Adam: Last time he went on vacation all he told us about was how he saw Canadian geese.
Raychul: How do you know the geese were Canadian??
Adam: *totally deadpan* Well, we're from Canada, so we can tell.
Raychul: Huh? How!?
Brian: Canadian Geese are a species of geese - it's not like, geese that live in Canada.
Raychul: . . .Oh.
Monday, July 25, 2005
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Raychul hearts Books
“Reading Lolita in Tehran” is the story of an Iranian literature professor, Dr. Azar Nafisi, who returns to her home in Tehran only to become trapped there in the wake of Iran’s religious revolution of the early 1980’s. On the most surface level, the story it tells is of Nafisi’s time in Iran – her teaching, her family, and, most importantly, the secret book club she held in her home with nine of her best female students. Below the obvious narrative is another tale, the story of a story. Or rather, the story of the power of stories.
In the Arabian novel “A Thousand and One Nights”, the tales given to the reader are really stories within a greater story: the tale of Schererazade’s triumph over the domineering and brutal king through her imagination. The king, pushed to the brink of madness, marries a virgin each night and kills her the next morning. Schererazade volunteers to be the king’s next bride, but each evening, before they can consummate their union, she says they must wait because she has to tell him a story. In this way, she puts off her demise until the king himself is free from his obsession. The tales in the book are Schererazade’s; they are her way out of the life that is being forced upon her, and indeed upon all of the women in her kingdom.
Azar Nafisi opens up her memoir of life in Iran with reference to "A Thousand and One Nights", just as she opens up her first meeting of the secret book club. The reason for this choice becomes clear as Nafisi weaves her tales of life in Iran, as she writes about her girls under pretend names lest the Iranian authorizes find them today. Nafisi, like the fictional Schererazade, is subject to the imposition of what she calls a “fictional reality”, a way of life imagined by another and thrust upon those unlucky enough to lack the ability to escape. Both heroines realize that their only escape – indeed, anyone’s only escape – is in circumventing reality as it’s framed by the dominant group or individual. Both heroines also accomplish this in the same way: by framing another reality through storytelling.
I’ve always believed that telling a story is more than just conveying information or ideas, but I’d never really conceived of storytelling as subversive. Now it makes sense to me that in a reality where the very information people have access to is controlled with an iron fist, making information available outside of the dominant metaphor is the very essence of subversion. This is what Schererazade knew: her escape lay in creating another reality, a reality beyond what her new husband knew. And it seems that Nafisi subtely continues this tradition by exposing her students – also the unwitting objects of a male-dominated, violent regime – to the realities that are denied them in the contraband stories that Americans toss aside in exchange for the Cliff’s Notes.
Roland Barthe explains this phenomenon of multiple realities in Mythologies, where he outlines his understanding of what he calls myth. A myth, according to Barthe, is any narrative. He also points out something that we all know: the story that we know as true is always the narrative of the dominant. But Barthe goes beyond this to say that, despite what we accept, there simply is no narrative that’s true: every version of history is colored by perspective, and no narrative is unbiased. Knowing this, our job is to be mythologists, by constantly striving to deconstruct the narratives we’re told until we find our own truth.
I’m not a person who believes that there’s no absolute truth. But even the existence of an absolute doesn’t get around the fact that our knowledge of it is based on our own perspective, and is as unique to each of us as our own fingerprints. This isn’t a bad thing – it means that every person can teach something to every other person, that it’s completely impossible for anyone to know everything. It’s the responsibility that we each have to get to know each other.
In the time since I first read Barthe, I’ve realized that being a mythologist is a damn lot of work. It takes constant vigilance (to borrow a phrase from J.K. Rowling), not just to examine what you’re told, but also to keep your skepticism from evolving into negativity. It takes more self-awareness than I’ll probably ever have, and the ability to Listen. The Baha’I Writings give the following advice on seeking Truth:
In the Arabian novel “A Thousand and One Nights”, the tales given to the reader are really stories within a greater story: the tale of Schererazade’s triumph over the domineering and brutal king through her imagination. The king, pushed to the brink of madness, marries a virgin each night and kills her the next morning. Schererazade volunteers to be the king’s next bride, but each evening, before they can consummate their union, she says they must wait because she has to tell him a story. In this way, she puts off her demise until the king himself is free from his obsession. The tales in the book are Schererazade’s; they are her way out of the life that is being forced upon her, and indeed upon all of the women in her kingdom.
Azar Nafisi opens up her memoir of life in Iran with reference to "A Thousand and One Nights", just as she opens up her first meeting of the secret book club. The reason for this choice becomes clear as Nafisi weaves her tales of life in Iran, as she writes about her girls under pretend names lest the Iranian authorizes find them today. Nafisi, like the fictional Schererazade, is subject to the imposition of what she calls a “fictional reality”, a way of life imagined by another and thrust upon those unlucky enough to lack the ability to escape. Both heroines realize that their only escape – indeed, anyone’s only escape – is in circumventing reality as it’s framed by the dominant group or individual. Both heroines also accomplish this in the same way: by framing another reality through storytelling.
I’ve always believed that telling a story is more than just conveying information or ideas, but I’d never really conceived of storytelling as subversive. Now it makes sense to me that in a reality where the very information people have access to is controlled with an iron fist, making information available outside of the dominant metaphor is the very essence of subversion. This is what Schererazade knew: her escape lay in creating another reality, a reality beyond what her new husband knew. And it seems that Nafisi subtely continues this tradition by exposing her students – also the unwitting objects of a male-dominated, violent regime – to the realities that are denied them in the contraband stories that Americans toss aside in exchange for the Cliff’s Notes.
Roland Barthe explains this phenomenon of multiple realities in Mythologies, where he outlines his understanding of what he calls myth. A myth, according to Barthe, is any narrative. He also points out something that we all know: the story that we know as true is always the narrative of the dominant. But Barthe goes beyond this to say that, despite what we accept, there simply is no narrative that’s true: every version of history is colored by perspective, and no narrative is unbiased. Knowing this, our job is to be mythologists, by constantly striving to deconstruct the narratives we’re told until we find our own truth.
I’m not a person who believes that there’s no absolute truth. But even the existence of an absolute doesn’t get around the fact that our knowledge of it is based on our own perspective, and is as unique to each of us as our own fingerprints. This isn’t a bad thing – it means that every person can teach something to every other person, that it’s completely impossible for anyone to know everything. It’s the responsibility that we each have to get to know each other.
In the time since I first read Barthe, I’ve realized that being a mythologist is a damn lot of work. It takes constant vigilance (to borrow a phrase from J.K. Rowling), not just to examine what you’re told, but also to keep your skepticism from evolving into negativity. It takes more self-awareness than I’ll probably ever have, and the ability to Listen. The Baha’I Writings give the following advice on seeking Truth:
“The state in which one should be to seriously search for the truth is the condition of the thirsty, burning soul desiring the water of life, of the fish struggling to reach the sea, of the sufferer seeking for the true doctor to obtain the divine cure, of the lost caravan endeavoring to find the right road, of the lost and wandering ship striving to reach the shore of salvation.” – Abdul-Baha
More than anything those words make me realize that reflection, in its true form, isn’t a hobby. It isn’t a pastime or something you can do casually. It’s a way of life that informs everything you do, it’s a questioning spirit and the ability to weave your own story. This can be disconcerting, save the recognition there’s not one grand answer to discover. Each answer is just the open door to the next question, and each question is its own guidance to the next answer.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Unreasonably distraught
Yesterday I was on top of the world - I picked up my highly anticipated copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and rushed home to start reading. And I read and I read. Then the book started upsetting me and I called Nikki for emotional support. Then I read some more.
EJHKA HIJESND AJIELOFMODHRD . . .
I just used a secret code to tell you what happens in the book. I then burned the magical talisman that contained the primer for the code, so I didn't give anything away. But I really had to tell someone, and my three Harry Potter fanatics are sort of indisposed:
1. Nikki is still reading because she spent the day helping people instead of reading. Meanie.
2. It's like 4am in NY where Krissa lives.
3. Alia is in China.
So here I am, alone and distraught, writing on my blog at 3am without even being able to say why I'm so upset. J. K. Rowling is amazing. The books are epic, magificent, and the most easily accessible form of myth that I've ever come across. But they make me very upset.
