I suppose the time for discussion of the coffee progression has passed. I will say only that, as it ought to be, it is brown and aromatic. Also, a tasty beverage. This is an important distinction.
I wore my tennis-themed hooded-sweatshirt to rehearsal today in the hope that someone would say "Oh, you play tennis? We should go play some." This did not happen (some people cannot take a hint). Later that day, I discovered my cousin was in town, who upon my paying a visit said "Oh, you play tennis? We should go play some." Apparently things sometimes work out, but not as expected. There even was a conspicuous lack of the precipitation promised for the day. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, prepared with racket in hand to beat it back into the air if necessary.
I fear I may be playing Final Fantasy Tactics A2 for the rest of time. This would not in and of itself be a bad thing, necessarily, except the release of a third iteration seems inevitable. I've played thirty-two hours and have completed about a fifth of the game, if I'm lucky. There just isn't as much time to do this sort of thing anymore, which makes me sad and also mathematically-challenged as to how I'm going to pull off the laundry-list of worthies I have (once again) accumulated. I am beginning to worry that I cannot in fact be and do all good things there are to be and do, but haven't yet figured out how to deal with this (what can only be described as) unfortunate truth.
Perhaps a new slogan is appropriate here, as much for these current times as for my own more-metaphysical perplexity: Got Bilked?
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Hot Stuff
It has been only a week and already the Coffee has attained heights never hitherto attained (which is to say, heights), undergoing a vertical translation of states. Grounds unto (new) grounds, as it were, boo onto brew, blahfee into coffee, etc. Each successive rendition - an earthly attempt at the Form of the beverage - completes further the transition from undrinkable mess to elixer of life. It's getting better, in other words. These days, when I start that Maker a-workin' a savory smell comes a-lurkin, as do all the deer living round these parts, drawn from the lawn to the door by the scent of caffeine and the possibility of getting some dunkin' on. But they poop on the grass and are generally unneighborly, so I keep 'em out. In the meantime I must now concentrate on attaining the perfect mixture of sweetener and, er, whatever it is that the milk does. Still, the drink's true value is less in the flavor and more in its medicinal capacity.
I'm trying harder lately to practice grammatical tolerance. It's so hard, though. Even ignoring such obvious issues as people using double-negatives with abandon and gleefully misplacing objects of prepositions, it grinds my nerves something fierce when I hear a pronunciation of a word that is so far off the 'correct' way that it actually sounds like a different word and becomes confusing. Frustrating. I bite my tongue, though, because nobody asked me to correct his (ultimately-incosequential, admittedly) mistakes, and there are few ways more efficacious at souring a new relationship than putting the other person in the position of feeling corrected, chastised, and even the dreaded 'talked down to.'
I don't know, though - it's not even that I feel superior to others and want to flout that superiority. Rather I want everyone to do everything he can as well as he can, and there's no reason why errors such as are the type I notice most easily should go uncorrected. I believe everyone is capable of, say, using correct grammar and enunciating when he speaks. Noble sentiments, one might think. On the other hand, I suppose there are far worse people than I who have done some actually-Bad work under the banner of "improving other people, whether they feel like it or not." Ultimately I guess we each must decide what we want for ourselves and how best to seek that out. If that means some people decide they don't care so much about sounding (or even being) well-educated, and as an unintended consequence they irritate me occasionally, that is their decision to make and I must live with being irritated, at least until such time as they come to me and say "Oh Sage Mathias, we now know the error of our aimless ways and have come to seek of ye instruction in the grete werkes of Wysdome." This being about as likely as a Best Actor Oscar for me, I'll just do my best to grin and bear it, perhaps with the aid of a large cup of coffee.
...Good grief, I come off sounding like such an elitist jerk in this posting. How does this happen? Education is a wonderful and beautiful thing to have, and it should be no shame to want to bring it to others. Perhaps the problem is that I care more for the sake of freeing myself of irritants than for the sake of bringing benefit to others. Terrific. Ah well, I suppose it doesn't matter. I'm not sufficiently brilliant to make my correction stick in the mind, anyway...
I'm trying harder lately to practice grammatical tolerance. It's so hard, though. Even ignoring such obvious issues as people using double-negatives with abandon and gleefully misplacing objects of prepositions, it grinds my nerves something fierce when I hear a pronunciation of a word that is so far off the 'correct' way that it actually sounds like a different word and becomes confusing. Frustrating. I bite my tongue, though, because nobody asked me to correct his (ultimately-incosequential, admittedly) mistakes, and there are few ways more efficacious at souring a new relationship than putting the other person in the position of feeling corrected, chastised, and even the dreaded 'talked down to.'
I don't know, though - it's not even that I feel superior to others and want to flout that superiority. Rather I want everyone to do everything he can as well as he can, and there's no reason why errors such as are the type I notice most easily should go uncorrected. I believe everyone is capable of, say, using correct grammar and enunciating when he speaks. Noble sentiments, one might think. On the other hand, I suppose there are far worse people than I who have done some actually-Bad work under the banner of "improving other people, whether they feel like it or not." Ultimately I guess we each must decide what we want for ourselves and how best to seek that out. If that means some people decide they don't care so much about sounding (or even being) well-educated, and as an unintended consequence they irritate me occasionally, that is their decision to make and I must live with being irritated, at least until such time as they come to me and say "Oh Sage Mathias, we now know the error of our aimless ways and have come to seek of ye instruction in the grete werkes of Wysdome." This being about as likely as a Best Actor Oscar for me, I'll just do my best to grin and bear it, perhaps with the aid of a large cup of coffee.
...Good grief, I come off sounding like such an elitist jerk in this posting. How does this happen? Education is a wonderful and beautiful thing to have, and it should be no shame to want to bring it to others. Perhaps the problem is that I care more for the sake of freeing myself of irritants than for the sake of bringing benefit to others. Terrific. Ah well, I suppose it doesn't matter. I'm not sufficiently brilliant to make my correction stick in the mind, anyway...
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Rebirth
The barrier has been crossed; the old laws have fallen away. The shift has occurred. Quanta have leaped. I have learned to make coffee. When I bought the instant coffee mix and had at it the first few cups, I couldn't figure out why I kept on crafting such an odious concoction and, more importantly, why so much of the mix remained on the bottom of the cop, unblended, despite my best efforts. First I thought I needed to add the boiling water to the mix rather than the other way around; then I thought it needed more time to dissolve and a considerably-greater amount of stirring. Finally I realized what I'd bought was coffee grounds. This could explain a few things.
Fortunately I had a coffee maker, and I even figured out how to work it, despite the lack of both a manual and an inherent logic to the process. Now I realize there is an inherent logic to the process, but in the midst of it I wasn't sure things weren't going to burst into flame until I'd actually poured the cup. What I finally lifted to my lips and tasted on my tongue was the sweet flavor of victory. Victory, and perhaps a touch too much milk. These things take practice to get right.
