire, which is what makes David E. Kelley, himself, a brand.

So if Kelley's version of what we see when we look at or think of Boston is quirky and branded, that makes sense. I say let's give him his version of Boston, which helps him produce characters that get away with discussing current events -- or ones that were current at the time the shows aired, which is rare -- on national TV. But let's admit that this Boston is not a real place. You can't go there. When David E. Kelley has been involved in the process, it should be considered a product of his inspired hubris rather than a reflection of reality. Even those of David E. Kelley's shows not taking place in Boston are filmed in one place, and that's David E. Kelleytown.

Still, it's an interesting place to visit, even if it's not where I live.

PSQ: Modern-day gods

P.C. and I somehow ended up in a discussion the other day about modern-day Roman/Greek/Norse god equivalents, as we drove up I-84 and he mocked the potential traffic-jam that is Hartford at 5 p.m.

I superstitiously flailed about and rebuffed him for tempting the traffic gods to punish us with a serious jam on I-91, which we were switching over to just following his declaration of jam-less victory, and wondered who he would have to apologize to to get us out of this potential mess.

I decided it might be Poseiden, the god of the sea who (when ship transport was fast, efficient and common) used to preside over the main long-distance transportation routes, and named the slightly lower-level (middle-management) god of Interstates, almost certainly under Poseiden's jurisdiction, "Highwayden."

But of course, this begs the question: what other neo-Roman gods might we need these days?

Tell me what we need specific gods for, and I'll see what I can do about directing you to the modern god who "does that."