I think I'll go wake Matt up and see if he lets me tell him what happens.
EJHKA HIJESND AJIELOFMODHRD . . .
I just used a secret code to tell you what happens in the book. I then burned the magical talisman that contained the primer for the code, so I didn't give anything away. But I really had to tell someone, and my three Harry Potter fanatics are sort of indisposed:
1. Nikki is still reading because she spent the day helping people instead of reading. Meanie.
2. It's like 4am in NY where Krissa lives.
3. Alia is in China.
So here I am, alone and distraught, writing on my blog at 3am without even being able to say why I'm so upset. J. K. Rowling is amazing. The books are epic, magificent, and the most easily accessible form of myth that I've ever come across. But they make me very upset.
I think I'll go wake Matt up and see if he lets me tell him what happens.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Constant Vigilance!
Okay, people. I'm flipping out. TWELVE HOURS. The final countdown begins. Cannot. . .contain . . .excitement . . .AAAAAHHHHHH!!
Monday, July 11, 2005
Politically Incorrect Ranting
Here's the thing: the fact that parents let their eight-year-old kids play whatever video games they can buy at Wal-Mart really bothers me. The only way any child of mine will get a portable gaming device is if they have some rare disease that requires 24-hour television contact for survival. The fact that nine year olds get online and play video games with adults - adults who swear at each other and make totally smutty comments - is awful. I would love to have a job where I got to take gameboys away from little boys and could then force them to read books.
However, I have no kids, and people get mad when I make children cry. I'm just trying to get to my first point:
1. It is a parent's job to monitor a kid's video games, a kid's computer use, etc. And make no mistake, a lot of parents have their heads stuck in the sand on this one.
Now I move to my second point: I am a firm believer in free speech. I consider video games a viable form of artistic expression, and the people who make them should be able to create whatever they want. Free speech doesn't just mean letting people do things you agree with. I don't see the need for games re-enacting World War II, and you'd better believe no money of mine will ever go to a game like that, but people have the right to make them. So point two is:
2. Video game creators should have free reign to create.
HOWEVER. However, if it turns out to be true that the creators of Grand Theft Auto actually put that porn in the game and deliberately hid it, just so that the game wouldn't be rated "Adults Only" (and consequently not be sold at about half of all video game retailers) I will hunt them down, tie them up, and force them to watch man on man midget pornography for the next twenty years. Oh, does that sound cruel and unusual? Too bad. I'm livid and it makes me unconstitutional. Parents are having enough time figuring out what's going on with their kids without you deliberately hiding adult content in a game. Yes, you have the right to create it and put it in a game. But you do NOT have the right to hide content so that you can lie about how graphic the game is and thereby get more sales from minors.
I read a comment online from some gamer, most likely a single guy in his twenties, which basically said that parents should just watch their kids better and that this is just another example of people taking potshots at the gaming industry. Hear me now anonymous commenter: you are a moron and you need to go get a vasectomy so that you don't breed. Regardless of how aware a parent is, a game developer has NO RIGHT to secretly and knowingly peddle smut to kids. If they created a game with porn in it, which they knew would be found, and which they reasonably expected would be seen by the minors who owned the game, and then deliberately hid that porn so that KIDS WOULD BE ABLE TO BUY THE GAME, that is NOT people taking shots at the gaming industry. That's a couple of perverts ruining it for everyone bc they don’t' have girlfriends.
In the real world, do you know what we call it when an adult secretly makes stuff like this available to kids, in a way that parents might not notice? We call that perverted. And the fact that this seems to have been done for money - for money that could be made from the under-18 market - is disgusting.
*Deep breath* I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself, because we don't really know whether or not the developers put the porn content in the game. And again, they have every right to - they just don't have the right to pretend it isn't there so that they can sell it to kids. This degrades all of the other members of the industry, and will probably create a lot of backlash against video games. I hope that Microsoft sues you when they don't sell enough XBOX 360's because you made people afraid of video games.
And of course, after that, there'll still be the midget porn. I'll find you.
However, I have no kids, and people get mad when I make children cry. I'm just trying to get to my first point:
1. It is a parent's job to monitor a kid's video games, a kid's computer use, etc. And make no mistake, a lot of parents have their heads stuck in the sand on this one.
Now I move to my second point: I am a firm believer in free speech. I consider video games a viable form of artistic expression, and the people who make them should be able to create whatever they want. Free speech doesn't just mean letting people do things you agree with. I don't see the need for games re-enacting World War II, and you'd better believe no money of mine will ever go to a game like that, but people have the right to make them. So point two is:
2. Video game creators should have free reign to create.
HOWEVER. However, if it turns out to be true that the creators of Grand Theft Auto actually put that porn in the game and deliberately hid it, just so that the game wouldn't be rated "Adults Only" (and consequently not be sold at about half of all video game retailers) I will hunt them down, tie them up, and force them to watch man on man midget pornography for the next twenty years. Oh, does that sound cruel and unusual? Too bad. I'm livid and it makes me unconstitutional. Parents are having enough time figuring out what's going on with their kids without you deliberately hiding adult content in a game. Yes, you have the right to create it and put it in a game. But you do NOT have the right to hide content so that you can lie about how graphic the game is and thereby get more sales from minors.
I read a comment online from some gamer, most likely a single guy in his twenties, which basically said that parents should just watch their kids better and that this is just another example of people taking potshots at the gaming industry. Hear me now anonymous commenter: you are a moron and you need to go get a vasectomy so that you don't breed. Regardless of how aware a parent is, a game developer has NO RIGHT to secretly and knowingly peddle smut to kids. If they created a game with porn in it, which they knew would be found, and which they reasonably expected would be seen by the minors who owned the game, and then deliberately hid that porn so that KIDS WOULD BE ABLE TO BUY THE GAME, that is NOT people taking shots at the gaming industry. That's a couple of perverts ruining it for everyone bc they don’t' have girlfriends.
In the real world, do you know what we call it when an adult secretly makes stuff like this available to kids, in a way that parents might not notice? We call that perverted. And the fact that this seems to have been done for money - for money that could be made from the under-18 market - is disgusting.
*Deep breath* I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself, because we don't really know whether or not the developers put the porn content in the game. And again, they have every right to - they just don't have the right to pretend it isn't there so that they can sell it to kids. This degrades all of the other members of the industry, and will probably create a lot of backlash against video games. I hope that Microsoft sues you when they don't sell enough XBOX 360's because you made people afraid of video games.
And of course, after that, there'll still be the midget porn. I'll find you.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
4 years, 129 days
In two days my little brother, also known as Matthew G. or Quick-pix McDone, moves to Austin.
When I was about fourteen I started to notice how often people would ask me the same question: “How many years apart and you and your brother?” I would tell people that we were about four years apart, or really more like four and a half, and yes, we get along just fine. They would nod while they listened and act as though that information was important.
When I was sixteen I spent two weeks at the beach with my Mom, my brother, my grandparents, and extended family on my Mom’s side. My brother sort of drove me crazy the whole time because he’d stay up all night playing with his Gameboy and then sleep all day, leaving me alone to cope with the madness. But at some point during the trip my Aunt asked me basically that same question: how close in age are you and your brother.
I gave my standard answer and then asked why she was interested. “You know,” she said, “one of my brothers and I are really good friends, much closer than the rest of my brothers and sisters. I see sort of the same relationship between you and your brother. Everyone doesn’t have that, you know. It’s special; I hope my girls are like that as they get older.”
I found this information sort of surprising. Of course we get along, he’s my brother, why wouldn’t we? But as I got older I realized that what we have is pretty rare. Even those people I know who say they get along with their siblings will say that they don’t really hang out, or that they wouldn’t hang out that much if they lived in the same city. And for every person who gets along with their brother or sister, there’s another person who doesn’t.