It's only been three months since my last posting, hardly a time period of significance. All order in this online universe of mine has descended into chaos in the interim, but it's a descent in direct proportionality to the restoration of order in the rest of my life, a trade-off I'm quite pleased to make. The purpose this "blog" served at first is no longer a pressing one and my priorities and ambitions have changed somewhat, but two things remain true. It is satisfying to produce, and I need to write. All sorts of interesting writing ideas are arising in my head on a regular basis, but here's what usually happens to them, conveyed via my thought process: "Huh. That seems like a really great idea for a short story/novel/play/opera/epic poem/theo-philosophical treatise. However, as it is late and I am on my way to bed, I will just tuck it away in the back corner for writing later." Later: "Huh. That great idea seems rather pretentious, boring and downright ridiculous now. It is a Bad Idea and I regret thinking of it. I'd rather spend my writing time on the persistently-great idea I will come up with shortly." End result: nothing gets written. (Incidentally, I'm still not sure why I thought an animated, to-scale bunny-rabbit going paw-to-toe with John Malkovich in the sumo ring while torches on trapezes overhead juggle flaming humans and Matt Damon sings ballads could possibly be a bad idea, but I've forgotten how the dialogue for the love scene went, so it's a bit of a moot point.)
Words are pretty great; that at least is my attitude. I like putting them together; I like playing with them; I like criticizing the inadequate usage of them by others; as such, here I am once again. This is the one venue where I'm at all likely to keep up writing on a regular basis, at least until true inspiration strikes me. Right now - and I realize this may change - I do not care whether anyone reads this. I have no mission, no catchy hook with which to snare the reading populace and make me famous. I just want to write, because when I actually sit down and do it, I love it.
I also enjoy elevating scenarios from the mundane and "merely" imaginary to the ridiculous. Maybe there will be some of that in the next post.
Fortunately I had a coffee maker, and I even figured out how to work it, despite the lack of both a manual and an inherent logic to the process. Now I realize there is an inherent logic to the process, but in the midst of it I wasn't sure things weren't going to burst into flame until I'd actually poured the cup. What I finally lifted to my lips and tasted on my tongue was the sweet flavor of victory. Victory, and perhaps a touch too much milk. These things take practice to get right.
It's only been three months since my last posting, hardly a time period of significance. All order in this online universe of mine has descended into chaos in the interim, but it's a descent in direct proportionality to the restoration of order in the rest of my life, a trade-off I'm quite pleased to make. The purpose this "blog" served at first is no longer a pressing one and my priorities and ambitions have changed somewhat, but two things remain true. It is satisfying to produce, and I need to write. All sorts of interesting writing ideas are arising in my head on a regular basis, but here's what usually happens to them, conveyed via my thought process: "Huh. That seems like a really great idea for a short story/novel/play/opera/epic poem/theo-philosophical treatise. However, as it is late and I am on my way to bed, I will just tuck it away in the back corner for writing later." Later: "Huh. That great idea seems rather pretentious, boring and downright ridiculous now. It is a Bad Idea and I regret thinking of it. I'd rather spend my writing time on the persistently-great idea I will come up with shortly." End result: nothing gets written. (Incidentally, I'm still not sure why I thought an animated, to-scale bunny-rabbit going paw-to-toe with John Malkovich in the sumo ring while torches on trapezes overhead juggle flaming humans and Matt Damon sings ballads could possibly be a bad idea, but I've forgotten how the dialogue for the love scene went, so it's a bit of a moot point.)
Words are pretty great; that at least is my attitude. I like putting them together; I like playing with them; I like criticizing the inadequate usage of them by others; as such, here I am once again. This is the one venue where I'm at all likely to keep up writing on a regular basis, at least until true inspiration strikes me. Right now - and I realize this may change - I do not care whether anyone reads this. I have no mission, no catchy hook with which to snare the reading populace and make me famous. I just want to write, because when I actually sit down and do it, I love it.
I also enjoy elevating scenarios from the mundane and "merely" imaginary to the ridiculous. Maybe there will be some of that in the next post.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Implicit
I got an email recently mentioning that my latest utilities bill is available online, desperate for attention like a small dog for petting or a pretzel for butter (the analogy is not perfect). "We are happy to inform you..." it begins. I'm sure you are.
I find this kind of thing very amusing (its quality as sarcasm fodder is unsurpassed). I mentioned previously my fondness for the incongruous and this is an excellent example. The rest of the missive is every bit as genially vague, dancing around its true purpose like a landmine. Not once does it use the word 'bill' in the body of the email, preferring instead to speak of 'account information' and 'view the balance'; 'payment' hides at the bottom.
Still, it's that opening line that really gets me. What, exactly, is the rationale here? that I will open the email and the thought-process will be something like this: "Oh...a bill...but wait, they're happy to tell me about it. That takes the sting out. I guess I'm happy too, and will pay this in good cheer and with great haste"? No. No one would think this. No one would think that any one would think this. Bills are not a happy experience. I am not happy. They who tell me about the bill are not, in fact, happy. The computer that actually generated this email and sent it to me is not happy. The threat of legal action would be much more effective at motivating me to pay up on anything in danger of coming due. To act as though this anonymous auto-generated reminder of an ugly duty is something deserving of an attempt at a sunny smile is, frankly, absurd, if not outright insulting.
It is also tragically predictable - we Americans love our euphemisms, as I think I mentioned previously, and this is just a more bizarre example of our unending quest to make displeasing things more palatable. I find euphemisms fascinating (this is true of many things), even when they're insulting my intelligence, in large part because I have never quite understood their function, or at least their efficacy. A euphemism is nothing more than a lousy disguise - if the disguise is too good, meaning is obscured and communication fails, which is problematic. Sure, there are cases where this can be manipulated to a legitimate end (talking over someone's head springs to mind). But there are many examples where everyone sees through the disguise, and yet desires its retention; why?
How about that profanity? The excellent science-fiction show Battlestar Galactica is a good example - pretty much every curse word in the book makes the occasional appearance and is not censored, with the glaring exception of the F-bomb, which is replaced by 'Frak.' Boy, that makes it all better. 'Frak' gets used a lot, and in every context that its real-world counterpart might be found, and I have to point out: it's obvious what word is intended. They're using all these other profanities that we know and, er, know, and then they drop in this slightly-altered version of the King of Kurse, the Sultan of Swear, and somehow this is supposed to make it more acceptable for broadcast. But why? If we're all thinking the real word when they speak its substitute, how is anyone 'helped' or societal standards preserved? What is so dangerously powerful about the sound of the word such that it's okay to plant it in everyone's mind but not okay to apply it to everyone's ears? I don't question that there is a difference, yet I do not understand it. Meanwhile the coherence and believability of the BSG world is actually weakened because the lingo is otherwise the same, and when the exception makes its appearance, it jars.
Making up words is always a hazardous business, especially if you go only halfway and especially if you just make up profanity. It's really hard to do this without the result sounding silly and contrived (several otherwise-decent Star Wars novels have fallen prey to this phenomenon). If you're going to go this route it might as well be with tweaked versions of the usual suspects, these being the safest bet...but do they really accomplish the intended purpose? Frankly this desire to hide something in plain sight, hardly limited to the realms of offensive language and monetary transactions, strikes me as a mild but universal hypocrisy. But what are we even kidding ourselves about?
I find this kind of thing very amusing (its quality as sarcasm fodder is unsurpassed). I mentioned previously my fondness for the incongruous and this is an excellent example. The rest of the missive is every bit as genially vague, dancing around its true purpose like a landmine. Not once does it use the word 'bill' in the body of the email, preferring instead to speak of 'account information' and 'view the balance'; 'payment' hides at the bottom.
Still, it's that opening line that really gets me. What, exactly, is the rationale here? that I will open the email and the thought-process will be something like this: "Oh...a bill...but wait, they're happy to tell me about it. That takes the sting out. I guess I'm happy too, and will pay this in good cheer and with great haste"? No. No one would think this. No one would think that any one would think this. Bills are not a happy experience. I am not happy. They who tell me about the bill are not, in fact, happy. The computer that actually generated this email and sent it to me is not happy. The threat of legal action would be much more effective at motivating me to pay up on anything in danger of coming due. To act as though this anonymous auto-generated reminder of an ugly duty is something deserving of an attempt at a sunny smile is, frankly, absurd, if not outright insulting.
It is also tragically predictable - we Americans love our euphemisms, as I think I mentioned previously, and this is just a more bizarre example of our unending quest to make displeasing things more palatable. I find euphemisms fascinating (this is true of many things), even when they're insulting my intelligence, in large part because I have never quite understood their function, or at least their efficacy. A euphemism is nothing more than a lousy disguise - if the disguise is too good, meaning is obscured and communication fails, which is problematic. Sure, there are cases where this can be manipulated to a legitimate end (talking over someone's head springs to mind). But there are many examples where everyone sees through the disguise, and yet desires its retention; why?
How about that profanity? The excellent science-fiction show Battlestar Galactica is a good example - pretty much every curse word in the book makes the occasional appearance and is not censored, with the glaring exception of the F-bomb, which is replaced by 'Frak.' Boy, that makes it all better. 'Frak' gets used a lot, and in every context that its real-world counterpart might be found, and I have to point out: it's obvious what word is intended. They're using all these other profanities that we know and, er, know, and then they drop in this slightly-altered version of the King of Kurse, the Sultan of Swear, and somehow this is supposed to make it more acceptable for broadcast. But why? If we're all thinking the real word when they speak its substitute, how is anyone 'helped' or societal standards preserved? What is so dangerously powerful about the sound of the word such that it's okay to plant it in everyone's mind but not okay to apply it to everyone's ears? I don't question that there is a difference, yet I do not understand it. Meanwhile the coherence and believability of the BSG world is actually weakened because the lingo is otherwise the same, and when the exception makes its appearance, it jars.
Making up words is always a hazardous business, especially if you go only halfway and especially if you just make up profanity. It's really hard to do this without the result sounding silly and contrived (several otherwise-decent Star Wars novels have fallen prey to this phenomenon). If you're going to go this route it might as well be with tweaked versions of the usual suspects, these being the safest bet...but do they really accomplish the intended purpose? Frankly this desire to hide something in plain sight, hardly limited to the realms of offensive language and monetary transactions, strikes me as a mild but universal hypocrisy. But what are we even kidding ourselves about?
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The weight of St. John's alone...
Among the books I read on assignment in high school was Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I hated it. I read the book again just recently out of a sense of both decency and morbid curiosity, and while I did not love it - it is not a tale that admits of being loved - I did, and do, respect it. Hatred of any book, especially a work of fiction, is for me a very rare thing, and as I look back now through the haze of too much time passed I am pretty sure I must chalk it up to 'not getting' the book. I think I better understand it now. Introductions that explain what the book is about are very helpful in this regard; sort of like putting who Pip's benefactor is on the dust jacket of Great Expectations. Honestly, does not the very idea of an 'Introduction' suggest supplying the preliminaries, with the intention of allowing intimacy to take its natural course? But I digress. I would've appreciated the book better even had I not reminded myself of all pertinent plot points, and the way to understand them, before turning to page one. I always knew that other people might have to reread books later in their life in order to derive more meaning from their contents, but I never quite believed it must apply to me as well until this moment. It seems unlikely that there is one age after which one may with justice say "Oho, all the mysteries of the universe are now open to me and my understanding is complete." The logical consequence is that, with any work that pretends to be more than a popular taste of the times, one must pay it due attention in each stage of life, if the true value is to be grasped.
Well, that's a relief. And here I was worried because I'd already read all books the first time. Especially after I finished all the videogames.
Well, that's a relief. And here I was worried because I'd already read all books the first time. Especially after I finished all the videogames.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
The tide grows ever more relentless
I have a bone to pick with the release of new videogames of quality, and that is that I'm always too busy playing the old stuff to tackle the new. The classic game of catch-up; of course I play this with all other forms of entertainment too, but those cases don't really bother me. I got into the videogame scene back in the days when the Super Nintendo was already well established; not very long afterward I became attuned to the gaming scene - and to a lesser extent history - and it all went downhill from there.
The reasons have always been two, the first economical - until recently I got videogame systems only several years into their life cycle, when the prices had dropped enough that I (or, more typically, someone else) could buy them without breaking the bank. To be an early adopter is to spend lavishly, often enough with little reward other than the pride of early adoption, on which I place little worth. On the software side of the issue, new games are also costly - fifty bucks is a lot to spend on one piece of entertainment when one is on a budget, especially when that experience may only last six or eight hours. As with my first foray into videogames (albiet less of a timing issue), the hardware starts the job and the software finishes it.
When I made the first exception to my standard behavior and picked up a Nintendo Wii on launch day, there still remained the other downside inherent to keeping abreast of the videogame curve, namely that there wasn't much worth playing. Another benefit of waiting until there is an established shelf life is that when one takes the plunge, there is a lot of quality material to choose from and enjoy, rarely if ever the case on Day One. Of course, on Day One of the Wii's launch there was something well worth playing (and promising to last a while), namely the latest Legend of Zelda title, of which I did buy a copy. There I was with a brand spankin' new Nintendo system, one of the first in the country, and a hot new iteration of one of my favorite franchises, and because I have poor planning and cannot in good conscience play more than one game at a time, I proceeded to leave Zelda in its shrink-wrap for the next couple months while I finished up Okami. Admittedly, it was Okami. This brings me to reason two.