Truth be told, my brother is a pretty easy person to get along with. We’re shockingly alike in a lot of ways: we’re great at telling stories but terrible at telling jokes, we’re both sort of obsessive-compulsive, we like talking to strangers, and if you order us to do something we’ll do the exact opposite. We’re also very different, most notably in the way that he’s more accommodating, and much nicer, that I am, a fact which I find both admirable and frustrating – admirable when he’s driving from one city to another to help a friend, frustrating when he’s talking to cell phone salesmen at the mall to be polite.
I know why people ask about our ages: because they want to know the chances for their own kids. They want to know whether they’ll end up with a couple of teenagers who hate each other, with adults who live in different cities and send yearly Christmas cards, or with sibling who’ll be friends. But by now I’ve met enough brother and sisters who are four and a half years apart to know that’s not really what makes it work. Some people are just lucky.
But just in case, I broke out a calculator to do the math. If anyone was curious, my brother and I are exactly 4 years and 129 days apart. Maybe there’s some mysterious energy about that age difference that dictates what kind of relationship siblings will have, and it’s what made it possible for my brother and I to be such good friends.
Or maybe we’re just lucky.
When I was about fourteen I started to notice how often people would ask me the same question: “How many years apart and you and your brother?” I would tell people that we were about four years apart, or really more like four and a half, and yes, we get along just fine. They would nod while they listened and act as though that information was important.
When I was sixteen I spent two weeks at the beach with my Mom, my brother, my grandparents, and extended family on my Mom’s side. My brother sort of drove me crazy the whole time because he’d stay up all night playing with his Gameboy and then sleep all day, leaving me alone to cope with the madness. But at some point during the trip my Aunt asked me basically that same question: how close in age are you and your brother.
I gave my standard answer and then asked why she was interested. “You know,” she said, “one of my brothers and I are really good friends, much closer than the rest of my brothers and sisters. I see sort of the same relationship between you and your brother. Everyone doesn’t have that, you know. It’s special; I hope my girls are like that as they get older.”
I found this information sort of surprising. Of course we get along, he’s my brother, why wouldn’t we? But as I got older I realized that what we have is pretty rare. Even those people I know who say they get along with their siblings will say that they don’t really hang out, or that they wouldn’t hang out that much if they lived in the same city. And for every person who gets along with their brother or sister, there’s another person who doesn’t.
Truth be told, my brother is a pretty easy person to get along with. We’re shockingly alike in a lot of ways: we’re great at telling stories but terrible at telling jokes, we’re both sort of obsessive-compulsive, we like talking to strangers, and if you order us to do something we’ll do the exact opposite. We’re also very different, most notably in the way that he’s more accommodating, and much nicer, that I am, a fact which I find both admirable and frustrating – admirable when he’s driving from one city to another to help a friend, frustrating when he’s talking to cell phone salesmen at the mall to be polite.
I know why people ask about our ages: because they want to know the chances for their own kids. They want to know whether they’ll end up with a couple of teenagers who hate each other, with adults who live in different cities and send yearly Christmas cards, or with sibling who’ll be friends. But by now I’ve met enough brother and sisters who are four and a half years apart to know that’s not really what makes it work. Some people are just lucky.
But just in case, I broke out a calculator to do the math. If anyone was curious, my brother and I are exactly 4 years and 129 days apart. Maybe there’s some mysterious energy about that age difference that dictates what kind of relationship siblings will have, and it’s what made it possible for my brother and I to be such good friends.
Or maybe we’re just lucky.
Ritual Dances
(Let it be known to all, or at least to B.C.G., that I'm writing this on my lunch break - not during worktime.)
Two nights ago Matt, Nikki and I were desperately waiting for our overdue pizza delivery when we heard a knock at the door. The nice but somewhat flustered-looking pizza girl handed us our food and then sort of stared at me like a deer in the headlights. We had paid over the phone with a credit card so I figured that, like Papa John's, this particular pizza company took a carbon copy of the credit card used for payment.
"So", I asked, "Do you want to do the rubbing of the card?"
At this point the delivery girl looked confused and Matt and Nikki started giggling. "I think I left your receipt downstairs," said the girl, looking longingly at the two-dollar tip I was clutching in my hand, "I'll go back down and get it."
As she left to get my receipt Matt and Nikki pointed out two things:
1. I was mean for making her go all the way back downstairs for my receipt.
2. The "rubbing of the card" sounds like some sort of strange ritual dance, which Matt demonstrated by doing this weird rapper's-girlfriend imitation while rubbing an imaginary credit card over his chest.
As it turns out, she did not need to perform the Rubbing of the Card, and I was more than happy to give her the tip in exchange for my receipt. I got my comeuppance the next day, when the ball from Nikki's mouse fell out while I carried her computer equipment upstairs, and bounced all the way down the hilly driveway, forcing me to trudge all the way back downstairs to retrieve it.
Two nights ago Matt, Nikki and I were desperately waiting for our overdue pizza delivery when we heard a knock at the door. The nice but somewhat flustered-looking pizza girl handed us our food and then sort of stared at me like a deer in the headlights. We had paid over the phone with a credit card so I figured that, like Papa John's, this particular pizza company took a carbon copy of the credit card used for payment.
"So", I asked, "Do you want to do the rubbing of the card?"
At this point the delivery girl looked confused and Matt and Nikki started giggling. "I think I left your receipt downstairs," said the girl, looking longingly at the two-dollar tip I was clutching in my hand, "I'll go back down and get it."
As she left to get my receipt Matt and Nikki pointed out two things:
1. I was mean for making her go all the way back downstairs for my receipt.
2. The "rubbing of the card" sounds like some sort of strange ritual dance, which Matt demonstrated by doing this weird rapper's-girlfriend imitation while rubbing an imaginary credit card over his chest.
As it turns out, she did not need to perform the Rubbing of the Card, and I was more than happy to give her the tip in exchange for my receipt. I got my comeuppance the next day, when the ball from Nikki's mouse fell out while I carried her computer equipment upstairs, and bounced all the way down the hilly driveway, forcing me to trudge all the way back downstairs to retrieve it.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
It's not easy being green
Yay for the new template! Although I do heart pink, I somehow managed to screw up my blog so I figured it was time for a change anyway. And since every blade of grass in Texas is now dead from the heat and the highway is lined by a brown median of ugly dead grass, I figured I could use some green. Plus, you know, I like money.
Friday, July 01, 2005
Remind me why I didn't move to Chicago . . .
For approximately eight hours today, the temperature was about 103 degrees. That's sans heat index. And when it gets that hot for that long, even those people lucky enough to have brand new A/C systems probably aren't able to get that cool. But they would come home to about 72 degrees and hear their A/C say something like "Hey guys! Look, I'm really sorry that I can't get it down to 70 degrees like you want. I'm really doing the best I can, so I hope you'll forgive me."
Unfortunately, Matt and I are not among those lucky people (not in the A/C sense, anyway.) So we come home to something like this: "Yeah, I know what you're thinkin' - it's not 70 degrees in here. Feels more like seventy-five, right? Well too bad. I've been working double shifts all week and if you think I'm gonna crank out a chilling breeze then you must be crazy. You'll get lukewarm and you'll like it. I can send you right back outside you know - it may be dark but it's still like 95 out there. You want a piece of me?"
So at this point Matt and Neville have fallen asleep on the floor, and I'm forced to try and keep cool vis-a-vis my Rachelsita:
Rachelsita the Sumo Wrestler fan was named after Amyesita the Sumo Wrestler Fan. He's plastic and takes four double-A batteries, but it's totally worth it.
Unfortunately, Matt and I are not among those lucky people (not in the A/C sense, anyway.) So we come home to something like this: "Yeah, I know what you're thinkin' - it's not 70 degrees in here. Feels more like seventy-five, right? Well too bad. I've been working double shifts all week and if you think I'm gonna crank out a chilling breeze then you must be crazy. You'll get lukewarm and you'll like it. I can send you right back outside you know - it may be dark but it's still like 95 out there. You want a piece of me?"
So at this point Matt and Neville have fallen asleep on the floor, and I'm forced to try and keep cool vis-a-vis my Rachelsita:
Rachelsita the Sumo Wrestler fan was named after Amyesita the Sumo Wrestler Fan. He's plastic and takes four double-A batteries, but it's totally worth it.