Reason Two: I am one of those unfortunates who wants to play as many great games as he can. As I like many genres and there have been a surprising number of excellent titles over twenty-plus years, this presents a significant challenge. I don't like to move on from one system to its successor until I have exhausted the worthwhile experiences on the outdated model, and the truth is that even if the current were to stop flowing and I had all the time in the rest of my life to play the goods from the past, it still might not be enough. Meanwhile the hits do keep coming. This is why I'm still playing the Playstation 2 and have no plans to upgrade any time soon. A couple of years ago, as the launch of the PS3 solidified, I made the mistake of going out to Best Buy and Wal-Mart with the intention of purchasing all of the Greatest Hits / Player's Choice (budget-priced classic) titles in which I had an interest. The rationale was that the Playstation 2 and Gamecube had seen virtually all their best games, and I'd better snap up the ones I hadn't played yet before they vanished from stores. Whoops. I amassed quite a hefty stack, and the results were predictable - as I worked through the stack its sheer girth paralyzed me psychologically from getting or playing anything else (more recent titles, for instance), and meanwhile additional great game after game continued to be released, such that now, having conquered the stack (or The Stack, as I like to call it) and supposedly thrown off such foolish impulses, I could easily go out and build another of equal or even greater dimensions. It's probably best that I don't have the money for this.
Admittedly it is better to suffer from a deluge of entertainment than a dearth, and yet it does make me slightly sad at times - it is nice to feel current and up-to-date once in a while, having the same experiences everyone else is, and with the very rare exception of games I absolutely cannot wait to play, the only times I've experienced anything New lately has been because that particular title has a cooperative mode that I can share with friends who don't share my constraints and have indulged. When something comes out that I'd really like to experience, something I've looked forward to for a long time, but can't justify splurging on while it's fresh, it's a bit discouraging. Those who are not in the know might argue that I should just give up my hopeless venture, forgo the retro, and wholeheartedly embrace what's current; it is true that this is probably the only way I could ever stay above the tide instead of being swamped by it (this season just makes things worse), and yet to argue this is to miss the point. It is not that I play all these for the sake of satisfying some kind of poorly-thought-out completest urge, although I have those in abundance. Rather I believe that each and every great game has something unique and invigorating to offer, something heartfelt and sincere which is worthy of being experienced, in exactly the same way that a good book or movie or TV show or piece of music does. Life is experience, and in my opinion it is worthwhile to try and have as many of the good ones as possible. This is as legitimate in the virtual realm (a medium as powerful and full of potential as any other) as it is in the 'real world.' I take stories where I can get 'em.
The reasons have always been two, the first economical - until recently I got videogame systems only several years into their life cycle, when the prices had dropped enough that I (or, more typically, someone else) could buy them without breaking the bank. To be an early adopter is to spend lavishly, often enough with little reward other than the pride of early adoption, on which I place little worth. On the software side of the issue, new games are also costly - fifty bucks is a lot to spend on one piece of entertainment when one is on a budget, especially when that experience may only last six or eight hours. As with my first foray into videogames (albiet less of a timing issue), the hardware starts the job and the software finishes it.
When I made the first exception to my standard behavior and picked up a Nintendo Wii on launch day, there still remained the other downside inherent to keeping abreast of the videogame curve, namely that there wasn't much worth playing. Another benefit of waiting until there is an established shelf life is that when one takes the plunge, there is a lot of quality material to choose from and enjoy, rarely if ever the case on Day One. Of course, on Day One of the Wii's launch there was something well worth playing (and promising to last a while), namely the latest Legend of Zelda title, of which I did buy a copy. There I was with a brand spankin' new Nintendo system, one of the first in the country, and a hot new iteration of one of my favorite franchises, and because I have poor planning and cannot in good conscience play more than one game at a time, I proceeded to leave Zelda in its shrink-wrap for the next couple months while I finished up Okami. Admittedly, it was Okami. This brings me to reason two.
Reason Two: I am one of those unfortunates who wants to play as many great games as he can. As I like many genres and there have been a surprising number of excellent titles over twenty-plus years, this presents a significant challenge. I don't like to move on from one system to its successor until I have exhausted the worthwhile experiences on the outdated model, and the truth is that even if the current were to stop flowing and I had all the time in the rest of my life to play the goods from the past, it still might not be enough. Meanwhile the hits do keep coming. This is why I'm still playing the Playstation 2 and have no plans to upgrade any time soon. A couple of years ago, as the launch of the PS3 solidified, I made the mistake of going out to Best Buy and Wal-Mart with the intention of purchasing all of the Greatest Hits / Player's Choice (budget-priced classic) titles in which I had an interest. The rationale was that the Playstation 2 and Gamecube had seen virtually all their best games, and I'd better snap up the ones I hadn't played yet before they vanished from stores. Whoops. I amassed quite a hefty stack, and the results were predictable - as I worked through the stack its sheer girth paralyzed me psychologically from getting or playing anything else (more recent titles, for instance), and meanwhile additional great game after game continued to be released, such that now, having conquered the stack (or The Stack, as I like to call it) and supposedly thrown off such foolish impulses, I could easily go out and build another of equal or even greater dimensions. It's probably best that I don't have the money for this.
Admittedly it is better to suffer from a deluge of entertainment than a dearth, and yet it does make me slightly sad at times - it is nice to feel current and up-to-date once in a while, having the same experiences everyone else is, and with the very rare exception of games I absolutely cannot wait to play, the only times I've experienced anything New lately has been because that particular title has a cooperative mode that I can share with friends who don't share my constraints and have indulged. When something comes out that I'd really like to experience, something I've looked forward to for a long time, but can't justify splurging on while it's fresh, it's a bit discouraging. Those who are not in the know might argue that I should just give up my hopeless venture, forgo the retro, and wholeheartedly embrace what's current; it is true that this is probably the only way I could ever stay above the tide instead of being swamped by it (this season just makes things worse), and yet to argue this is to miss the point. It is not that I play all these for the sake of satisfying some kind of poorly-thought-out completest urge, although I have those in abundance. Rather I believe that each and every great game has something unique and invigorating to offer, something heartfelt and sincere which is worthy of being experienced, in exactly the same way that a good book or movie or TV show or piece of music does. Life is experience, and in my opinion it is worthwhile to try and have as many of the good ones as possible. This is as legitimate in the virtual realm (a medium as powerful and full of potential as any other) as it is in the 'real world.' I take stories where I can get 'em.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
addendum
I mean, I got so caught up talking about F-Zero that I forgot to mention the one single aspect of it that most prompted me to get angry in writing! I'll fix that. This is the diabolical track of the 'Lightning' subset known as 'Half Pipe.' In a game full of spectacular-looking levels this is one of the most striking (the environment is called 'Lightning' for a reason) and for those who are truly prepared it can actually be adrenaline-soaked fun. For those who are not, it's like sadism in a box. It's called 'Half Pipe' for a reason, too. Imagine a tunnel with abundant (and tight) twists and turns, then shear off the top. Physics are in play, ladies and gentlemen. The vehicles make use of hovering units so it's possible to drive along the walls of the half-pipe and this can help navigate those nasty turns, but it also makes it that much easier to slide just a bit too far and pop right off the edge. If you really know your course you can take shortcuts this way, blasting off the lip and over the abyss to land in a section of the pipe later on, and this happened to me once by accident. I would not risk it on purpose. This track is the destroyer of the weak. There's another course in the next cup that looks more dangerous, being nothing but mostly-parallel lines of very thin platform the entire time with no rails except for about two seconds, but that one is at least mostly flat and straight. 'Half Pipe' devours souls. Definitely the track to break out for those who've never played the game before.
I also forgot to mention in the posting to which this is an addendum that I'm going to try restricting the time I allow myself to write these posts. This will force me either to be concise or to end in mid
I also forgot to mention in the posting to which this is an addendum that I'm going to try restricting the time I allow myself to write these posts. This will force me either to be concise or to end in mid
Exasperation
I am deeply dissatisfied with that last posting (my 'comeback,' if you will), and was so as I was writing it; this much in the same way that I was dissatisfied with many of my previous postings and for much the same reason, which is that they got out of hand.
What tends to happen is this: I sit down with a distinct idea in my head of what I wish to write and - to a less distinct extent - how I want to write it. I also usually entertain some silly ideas about how long it's going to take me to transfer this idea from inside my brain onto the digital page. The moment I begin writing, that little control is lost and the process takes on a life - and a set of rules - of its own. I blame this on a lack of planning and a passion for rhetoric; I get caught up in the flow of semi-free writing and overweighted eloquence, and can only watch helplessly as the lines fill up and the clock ticks down. The longer I write, determined to conclude the thought but unable to bring that end about, the more frustrated I become and the more cohesion and style break down, until at last I'm left with a disappointing treatise and a lot of anger at time and effort wasted. This is not the way it should be.
Look, it's even happening now - the few thoughts I had led naturally to other thoughts and of course I had to fill in the blanks and smooth the transitions. But what I'm writing here is a blog, not a column, and I have neither the desire nor the time for substantial editing. I'll try to cut the flow off at the source.
It's not easy, that's for sure. It feels like there is a broken connection between mind and fingers, such that what is concise and pithy in potentia becomes bloated and overly verbose in actu (yes, no posting is complete without superfluous Aristotle references) I'm beginning to think that I made the mistake of surfing the wave of praise my tutors bestowed on my writing in college, resting on my laurels instead of pushing myself to become even better - this may explain why I never won any actual laurels, as opposed to others whose native writing talent may have been less (or not; how should I know?) but who no doubt were more invested in arcane concepts such as 'revision' and 'rewriting' (and probably 'research,' but that's another matter). Still, it's brevity more than quality with which I am primarily concerned, at least right now.
Writing more than asked for has always been something I do, and how - I remember a short story assignment in high school where the page count was maybe six or seven and my story was fourteen, and this is par for the course. I used to sneer off the very concept of a page limit, asserting (mentally at least) that a good writer wrote until he was done, and that was the right length. I realize now how arrogant this was, and also naive. Page count requirements always seemed to me more to be targeted towards under-performing students who would rather write less, but the truth is it works both ways. The ability to condense writing into a certain length is every bit as important as the ability to fill out what would otherwise be too short; indeed it is probably of even more value, requiring one to hone and trim excess poundage rather than add what might well be unnecessary fat.
Truth be told, my writing needs a personal trainer - someone to whip it into a lean, mean fighting machine that can take on all comers, rather than the merely decent contender it is now. Eloquence and vocabulary I have in spades; syntax and grammar are at my beck and call like good little peons; perhaps there is even a smattering of style, absorbed from the overflow of the truly skilled writers I have been privileged enough to read and then rip off. Brevity remains to be mastered (although not alone). If I can learn to be concise and simultaneously worth reading I'll really feel like I've gotten somewhere. Two things are certain: it won't be with this posting (long in composition once again), and the only way to bring it about is, as with writing generally and everything else, to practice.
I guess I'd better get cracking.
What tends to happen is this: I sit down with a distinct idea in my head of what I wish to write and - to a less distinct extent - how I want to write it. I also usually entertain some silly ideas about how long it's going to take me to transfer this idea from inside my brain onto the digital page. The moment I begin writing, that little control is lost and the process takes on a life - and a set of rules - of its own. I blame this on a lack of planning and a passion for rhetoric; I get caught up in the flow of semi-free writing and overweighted eloquence, and can only watch helplessly as the lines fill up and the clock ticks down. The longer I write, determined to conclude the thought but unable to bring that end about, the more frustrated I become and the more cohesion and style break down, until at last I'm left with a disappointing treatise and a lot of anger at time and effort wasted. This is not the way it should be.
Look, it's even happening now - the few thoughts I had led naturally to other thoughts and of course I had to fill in the blanks and smooth the transitions. But what I'm writing here is a blog, not a column, and I have neither the desire nor the time for substantial editing. I'll try to cut the flow off at the source.
It's not easy, that's for sure. It feels like there is a broken connection between mind and fingers, such that what is concise and pithy in potentia becomes bloated and overly verbose in actu (yes, no posting is complete without superfluous Aristotle references) I'm beginning to think that I made the mistake of surfing the wave of praise my tutors bestowed on my writing in college, resting on my laurels instead of pushing myself to become even better - this may explain why I never won any actual laurels, as opposed to others whose native writing talent may have been less (or not; how should I know?) but who no doubt were more invested in arcane concepts such as 'revision' and 'rewriting' (and probably 'research,' but that's another matter). Still, it's brevity more than quality with which I am primarily concerned, at least right now.
Writing more than asked for has always been something I do, and how - I remember a short story assignment in high school where the page count was maybe six or seven and my story was fourteen, and this is par for the course. I used to sneer off the very concept of a page limit, asserting (mentally at least) that a good writer wrote until he was done, and that was the right length. I realize now how arrogant this was, and also naive. Page count requirements always seemed to me more to be targeted towards under-performing students who would rather write less, but the truth is it works both ways. The ability to condense writing into a certain length is every bit as important as the ability to fill out what would otherwise be too short; indeed it is probably of even more value, requiring one to hone and trim excess poundage rather than add what might well be unnecessary fat.
Truth be told, my writing needs a personal trainer - someone to whip it into a lean, mean fighting machine that can take on all comers, rather than the merely decent contender it is now. Eloquence and vocabulary I have in spades; syntax and grammar are at my beck and call like good little peons; perhaps there is even a smattering of style, absorbed from the overflow of the truly skilled writers I have been privileged enough to read and then rip off. Brevity remains to be mastered (although not alone). If I can learn to be concise and simultaneously worth reading I'll really feel like I've gotten somewhere. Two things are certain: it won't be with this posting (long in composition once again), and the only way to bring it about is, as with writing generally and everything else, to practice.