Monday, June 27, 2005
Wow . . .wow . . .
I just noticed that on one of the sleazy late-night law firm commercials there's the following fine print at the bottom of the screen:
"Actors portraying clients are portrayed as clients".
Those are definately the lawyers I want drafting my contracts.
"Actors portraying clients are portrayed as clients".
Those are definately the lawyers I want drafting my contracts.
Who's scruffy-lookin'?
Lately, every conversation Nikki and I have ends up spiraling downward into why we hate Tom Cruise. It’s pretty amazing how it all leads back to that. His antics have been a sad experience for some; many people my age say he was their first celebrity crush when they were teens or pre-teens.
Being somewhat dorkier that most, I was never too interested in Tom Cruise. My first love was much more manly, looked great driving the Millenium Falcon, and could (and probably still can) stop the hearts of women everywhere when he tipped his Indiana Jones hat. I’m talking, of course, about the ever-sexy Harrison Ford.
(Okay, maybe “ever-sexy” is an exaggeration. I’m willing to overlook that stupid airplane movie with Anne Heche, but the earring kind of bugs me. Harrison, please, we get that you’re still hip – just take the earring out.)
I can remember being about twelve, watching the scene in Empire Strikes Back where Han kisses Leia (“Stop that – my hands are dirty”), and thinking “Wow. I needs to git me man like that”. Han was so confident and kind of cocky, and yet so sweet when he fell in love with Leia. He seemed like the absolute perfect man.
*Swoon.
There’s something about the Brad-Pitt-like, pretty boy male celebrities that just doesn’t do it for me. I think it has to do with the shaved chests: any man that would shave his chest hair and then grease himself up is just a little boy playing dress up in daddy’s clothes. (Obviously, I make an exception here for the Extremely Hairy. If you have an actual carpet on any part of your body, then the hair removal is acceptable.) All of the male celebrities that I see little girls eyeing (Ashton Kutcher, Brad Pitt, Justin Timberlake) seem more like overgrown boys than men. If I’m going to spend time ogling someone onscreen, they need to have some depth. They need to have a few wrinkles around the eyes, they need to have stubble that isn’t perfectly groomed and deliberate. And they can’t have little girly arms.
Another celebrity man that I find super-hot is Pierce Brosnan. Rowr. That’s a man with some depth, some chest hair, and a terrific accent.
Buried somewhere in this drivel is a call to the men of the world. I’ve noticed that a lot of you lack confidence – you seem confused about how to approach women, and spend a lot of time grooming yourselves. But none of this will do any good if you aren’t confident. A character in the South Park movie (who shall remain unnamed to preserve whatever shred of tact I have left) put it very well: “Chicks dig confidence. Just be yourself”.
Oh, and, um . . .don’t ask a girl on a date to a fast food restaurant. Ever.
Being somewhat dorkier that most, I was never too interested in Tom Cruise. My first love was much more manly, looked great driving the Millenium Falcon, and could (and probably still can) stop the hearts of women everywhere when he tipped his Indiana Jones hat. I’m talking, of course, about the ever-sexy Harrison Ford.
(Okay, maybe “ever-sexy” is an exaggeration. I’m willing to overlook that stupid airplane movie with Anne Heche, but the earring kind of bugs me. Harrison, please, we get that you’re still hip – just take the earring out.)
I can remember being about twelve, watching the scene in Empire Strikes Back where Han kisses Leia (“Stop that – my hands are dirty”), and thinking “Wow. I needs to git me man like that”. Han was so confident and kind of cocky, and yet so sweet when he fell in love with Leia. He seemed like the absolute perfect man.
*Swoon.
There’s something about the Brad-Pitt-like, pretty boy male celebrities that just doesn’t do it for me. I think it has to do with the shaved chests: any man that would shave his chest hair and then grease himself up is just a little boy playing dress up in daddy’s clothes. (Obviously, I make an exception here for the Extremely Hairy. If you have an actual carpet on any part of your body, then the hair removal is acceptable.) All of the male celebrities that I see little girls eyeing (Ashton Kutcher, Brad Pitt, Justin Timberlake) seem more like overgrown boys than men. If I’m going to spend time ogling someone onscreen, they need to have some depth. They need to have a few wrinkles around the eyes, they need to have stubble that isn’t perfectly groomed and deliberate. And they can’t have little girly arms.
Another celebrity man that I find super-hot is Pierce Brosnan. Rowr. That’s a man with some depth, some chest hair, and a terrific accent.
Buried somewhere in this drivel is a call to the men of the world. I’ve noticed that a lot of you lack confidence – you seem confused about how to approach women, and spend a lot of time grooming yourselves. But none of this will do any good if you aren’t confident. A character in the South Park movie (who shall remain unnamed to preserve whatever shred of tact I have left) put it very well: “Chicks dig confidence. Just be yourself”.
Oh, and, um . . .don’t ask a girl on a date to a fast food restaurant. Ever.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Shall I share too much information?
In case anyone was interested, I'm pretty much just finishing up one of the busiest, most frustrating weeks I've ever had at work. I love my job, but when I get a project that is long, complicated, and really really nit-picky, I start to go a little insane. Poor Nikki has been swamped too. I think we'd been dealing with the stress pretty well until this week, when we realized that our "great idea" of taking our "woman pill" at the same time so we could help each other remember had a side effect: the resetting of womanly cycles so that they occur simultaneously. (I'm trying not to be too tacky here, but this is the best I can do. And I'm kind of a tacky person, as evidenced by Pinky the laptop bag). Anyway, today we discovered all kinds of fun problems involving the office's electrical system, and by about 3:00pm my hormones were going crazy and I had already threatened to cry at least four times. I'm making it sound really depressing, but it was actually kind of funny. (Well, it probably wasn't funny for Brian. He was probably hiding in the back room, wringing his hands and wondering what he'd done to deserve such crazy employees.)
I'm not going to complain about other frustrating things that happened, but I'll say this: IF THOU DOST TELL ME TO ARRIVE BY SIX IN ORDER TO SEE YOU, DO NOT LEAVE AT 5:30. I SHALL SEND THEE TO THE GALLOWS.
In other news, after a long and involved apartment search Matt and I decided to just stay where we are for now. We rearranged our bedroom as sort of a consolation prize, which was fun because I love arranging furniture.
We also went to Home Depo this week, a trip that secured my place in the Moron Hall of Fame. My finest moment went something like this:
R: Wow - look! I didn't know they sold tractors here!
M: Honey, those are just riding mowers.
And in case anyone was wondering, riding mowers do NOT having horns, but they should. Safety first, right?
I'm not going to complain about other frustrating things that happened, but I'll say this: IF THOU DOST TELL ME TO ARRIVE BY SIX IN ORDER TO SEE YOU, DO NOT LEAVE AT 5:30. I SHALL SEND THEE TO THE GALLOWS.
In other news, after a long and involved apartment search Matt and I decided to just stay where we are for now. We rearranged our bedroom as sort of a consolation prize, which was fun because I love arranging furniture.
We also went to Home Depo this week, a trip that secured my place in the Moron Hall of Fame. My finest moment went something like this:
R: Wow - look! I didn't know they sold tractors here!
M: Honey, those are just riding mowers.
And in case anyone was wondering, riding mowers do NOT having horns, but they should. Safety first, right?
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
You should feel shame if the panda part offends you . . .
The American media is becoming more and more like a Fellini movie. A few minutes ago I saw Geraldo Rivera, that fountain of wisdom, saying that Court TV’s coverage of the Michael Jackson verdict was sensational and unprofessional. “Hmmm . . . .” I thought to myself, “Didn’t Geraldo get kicked out of Iraq for accidentally broadcasting sensitive information?” So that’s okay then. (Not that I don’t think Court TV is sensational and unprofessional). And what’s with that mustache, Geraldo? Are you auditioning for the new Super Mario Brothers movie?