I guess I'd better get cracking.
Friday, November 7, 2008
I'm back, baby!
Tuesday's events made me happy (all things considered, it was a pretty great day), but I hope when January 20th rolls around I'll be in personal circumstances more conducive to celebration; it seems like champagne, jazz music and good company should be involved.
I have an interesting relationship with that elite class of videogames that includes titles such as the original Pokemon Pinball, Devil May Cry 3 and (most pertinently) F-Zero GX. On the one hand, I respect their general excellence, and superb delivery of their respective gameplay styles. On the other, they make me angry enough to punch a goat. If, that is, I could just get mine back. It's not just that they are all extremely difficult games...actually, it is just that they are all extremely difficult games, but if they weren't so fun otherwise I probably wouldn't resubmit myself to their punishment.
Pokemon Pinball at least is only infuriatingly brutal if you want it to be - the process of catching 'em all may not appeal to all comers, who would likely find the game an entertaining pinball experience with a superb integration of the Pokemon theme. Just wait until you're going for that second evolution and trying desperately to shoot the ball up one specific lane where the final item remains to be collected, only to watch a) the time run out, b) the ball vanish down the gutter, or c) the time run out and the ball vanish down the gutter. This may not sound all that frustrating, but if you understood the work involved to get even to that point, it might be clearer why the temptation is very great to knock a hole in the wall using the Game Boy. Fortunately the GBA sequel is a lot more forgiving. Devil May Cry 3 needs less discussion, bringing its hammer down only during the ridiculously challenging boss battles.
F-Zero GX is in a class by itself, offering the highest concentration of fury-to-playtime of pretty much any game I have EVER played. It's amazing - as though the title finds a way to tap directly into the primal rage centers of my brain, and then provides incessant stimulus. If it weren't stellar arcade racing, I'd toss it out the window, then drop an anvil on it, and perhaps an elephant if the zoo would go along (if they needed convincing I'd just make them play the game). How does this work, you ask. The thing about F-Zero GX is that it offers no mercy. Ever. Nothing in this game comes easily and - with very few exceptions - nothing in the game comes even with significant effort. It takes absolutely herculean effort to triumph over the basics, and then you make the mistake of trying the same thing on harder difficulties. This is my current dilemma, which I blame on my brother. Motivated by his obnoxiously-heroic example, I have recently gone back to the game with the intention of unlocking various things I never got around to (i.e. lost patience with/doubted ability concerning) back when it came out. This involves defeating monstrous challenges, but also the joy of remastering the challenges I beat before because I've gotten rusty.
This is actually a practical necessity - what makes F-Zero GX so difficult is that, at least in the beginning you are racing against the track as much as the other racers (all 29 of them). F-Zero GX is a very, very fast racing game, which is part of what makes it so exhilarating but also what makes it so exasperating, the tracks being designed to maximize the consequent danger. The futuristic motif makes for lots of interesting and visually-arresting track designs, most of which are a blast to play, but they're also as unforgiving as it gets. Not only is it easy to fail to place, but one must also avoid falling off the course AND depleting the vehicle's energy bar. In Mario Kart there's a Lakitu 'enemy' that will save you and place you back on the track should you fall off, with only time lost. There is no such luxury in F-Zero (except in multiplayer as an option), and when you fall off the track or explode, that's it. You get lives with which to restart that particular track, but a very limited number. Imagine tackling a Grand Prix cup and defeating three (or even four) of the five tracks, only to plunge over a tricky edge on the next...and then to do it again...and again...and again, until all lives are used up and you have to start the whole cup over again. Then you get to the same point again and repeat the experience. Failure over and over and over again, hours lost with no progress - it's very demoralizing. Thank goodness there is a practice mode. This is part of the reason why it's necessary to start with the 'easy' difficulty: that way you receive crushing defeat at the metaphorical hands of the tracks until you master them and can cruise to victory, and THEN receive crushing defeat at the hands of the other racers on the harder difficulties until you best them. Heaven help you if you tried to learn the tracks while battling the brutal expert CPUs. Of course, racing against the harder CPUs it's necessary to learn new strategies and often to remaster the tracks; ditto if you try a new vehicle with significantly different handling. It's hard to win. Really. And that's just the Grand Prix mode.
The Story Mode is what really brings the pain. This is a series of the most sadistic individual challenges the designers could imagine, and they're brutally difficult even on the Easy difficulty I was stubborn enough to finally defeat back in the day; now I'm facing down Hard. There's Very Hard, too. It's the rule rather than the exception for me to spend a whole hour trying one challenge and not beat it, or even feel like I made any progress towards beating it. If that doesn't sound like a lot, consider that these are often sixty-second challenges, with restarts occurring on average every thirty seconds. Do the math. Then I try another hour the next day and don't win. Then I try an hour the next day and still don't win. Then I consider the benefits of a monastic life, but have another half-hour go at the mission instead and, STILL, don't win. How many tries at this point? It's in the multiple-hundreds, for Pete's sake. I'm looking at you, 'Challenge of the' frigging 'Bloody Chain.' It gets to the point where it's not even fun anymore. But I really hate to lose, and so I persist. In this small world where I hold some dominance, there is no way I'm going to accept defeat at the hands of any impertinent game design. People who don't play games probably can't understand this, but I'm sure everyone knows how it feels when something in which one has invested oneself goes sour. The urge to demonstrate control and superiority is overpowering. Victory will be mine, and then maybe I'll go play a Barbie game or something. Meanwhile I'm glad no one is here to see me blacken the air with vocalized anger. There's one rule of thumb when tackling such a challenge as this: you better hope that in this race, no one can hear you scream. At least if you still want that person's respect.
I long for the quiet tranquility of an RPG, where all the happens is the world ending. Speaking of which...
I have an interesting relationship with that elite class of videogames that includes titles such as the original Pokemon Pinball, Devil May Cry 3 and (most pertinently) F-Zero GX. On the one hand, I respect their general excellence, and superb delivery of their respective gameplay styles. On the other, they make me angry enough to punch a goat. If, that is, I could just get mine back. It's not just that they are all extremely difficult games...actually, it is just that they are all extremely difficult games, but if they weren't so fun otherwise I probably wouldn't resubmit myself to their punishment.
Pokemon Pinball at least is only infuriatingly brutal if you want it to be - the process of catching 'em all may not appeal to all comers, who would likely find the game an entertaining pinball experience with a superb integration of the Pokemon theme. Just wait until you're going for that second evolution and trying desperately to shoot the ball up one specific lane where the final item remains to be collected, only to watch a) the time run out, b) the ball vanish down the gutter, or c) the time run out and the ball vanish down the gutter. This may not sound all that frustrating, but if you understood the work involved to get even to that point, it might be clearer why the temptation is very great to knock a hole in the wall using the Game Boy. Fortunately the GBA sequel is a lot more forgiving. Devil May Cry 3 needs less discussion, bringing its hammer down only during the ridiculously challenging boss battles.
F-Zero GX is in a class by itself, offering the highest concentration of fury-to-playtime of pretty much any game I have EVER played. It's amazing - as though the title finds a way to tap directly into the primal rage centers of my brain, and then provides incessant stimulus. If it weren't stellar arcade racing, I'd toss it out the window, then drop an anvil on it, and perhaps an elephant if the zoo would go along (if they needed convincing I'd just make them play the game). How does this work, you ask. The thing about F-Zero GX is that it offers no mercy. Ever. Nothing in this game comes easily and - with very few exceptions - nothing in the game comes even with significant effort. It takes absolutely herculean effort to triumph over the basics, and then you make the mistake of trying the same thing on harder difficulties. This is my current dilemma, which I blame on my brother. Motivated by his obnoxiously-heroic example, I have recently gone back to the game with the intention of unlocking various things I never got around to (i.e. lost patience with/doubted ability concerning) back when it came out. This involves defeating monstrous challenges, but also the joy of remastering the challenges I beat before because I've gotten rusty.
This is actually a practical necessity - what makes F-Zero GX so difficult is that, at least in the beginning you are racing against the track as much as the other racers (all 29 of them). F-Zero GX is a very, very fast racing game, which is part of what makes it so exhilarating but also what makes it so exasperating, the tracks being designed to maximize the consequent danger. The futuristic motif makes for lots of interesting and visually-arresting track designs, most of which are a blast to play, but they're also as unforgiving as it gets. Not only is it easy to fail to place, but one must also avoid falling off the course AND depleting the vehicle's energy bar. In Mario Kart there's a Lakitu 'enemy' that will save you and place you back on the track should you fall off, with only time lost. There is no such luxury in F-Zero (except in multiplayer as an option), and when you fall off the track or explode, that's it. You get lives with which to restart that particular track, but a very limited number. Imagine tackling a Grand Prix cup and defeating three (or even four) of the five tracks, only to plunge over a tricky edge on the next...and then to do it again...and again...and again, until all lives are used up and you have to start the whole cup over again. Then you get to the same point again and repeat the experience. Failure over and over and over again, hours lost with no progress - it's very demoralizing. Thank goodness there is a practice mode. This is part of the reason why it's necessary to start with the 'easy' difficulty: that way you receive crushing defeat at the metaphorical hands of the tracks until you master them and can cruise to victory, and THEN receive crushing defeat at the hands of the other racers on the harder difficulties until you best them. Heaven help you if you tried to learn the tracks while battling the brutal expert CPUs. Of course, racing against the harder CPUs it's necessary to learn new strategies and often to remaster the tracks; ditto if you try a new vehicle with significantly different handling. It's hard to win. Really. And that's just the Grand Prix mode.
The Story Mode is what really brings the pain. This is a series of the most sadistic individual challenges the designers could imagine, and they're brutally difficult even on the Easy difficulty I was stubborn enough to finally defeat back in the day; now I'm facing down Hard. There's Very Hard, too. It's the rule rather than the exception for me to spend a whole hour trying one challenge and not beat it, or even feel like I made any progress towards beating it. If that doesn't sound like a lot, consider that these are often sixty-second challenges, with restarts occurring on average every thirty seconds. Do the math. Then I try another hour the next day and don't win. Then I try an hour the next day and still don't win. Then I consider the benefits of a monastic life, but have another half-hour go at the mission instead and, STILL, don't win. How many tries at this point? It's in the multiple-hundreds, for Pete's sake. I'm looking at you, 'Challenge of the' frigging 'Bloody Chain.' It gets to the point where it's not even fun anymore. But I really hate to lose, and so I persist. In this small world where I hold some dominance, there is no way I'm going to accept defeat at the hands of any impertinent game design. People who don't play games probably can't understand this, but I'm sure everyone knows how it feels when something in which one has invested oneself goes sour. The urge to demonstrate control and superiority is overpowering. Victory will be mine, and then maybe I'll go play a Barbie game or something. Meanwhile I'm glad no one is here to see me blacken the air with vocalized anger. There's one rule of thumb when tackling such a challenge as this: you better hope that in this race, no one can hear you scream. At least if you still want that person's respect.
I long for the quiet tranquility of an RPG, where all the happens is the world ending. Speaking of which...
Monday, October 20, 2008
The block is back
I've got little to say this go-round. Honest. I will point out that I'm really tickled pink by my latest comic; do check that out if you have not already done so. I think it turned out very well, especially the head (you know what I mean), and if some other cartoonist made this comic I would laugh for a very long time and promote the strip. Tell the world! Localized hilarity!
As is certainly well illustrated therein, I am absolutely fascinated by the incongruous. Certainly this is fundamental to my sense of humor, but is hardly restricted to the realm of comedy. I watched the movie version of the musical Guys and Dolls recently and was greatly compelled by a refusal on the part of all the New York City gamblers to make use of contractions. Hence a strong impression, watching Marlon Brando deliver lines in the vein of "I do not understand why you should feel this way," that he was preparing even that early on for his role as The Godfather down the line. (Actually the general eloquence of these otherwise-small-time characters, seeming somehow in character despite stated deficiencies in education, was in stark, refreshing contrast to the kind of lingo you would expect out of society's detritus in today's films. But I digress.)
Now I assume this style of speech back then was common and thus less of an affectation than it would be today were someone to abolish the abbreviating apostrophe. Watching the movie in today's context, however, it feels delightfully period and out-of-place. As, I suppose, does bursting into unprompted song and synchronized dance in order to deliver important plot points. Perhaps some would question whether this latter was ever not incongruous; all I can say is that I sure wish I'd lived in that time...
Truth be told, because that style of speech does make sense in its context it is not as pure an example of incongruity than that provided here. In fact I will go so far as to admit it was just a flimsy pretext for discussing something else interesting in order to fill up some space. I am proud to say it is a mission accomplished. Check back next time for more of this fine work and quality writing.
As is certainly well illustrated therein, I am absolutely fascinated by the incongruous. Certainly this is fundamental to my sense of humor, but is hardly restricted to the realm of comedy. I watched the movie version of the musical Guys and Dolls recently and was greatly compelled by a refusal on the part of all the New York City gamblers to make use of contractions. Hence a strong impression, watching Marlon Brando deliver lines in the vein of "I do not understand why you should feel this way," that he was preparing even that early on for his role as The Godfather down the line. (Actually the general eloquence of these otherwise-small-time characters, seeming somehow in character despite stated deficiencies in education, was in stark, refreshing contrast to the kind of lingo you would expect out of society's detritus in today's films. But I digress.)