In addition, did you know that E! has been showing re-enactments of the trial every day?? I didn’t. That means there’s some lame actor who gets to put on his resume that he played Michael Jackson for four months. Weird.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought that the news was supposed to be insightful. I must have that wrong. You can throw an elephant at the news for weeks without hitting anything that’s not worthless drivel. (NPR, my dearest – you know that I don’t include you in this rant. I’m yours forever.)
I’m especially annoyed with all of the celebrity oriented news. And why do we ask celebrities questions about the lives of other celebrities? How relevant is Nicole Kidman’s opinion on whether Michael Jackson can salvage his career?
Here are Nine most annoying things I’ve been seeing too much of on the news:
9. Russell Crowe. So he threw a phone. Meh. *Shrugs* Naomi Campbell did that like ten years ago.
8. Brad Pitt’s alleged affair with Angelina Jolie. This would have ranked higher, but they’re so pretty that it mitigates the nonsense. Plus, you know, they’re trying to helping kids.
7. All of this Tom Delay mumbo jumbo. Just kick his ass to the curb and stop wasting tax dollars and American brain cells. Tom Delay is becoming like the bad boyfriend who beats you, but you just keep going back. And I’m the friend who’s fed up with you going back to him over and over again. Come ON, people. How many times does he have to throw us down the stairs before we break up with him?
6. My enduring disgust for Paris Hilton had waned, but now I find that she’s engaged to a man who’s also named Paris. That is ridiculous. I decree that spoiled children of privilege must have a new name, and I declare that name to be Minneapolis. We don’t need more Paris’s.
5. Partisanism.
4. Media coverage on the media.
3. Obviously, the Michael Jackson verdict. But specifically, the headlines announcing the verdict via a play on one of his songs (Examples: “He ‘beat it’”, “Free Man in the Mirror”)
2. If I see Tom Cruise jumping up and down like a four year old again, I swear I will vomit. WHY ARE THE TWO OF YOU TORTURING US WITH YOUR LUDICROUS AND DISTURBING RELATIONSHIP? I refuse to refer to this by the kvetchy media name. Just make you damn movies and go home. Find a girlfriend who’s not a giraffe, stop trying to convince me that Scientology isn’t weird, and STOP JUMPING UP AND DOWN LIKE A FOUR YEAR OLD.
1. Anything involving efforts to impregnate pandas. If they’re that reticent about having panda sex, maybe they’re supposed to go extinct.
In addition, did you know that E! has been showing re-enactments of the trial every day?? I didn’t. That means there’s some lame actor who gets to put on his resume that he played Michael Jackson for four months. Weird.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought that the news was supposed to be insightful. I must have that wrong. You can throw an elephant at the news for weeks without hitting anything that’s not worthless drivel. (NPR, my dearest – you know that I don’t include you in this rant. I’m yours forever.)
I’m especially annoyed with all of the celebrity oriented news. And why do we ask celebrities questions about the lives of other celebrities? How relevant is Nicole Kidman’s opinion on whether Michael Jackson can salvage his career?
Here are Nine most annoying things I’ve been seeing too much of on the news:
9. Russell Crowe. So he threw a phone. Meh. *Shrugs* Naomi Campbell did that like ten years ago.
8. Brad Pitt’s alleged affair with Angelina Jolie. This would have ranked higher, but they’re so pretty that it mitigates the nonsense. Plus, you know, they’re trying to helping kids.
7. All of this Tom Delay mumbo jumbo. Just kick his ass to the curb and stop wasting tax dollars and American brain cells. Tom Delay is becoming like the bad boyfriend who beats you, but you just keep going back. And I’m the friend who’s fed up with you going back to him over and over again. Come ON, people. How many times does he have to throw us down the stairs before we break up with him?
6. My enduring disgust for Paris Hilton had waned, but now I find that she’s engaged to a man who’s also named Paris. That is ridiculous. I decree that spoiled children of privilege must have a new name, and I declare that name to be Minneapolis. We don’t need more Paris’s.
5. Partisanism.
4. Media coverage on the media.
3. Obviously, the Michael Jackson verdict. But specifically, the headlines announcing the verdict via a play on one of his songs (Examples: “He ‘beat it’”, “Free Man in the Mirror”)
2. If I see Tom Cruise jumping up and down like a four year old again, I swear I will vomit. WHY ARE THE TWO OF YOU TORTURING US WITH YOUR LUDICROUS AND DISTURBING RELATIONSHIP? I refuse to refer to this by the kvetchy media name. Just make you damn movies and go home. Find a girlfriend who’s not a giraffe, stop trying to convince me that Scientology isn’t weird, and STOP JUMPING UP AND DOWN LIKE A FOUR YEAR OLD.
1. Anything involving efforts to impregnate pandas. If they’re that reticent about having panda sex, maybe they’re supposed to go extinct.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Paradise Somethinged
One of my favorite teachers from undergrad was an English professor who taught a class on Milton. Even if I hadn’t liked Professor L and his class so much, I think he still would have been one of my most memorable professors. The semester after I took Professor L’s class he went on the lamb amidst varying and sensational rumors, and I think that now it would be fair to upgrade his status from “memorable” to “infamous”.
It was obvious that he was restless with being a professor. He definitely loved teaching, and was one of those people who had a gift for communication, but an increasingly massive set of administrative nonsense made it hard for him to breathe. One day Professor L made us laugh by telling us about an old friend of his, a bipolar but tenured history professor who used to throw rocks through the windows of the Liberal Arts Dean’s Office when he was annoyed with the university. He finished the story after our laughter had died down, by reminiscing about some of his old friend’s other quirks. Later he told us that the reason that particular professor no longer taught was due to an untimely and self-induced death, from a bullet to the head.
It was easy to see coincidences in the story of the history professor and in Professor L’s own life. Beyond Professor L’s disdain for the administration, one got small peeks into the reality that he was hindered by his own disease. Even before the semester when he failed to turn up for his classes people might have noticed, if they paid attention, that he was almost never without his plaid, innocuous looking coffee flask – even when it seemed unlikely that he’d be drinking coffee. And his students probably raised their eyebrows at the more-than-occasional cancelled class, given without real explanation.
One afternoon I saw Professor L. walking down the street near the university, carrying nothing but his plaid flask and a newspaper. He was wearing nondescript jeans that weren’t large enough to distract from his skinny legs and a striped, baggy t-shirt. The clothes looked as if he’d slept in them. His white hair, as always, was slicked back, and his goatee was scraggly. It occurred to me that if I didn’t know who he was, I might think he was homeless. He was – and still is, I’m sure – the type of person who’s casually described as a “character”, whose antics are recounted with amusement. But the antics were more than worth it if you got the chance to hear him teach.
I’d been a lover of English poetry for years when I took Professor L’s class, and had spent probably more time than can be considered healthy reading John Donne aloud to savor the rhythm of the words, or researching the compositions dates on Tennyson’s poems. But Professor L’s class opened the door of history through the amazing structural intricacies that Milton used to compose his works. Above all I realized that I could never truly appreciate Milton, nor could anyone else, that Milton was trapped by the peculiarities of time and circumstance. Or, maybe, that we were trapped. I can read English poetry with joy and “understand” it, even learn from it. And, now, I can delve deeper by examining the structure of the poetry and what that helps it to say. But I’ll never be able to read Lycidas and implicitly feel the urgency of a particular verse because of the fact that is has less syllables. I’ll never naturally understand that a verse is meant to impart strength because it has three lines instead of two.
There was a time when the Western world was ruled by theology and faith. Obviously, this had some setbacks, like bleeding people with leeches. But the horror of the superstition was almost matched by the beautiful interconnectedness of the imagined universe. Now we can analyze and scientifically explain, but the sense of connection is lost to society. Now we feel more disconnected than ever. I remember one class Professor L spoke about being disconnected as a society, and leaned forward to stare. “You think you really know anybody?” The room was silent, and the electricity of it made me shiver. The void between each person in the room felt like limitless space, dark and unpassable. And as much as I wanted to say yes, we can truly know each other, I understood what he meant. In the vastness of life we barely know ourselves, so knowing another person is like stumbling blindly around a huge, darkened building. The terror of being so vulnerable can be enough to stop your efforts, and even when you resolve to try you still have to fight the size and the darkness, with no guarantee that anyone will turn on the lights.
Milton himself knew something about darkness, and about faith. In about 1640, Milton felt ready to write the work of his life. But against the backdrop of political upheaval, Milton was asked by Cromwell to be an official pamphleteer for the Puritan government. Milton felt divided, and was aware that he couldn’t write his masterpiece and adequately support his political philosophy at the same time. He put poetry on hold and became a pamphleteer.
Writing of that kind was hard work. By 1651 the long hours by candelight had taken their toll, and Milton had become completely blind. Nine years later the monarchy was reinstated and Milton, now an enemy of the government, was arrested and eventually impoverished. While living off a friend’s charity in a small room, blind and poor, Milton took up his pen and began his masterpiece, Paradise Lost, the work that would come to define the modern view of Christian theology.
Professor L had the ability to make all of that real, to cross the void into Milton’s time and show his students the hidden corners of history and the unrecognized genius in Milton’s works. He recreated the world of interconnectedness, even though his reality was very different. Like Donne, he seemed to be straddling the divide between faith and rationalism, between isolation and understanding.
For awhile after Professor L stopped teaching, the university still had him classified as a member of the faculty. Now he seems to be erased from memory; no matter how many ways I tried to google his name, all I could find were old, brief documents that listed his name along with dozens of other UT professors. For all of the impact he made on the dozens of students who fought to take his class, he’s now so far away that even the internet can’t find him.
Sometimes isolation goes beyond having nothing to do on a Friday night. For some, it can be the crushing reality of being a single person, living in a particular place, during a time when the most people hope for in terms of connection is for someone to love them “for who they are”. For some isolation is the reality of human existence. I can empathize with feeling adrift in that vast space, but I can also say that I’ve had experiences that transcended the physical constructs that keep us isolated. Far from hard to reconcile, this is just the reality of being a spiritual being living in a physical world. I think the connections that seem to elusive are more tangible that we realize, and the fact that they’re hard to grasp is a reason to work hard, not a reason to despair. I hope that, no matter what Professor L is doing, he’s found a way through the sadness in his life. I hope he realizes that, no matter how trapped he may be just by virtue of who he is, there’s probably some student that he doesn’t even remember who’s looking him up on the internet, or flipping through old notes from class while cleaning out a closet, or looking up at the night sky and remembering Milton:
It was obvious that he was restless with being a professor. He definitely loved teaching, and was one of those people who had a gift for communication, but an increasingly massive set of administrative nonsense made it hard for him to breathe. One day Professor L made us laugh by telling us about an old friend of his, a bipolar but tenured history professor who used to throw rocks through the windows of the Liberal Arts Dean’s Office when he was annoyed with the university. He finished the story after our laughter had died down, by reminiscing about some of his old friend’s other quirks. Later he told us that the reason that particular professor no longer taught was due to an untimely and self-induced death, from a bullet to the head.
It was easy to see coincidences in the story of the history professor and in Professor L’s own life. Beyond Professor L’s disdain for the administration, one got small peeks into the reality that he was hindered by his own disease. Even before the semester when he failed to turn up for his classes people might have noticed, if they paid attention, that he was almost never without his plaid, innocuous looking coffee flask – even when it seemed unlikely that he’d be drinking coffee. And his students probably raised their eyebrows at the more-than-occasional cancelled class, given without real explanation.
One afternoon I saw Professor L. walking down the street near the university, carrying nothing but his plaid flask and a newspaper. He was wearing nondescript jeans that weren’t large enough to distract from his skinny legs and a striped, baggy t-shirt. The clothes looked as if he’d slept in them. His white hair, as always, was slicked back, and his goatee was scraggly. It occurred to me that if I didn’t know who he was, I might think he was homeless. He was – and still is, I’m sure – the type of person who’s casually described as a “character”, whose antics are recounted with amusement. But the antics were more than worth it if you got the chance to hear him teach.
I’d been a lover of English poetry for years when I took Professor L’s class, and had spent probably more time than can be considered healthy reading John Donne aloud to savor the rhythm of the words, or researching the compositions dates on Tennyson’s poems. But Professor L’s class opened the door of history through the amazing structural intricacies that Milton used to compose his works. Above all I realized that I could never truly appreciate Milton, nor could anyone else, that Milton was trapped by the peculiarities of time and circumstance. Or, maybe, that we were trapped. I can read English poetry with joy and “understand” it, even learn from it. And, now, I can delve deeper by examining the structure of the poetry and what that helps it to say. But I’ll never be able to read Lycidas and implicitly feel the urgency of a particular verse because of the fact that is has less syllables. I’ll never naturally understand that a verse is meant to impart strength because it has three lines instead of two.
There was a time when the Western world was ruled by theology and faith. Obviously, this had some setbacks, like bleeding people with leeches. But the horror of the superstition was almost matched by the beautiful interconnectedness of the imagined universe. Now we can analyze and scientifically explain, but the sense of connection is lost to society. Now we feel more disconnected than ever. I remember one class Professor L spoke about being disconnected as a society, and leaned forward to stare. “You think you really know anybody?” The room was silent, and the electricity of it made me shiver. The void between each person in the room felt like limitless space, dark and unpassable. And as much as I wanted to say yes, we can truly know each other, I understood what he meant. In the vastness of life we barely know ourselves, so knowing another person is like stumbling blindly around a huge, darkened building. The terror of being so vulnerable can be enough to stop your efforts, and even when you resolve to try you still have to fight the size and the darkness, with no guarantee that anyone will turn on the lights.
Milton himself knew something about darkness, and about faith. In about 1640, Milton felt ready to write the work of his life. But against the backdrop of political upheaval, Milton was asked by Cromwell to be an official pamphleteer for the Puritan government. Milton felt divided, and was aware that he couldn’t write his masterpiece and adequately support his political philosophy at the same time. He put poetry on hold and became a pamphleteer.
Writing of that kind was hard work. By 1651 the long hours by candelight had taken their toll, and Milton had become completely blind. Nine years later the monarchy was reinstated and Milton, now an enemy of the government, was arrested and eventually impoverished. While living off a friend’s charity in a small room, blind and poor, Milton took up his pen and began his masterpiece, Paradise Lost, the work that would come to define the modern view of Christian theology.
Professor L had the ability to make all of that real, to cross the void into Milton’s time and show his students the hidden corners of history and the unrecognized genius in Milton’s works. He recreated the world of interconnectedness, even though his reality was very different. Like Donne, he seemed to be straddling the divide between faith and rationalism, between isolation and understanding.
For awhile after Professor L stopped teaching, the university still had him classified as a member of the faculty. Now he seems to be erased from memory; no matter how many ways I tried to google his name, all I could find were old, brief documents that listed his name along with dozens of other UT professors. For all of the impact he made on the dozens of students who fought to take his class, he’s now so far away that even the internet can’t find him.
Sometimes isolation goes beyond having nothing to do on a Friday night. For some, it can be the crushing reality of being a single person, living in a particular place, during a time when the most people hope for in terms of connection is for someone to love them “for who they are”. For some isolation is the reality of human existence. I can empathize with feeling adrift in that vast space, but I can also say that I’ve had experiences that transcended the physical constructs that keep us isolated. Far from hard to reconcile, this is just the reality of being a spiritual being living in a physical world. I think the connections that seem to elusive are more tangible that we realize, and the fact that they’re hard to grasp is a reason to work hard, not a reason to despair. I hope that, no matter what Professor L is doing, he’s found a way through the sadness in his life. I hope he realizes that, no matter how trapped he may be just by virtue of who he is, there’s probably some student that he doesn’t even remember who’s looking him up on the internet, or flipping through old notes from class while cleaning out a closet, or looking up at the night sky and remembering Milton:
“When once our heav'nly-guided soul shall clime,
Then all this Earthy grosnes quit,
Attir'd with Stars, we shall for ever sit,
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee O Time.”
Friday, June 10, 2005
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
I've got a bad feeling about this . . .
(Tomorrow I’ll post all about the wedding of the fabulous Lauren and Sarmad, complete with pictures. Hopefully you’ll forgive me for the delay.)
Matt and I finally got to see Revenge of the Sith, along with a theatre full of people who, like us, probably figured that everyone in the world had seen it by now and they could get good seats. We forgot to factor in the nerds who saw it opening night, and have been seeing it every few days since then. One such group of nerds had this conversation:
Nerd #1: Man, that was pretty cool seeing that wookiee army.
Nerd #2: Yeah, man, wookiees rock. But I think ewoks were the best.
Nerd #1: Oh, well, of course the ewoks are the best. I mean, definately the best of gungans and all of the other native tribes.
Native tribes, eh? Anyway, the movie was generally sort of not completely terrible, it kind of swung between being really engrossing and annoyingly transparent.
The part of the movie that most fascinated me was the way that the Jedi Council mishandled the whole Anakin situation. They seemed like a bunch of really distracted parents who were too busy to give their children the kind of attention they needed. When Anakin was all “Samuel L., Palpatine is a Sith!” and Samuel L. responded by basically saying “Be a good boy and go wait in your room.” I really wanted to reach into the screen and smack him. The Council knew that Anakin was powerful and they knew that he was potentially dangerous. AND, given that they can sort of read minds, they had to realize he was getting restless. So why didn’t they do anything about it?
And I know that there’s someone reading this who’s thinking that it was necessary for all of that to happen so that Anakin could become Darth, have Luke, and then restore order to the Force by killing the Emporer to save Luke. But it’s just as possible that the Council could have handled the situation better, and then Anakin would have restored order to the force by killing Palpatine instead of Samuel L. See that? Same result, less carnage. If only the Jedis had been a little more proactive.
In general, I’m very interested in watching other people parent. And one of the things I tend to notice is when there’s disconnect between what parents know of their children and reality. I admire parents who are aware of their children, who notice their needs and do what they can to address those needs under extremely individualized circumstances. For all practical purposes, the Jedis were parents to Anakin and the other pre-Jedi kids. They were completely responsible for their upbringing, and to think that they weren’t giving those kids individualized care is kind of interesting. First, I think we’ve all seen what can happen when parents have a child who’s “hard to handle” and treat him or her like all other kids: the kid doesn’t ever learn how to handle his or her special needs, doesn’t develop all that she/he could, and the parents have to spend astronomical amounts on therapy. Anakin kind of parallels this type of situation, and the Jedi Council is just like the parents who wait until it’s too late to deal with a challenging child.
Second, I find it interesting that the Jedi’s didn’t have essential child-raising skills, even though they were supposed to instill this whole moral code in the young Jedis. The Baha’i Faith is very clear on the fact that there’s no inherent virtue in eschewing a family life to serve God/some higher purpose. In fact, the Baha’i writings state that living the life of an ascetic is wrong, and that people should have families and serve God: the two aren’t mutually exclusive, and service is done through interaction with other human beings. I wonder what the Star Wars world would have looked like if Jedis were allowed to have relationships and families. It’s funny, because ultimately a key point of the six movies seems to be the importance of relationships. It’s the bond between Luke and Anakin that finally enables Anakin to kill the Emperor, and the three main characters in the last three movies are driven by emotion for each other much more than some righteous desire to do the right thing. Those family bonds might seem devastating from the Jedi Council perspective, but in the end those bonds are the strongest impetus people have to do what’s right.
(Although, it seemed like everybody in the movie knew that Anakin and Padme were together, and nobody seemed to care, so maybe the Jedis were actually just into free love.)
In addition to all of the above psychobabble, Natalie Portman’s hair was terrible. It was so bad that I found it distracting. And having Darth fall to his knees and yell “Nooooooo!” was the silliest thing I’ve ever seen on film.
Matt and I finally got to see Revenge of the Sith, along with a theatre full of people who, like us, probably figured that everyone in the world had seen it by now and they could get good seats. We forgot to factor in the nerds who saw it opening night, and have been seeing it every few days since then. One such group of nerds had this conversation:
Nerd #1: Man, that was pretty cool seeing that wookiee army.
Nerd #2: Yeah, man, wookiees rock. But I think ewoks were the best.
Nerd #1: Oh, well, of course the ewoks are the best. I mean, definately the best of gungans and all of the other native tribes.
Native tribes, eh? Anyway, the movie was generally sort of not completely terrible, it kind of swung between being really engrossing and annoyingly transparent.
The part of the movie that most fascinated me was the way that the Jedi Council mishandled the whole Anakin situation. They seemed like a bunch of really distracted parents who were too busy to give their children the kind of attention they needed. When Anakin was all “Samuel L., Palpatine is a Sith!” and Samuel L. responded by basically saying “Be a good boy and go wait in your room.” I really wanted to reach into the screen and smack him. The Council knew that Anakin was powerful and they knew that he was potentially dangerous. AND, given that they can sort of read minds, they had to realize he was getting restless. So why didn’t they do anything about it?
And I know that there’s someone reading this who’s thinking that it was necessary for all of that to happen so that Anakin could become Darth, have Luke, and then restore order to the Force by killing the Emporer to save Luke. But it’s just as possible that the Council could have handled the situation better, and then Anakin would have restored order to the force by killing Palpatine instead of Samuel L. See that? Same result, less carnage. If only the Jedis had been a little more proactive.
In general, I’m very interested in watching other people parent. And one of the things I tend to notice is when there’s disconnect between what parents know of their children and reality. I admire parents who are aware of their children, who notice their needs and do what they can to address those needs under extremely individualized circumstances. For all practical purposes, the Jedis were parents to Anakin and the other pre-Jedi kids. They were completely responsible for their upbringing, and to think that they weren’t giving those kids individualized care is kind of interesting. First, I think we’ve all seen what can happen when parents have a child who’s “hard to handle” and treat him or her like all other kids: the kid doesn’t ever learn how to handle his or her special needs, doesn’t develop all that she/he could, and the parents have to spend astronomical amounts on therapy. Anakin kind of parallels this type of situation, and the Jedi Council is just like the parents who wait until it’s too late to deal with a challenging child.
Second, I find it interesting that the Jedi’s didn’t have essential child-raising skills, even though they were supposed to instill this whole moral code in the young Jedis. The Baha’i Faith is very clear on the fact that there’s no inherent virtue in eschewing a family life to serve God/some higher purpose. In fact, the Baha’i writings state that living the life of an ascetic is wrong, and that people should have families and serve God: the two aren’t mutually exclusive, and service is done through interaction with other human beings. I wonder what the Star Wars world would have looked like if Jedis were allowed to have relationships and families. It’s funny, because ultimately a key point of the six movies seems to be the importance of relationships. It’s the bond between Luke and Anakin that finally enables Anakin to kill the Emperor, and the three main characters in the last three movies are driven by emotion for each other much more than some righteous desire to do the right thing. Those family bonds might seem devastating from the Jedi Council perspective, but in the end those bonds are the strongest impetus people have to do what’s right.
(Although, it seemed like everybody in the movie knew that Anakin and Padme were together, and nobody seemed to care, so maybe the Jedis were actually just into free love.)
In addition to all of the above psychobabble, Natalie Portman’s hair was terrible. It was so bad that I found it distracting. And having Darth fall to his knees and yell “Nooooooo!” was the silliest thing I’ve ever seen on film.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Rowood v. Too Many Cars
I'd like to second Nikki's post about the hilarity that is watching depositions take place in our office. My favotire parts of the day were:
1. The fab white chocolate raspberry scones that Brian bought "for the guests" which Nikki and I shamelessly scarfed.
2. Watching Joe Corporate and his mentor at douchebags-r-us law firm enter the office wearing THE SAME OUTFIT AS IF THEY WERE THIRD GRADE GIRLS. Seriously guys - there is a world beyond pleated khakis.
3. Saying "where's Victor?" right as the elusive boy walked through the front door stating "I forgot to dress nice and had to go all the way home to change."
4. Having extremely animated, expletive-filled, but whispered conversations just outside the conference room.
Depositions make for an interesting, pastry-filled day.
In other news, Matt and I spent last weekend in Dallas for Lorraine's (sister-in-law) graduation. Everything was pretty jam-packed full of family time, but I did learn how to play a weird and neverending version of Rummy. And I came up with a really great daydream, where, when someone makes an unsolicited comment about my weight ("You're so skinny! You should eat more!"), I envision throwing a cream pie in their face and yelling "Why don't YOU eat more!".
Mmmm . . . cream pie . . .
1. The fab white chocolate raspberry scones that Brian bought "for the guests" which Nikki and I shamelessly scarfed.
2. Watching Joe Corporate and his mentor at douchebags-r-us law firm enter the office wearing THE SAME OUTFIT AS IF THEY WERE THIRD GRADE GIRLS. Seriously guys - there is a world beyond pleated khakis.
3. Saying "where's Victor?" right as the elusive boy walked through the front door stating "I forgot to dress nice and had to go all the way home to change."
4. Having extremely animated, expletive-filled, but whispered conversations just outside the conference room.
Depositions make for an interesting, pastry-filled day.
In other news, Matt and I spent last weekend in Dallas for Lorraine's (sister-in-law) graduation. Everything was pretty jam-packed full of family time, but I did learn how to play a weird and neverending version of Rummy. And I came up with a really great daydream, where, when someone makes an unsolicited comment about my weight ("You're so skinny! You should eat more!"), I envision throwing a cream pie in their face and yelling "Why don't YOU eat more!".
Mmmm . . . cream pie . . .
Monday, May 23, 2005
Back to Normal . . . .
Being not sick kicks so much ass. Hurrah for drinking caffeine and eating dairy products!!
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Mother's Day
On Sunday what I had thought were allergies finally revealed themselves to be the flu, and I’ve now been pretty much quarantined in my apartment for a few days. Not being able to go anywhere is boring, so I’ve been spending a lot of time on the Scrapbooks that I’m making for Mom Giani and Mom Sherrill. When I came up with the idea I envisioned putting in pictures from as far back as I could find, but in the end I decided to go with pictures that have to do with being a Mom to grown-up kids. It’s all got me being extremely sentimental about daughterhood, so I warn you up front: this post might be really sappy.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to have kids. Sometimes I can almost convince myself that I would be okay never being a mother, but I’m pretty sure that those kinds of thoughts come from fear. Assuming that I do have kids one day, I want to be the kind of mother that I had, the kind that I know Matt had as well. I’m amazed at how many parents out there don’t pay any attention to their children unless they get too loud. In my opinion, kids are supposed to be loud, and if yours are quiet all of the time then something is wrong. There’s a fine line between teaching your child about appropriate behavior and teaching them that they can act as awful as they want as long as they do it quietly.
The kind of patience, and insight, and constant awareness that a real parent has to have is mind-boggling. My fear is that I won’t ever be able to be that selfless, and that my poor children will end up spending their adult lives in therapy.
While a lot of my early memories of religious community life involve my Dad, all of my memories of private spiritual life are of my Mom. I can remember watching her say her prayers, standing silently in the doorway while she sat on the floor at the end of her bed. I always wanted her to wear her red striped dress when we had people over for Baha’i gatherings – I called it her “Fireside Dress”. Any she would wear it frequently when I asked her to, even though she was probably sick of it.
Would I wear the same dress every Friday if my daughter wanted me to? Or would I make up some excuse to disguise the fact that I didn’t want it to seem like I only had one thing to wear?
When I left for college I was shocked at how badly I missed having my mother around. You go through your teenage years wanting to escape, and when you do you suddenly realize that the person in the world who would do absolutely anything for you isn’t around anymore. In Lucy, Jamaica Kinkaid’s protagonist speaks after a falling out with her mother and says that she realizes she’s just ended the first, and perhaps the only real love affair of her life. I never understood that until, for the first time and at the age of nineteen, I felt like my parents weren’t able to be there for me.
Mom Giani and Mom Sherrill are both going through some form of empty-nest syndrome as their youngest children go off to college. I also can’t imagine what it’s like to be a real mother, to spend every second of every day totally subjugating your needs to your children’s, and then to have those children happily prance out of the house with their lives ahead of them. But the idea that children stop needing their mothers when they leave the house is just wrong. As you’re sucked into the emotional vacuum of college life and the real world, your mother is the lifeline that you turn to for guidance. After years of demanding to do things your own way, you suddenly wish that your mother could just decide everything for you because life is too hard and too complicated.
My relationship with my Mom changed a lot after I started college, and as I got married it settled into what it is now. Mothers and adult daughters, like my Mom and myself, are often very sisterly, openly sharing experiences and asking each other for advice. But I don’t think my Mom realizes that this equalized closeness is a functional necessity to mask the reality that I’ll always need her support, and that her power over me is unique. A mother is simply irreplaceable.
Somehow this is what I want the mothers in my life to know: that your children never really stop needing you. There’s no chapter of your life that you go through without your mother, there’s nothing you do that isn’t affected by that relationship. So happy belated holidays to all of the mothers in my life. Sorry I drove you crazy for all of those years – if you feel like getting back at me by driving me crazy sometimes, I won’t hold it against you.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to have kids. Sometimes I can almost convince myself that I would be okay never being a mother, but I’m pretty sure that those kinds of thoughts come from fear. Assuming that I do have kids one day, I want to be the kind of mother that I had, the kind that I know Matt had as well. I’m amazed at how many parents out there don’t pay any attention to their children unless they get too loud. In my opinion, kids are supposed to be loud, and if yours are quiet all of the time then something is wrong. There’s a fine line between teaching your child about appropriate behavior and teaching them that they can act as awful as they want as long as they do it quietly.
The kind of patience, and insight, and constant awareness that a real parent has to have is mind-boggling. My fear is that I won’t ever be able to be that selfless, and that my poor children will end up spending their adult lives in therapy.
While a lot of my early memories of religious community life involve my Dad, all of my memories of private spiritual life are of my Mom. I can remember watching her say her prayers, standing silently in the doorway while she sat on the floor at the end of her bed. I always wanted her to wear her red striped dress when we had people over for Baha’i gatherings – I called it her “Fireside Dress”. Any she would wear it frequently when I asked her to, even though she was probably sick of it.
Would I wear the same dress every Friday if my daughter wanted me to? Or would I make up some excuse to disguise the fact that I didn’t want it to seem like I only had one thing to wear?
When I left for college I was shocked at how badly I missed having my mother around. You go through your teenage years wanting to escape, and when you do you suddenly realize that the person in the world who would do absolutely anything for you isn’t around anymore. In Lucy, Jamaica Kinkaid’s protagonist speaks after a falling out with her mother and says that she realizes she’s just ended the first, and perhaps the only real love affair of her life. I never understood that until, for the first time and at the age of nineteen, I felt like my parents weren’t able to be there for me.
Mom Giani and Mom Sherrill are both going through some form of empty-nest syndrome as their youngest children go off to college. I also can’t imagine what it’s like to be a real mother, to spend every second of every day totally subjugating your needs to your children’s, and then to have those children happily prance out of the house with their lives ahead of them. But the idea that children stop needing their mothers when they leave the house is just wrong. As you’re sucked into the emotional vacuum of college life and the real world, your mother is the lifeline that you turn to for guidance. After years of demanding to do things your own way, you suddenly wish that your mother could just decide everything for you because life is too hard and too complicated.
My relationship with my Mom changed a lot after I started college, and as I got married it settled into what it is now. Mothers and adult daughters, like my Mom and myself, are often very sisterly, openly sharing experiences and asking each other for advice. But I don’t think my Mom realizes that this equalized closeness is a functional necessity to mask the reality that I’ll always need her support, and that her power over me is unique. A mother is simply irreplaceable.
Somehow this is what I want the mothers in my life to know: that your children never really stop needing you. There’s no chapter of your life that you go through without your mother, there’s nothing you do that isn’t affected by that relationship. So happy belated holidays to all of the mothers in my life. Sorry I drove you crazy for all of those years – if you feel like getting back at me by driving me crazy sometimes, I won’t hold it against you.
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