Now I assume this style of speech back then was common and thus less of an affectation than it would be today were someone to abolish the abbreviating apostrophe. Watching the movie in today's context, however, it feels delightfully period and out-of-place. As, I suppose, does bursting into unprompted song and synchronized dance in order to deliver important plot points. Perhaps some would question whether this latter was ever not incongruous; all I can say is that I sure wish I'd lived in that time...
Truth be told, because that style of speech does make sense in its context it is not as pure an example of incongruity than that provided here. In fact I will go so far as to admit it was just a flimsy pretext for discussing something else interesting in order to fill up some space. I am proud to say it is a mission accomplished. Check back next time for more of this fine work and quality writing.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Never mix your passions
I realized something the other day, which was previously apparent but hadn't really registered: I'm a cartoonist and a purveyor of outdated slang! That's pretty neat. The deciding factor was the notion that all that separates the amateur from the professional is payment, rather than degree of skill. Consequently anyone who produces a cartoon, however crude and humor-deficient, is by definition at least an amateur cartoonist - that is, a cartoonist. Just so for blacksmithing (blacksmithery?), cooking, philosophizing, antelope-elephant-hybrid-breeding and so on.
Of course the most obvious and resource-rich realm (really) from which to draw for comics these days is the same one as for any other type of humor, that of the political scene. That said, it takes a certain talent and know-how, or perhaps just lack of shame, to enter the overpopulated arena of political cartooning. I prefer to keep my own efforts well within a specific domain of personal expertise, and my relatively-new awareness of what's going on politically is not enough to justify the expansion of borders.
Still, if I were to illustrate exactly why I'm not a political cartoonist, it would probably look something like this (click it for a larger copy):
Actually I think that's pretty hilarious, but I claim artist's prerogative.
Of course the most obvious and resource-rich realm (really) from which to draw for comics these days is the same one as for any other type of humor, that of the political scene. That said, it takes a certain talent and know-how, or perhaps just lack of shame, to enter the overpopulated arena of political cartooning. I prefer to keep my own efforts well within a specific domain of personal expertise, and my relatively-new awareness of what's going on politically is not enough to justify the expansion of borders.
Still, if I were to illustrate exactly why I'm not a political cartoonist, it would probably look something like this (click it for a larger copy):
Actually I think that's pretty hilarious, but I claim artist's prerogative.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Wrangling
All right, it's very late and I've had a very tiring day and I still have a debate about some important election or something to listen to, so for all these reasons and others I will try very hard to keep this brief, and even to write more directly without trying to make it a polished essay. We'll see how well that works. Anyway, speaking of the election I am both disturbed and deeply disappointed by the negativity of the latest political campaigns, and political campaigns in general as this is hardly a phenomenon unique to the latest batch. Here are a few thoughts on the matter.
As far I'm concerned the main offenders are of two types. There are the political ads that are 100% negative content, and there are the subtler but no less offensive machinations of the speeches. I will explain. First the ads.
What's with the ads? I hate to think that valuable money is being poured into these when it could be better used on almost anything. I hate to think that anyone considers this an effective campaign strategy. I hate to think that one might be right. That the political race is a competition, and that it makes sense to point out the reasons for which the other candidate decided to run in the first place, I will grant. I do not grant any justification for what we're actually seeing. When an ad comes on the air and, accompanied by absolutely chilling music no less, attacks the very character of a candidate, suggesting that, to pick a random example, he or she is downright sinister and may well be working to undermine the country, this is offensive to the candidate, to the position for which he or she is running, and to me as a voter. If it were true, certainly that would be important information for me to know, but that sort of claim will never be grounded in anything factual if it's presented in such a format as that of a political ad. It's a metaphorical kick to the groin, the down and dirty cheap tactic of the campaign war when all that's left is mud-slinging, and it shouldn't happen. How much worse when I consider that the ad is nothing but this bit of slander. If you're going to claim your opponent is Satan, at least also explain why you are...well, 'God' is probably a bad way to go, but offer the contrast. What is truly important, what I want and in fact deserve to know, is why to vote for a certain candidate, not why I shouldn't vote for the other. I care about contruction, not destruction. Is this so hard to understand? Politics is traditionally a dirty game, and the sad truth is that those underhanded strategies, while reprehensible, can be effectual because in the end we are easy victims of suggestion and repetition. But it doesn't have to be this way.
There is such a thing as an honest negative ad, which must necessarily be less nasty. Advertisements that rely on statistics, such as approval ratings and effectiveness rankings (however that's measured) have some foundation. Still, I would rather not be presented with this information exclusively. Tell me only what's bad about your opponent and I am left to assume that you are merely the lesser of two evils, and hence no one to get excited about.
The other phenomenon, which really gets my goat and my neighbor's goat and should enrage everybody and his grandma, is one that has its own share in political ads but tends to frequent political speeches and, dare I say it, debates, most often. Does this sound familiar: "My opponent voted against [fill in your worthy cause of choice]." Heavens! What will we do; it seems that candidate must eat babies and, er, well I can't think of anything on the same level as baby-eating but suffice to say it's a bad, bad scene. You want some news? I got your news right here: with, perhaps, the occasional exception, politicians are not evil. Sometimes small-minded? Probably. Greedy? No doubt there are examples. Selfish? Who isn't. But evil? I don't think so. I feel confident in asserting that no one of influence in Congress, and certainly no serious contender for any important political leadership position, actually wishes, say, to take away funding for the education of our children or to deny our troops the equipment they need to survive or to cause all health care as we know it to self-destruct and take everything with it. I don't think any of these characters, whatever their respective levels of personal virtue, actually votes against things that are unequivocally 'good.' So what's happening? It's the great American (and indeed human) tradition of taking things out of context! Yes, let's hear it for manipulating the facts for the sake of demagogy. The most obnoxious part is that everyone knows the trick that's being pulled - the press knows it, the people certainly ought to know it, the candidates definitely know it, and yet they do it anyway and it's effective! Frankly I find it an insult to my intelligence and capability for making decisions. I mean, what's their motivation? If, for example, a candidate decides to claim that her opponent voted against an educational reform bill - the truth is that no bill is about just one thing and that that educational bill was bundled with a lot of other policies, against which the aforementioned candidate was really voting. But the first candidate doesn't tell us this in her speech - she distorts the truth by making it appear that the opposition is against making education better. Which is a ridiculous claim that no one should take seriously because who is ACTUALLY going to be against improving education? Oh no! this candidate must have voted against the reform so he could take the money to line his own pockets and buy a new yacht. No, it's just a lie, and one that the opposition calls her on and that the press debunks and yet politicians on both sides continue to use this tactic. What's going through their minds? Do they think we're not smart enough to vote if we're presented with the truth and so we need to be manipulated? Because we are being manipulated by these maneuvers. Or do they think they can't win if they actually tell the truth about their opposition's policies and their own? Or are they so desperate to win that they take whatever shot they can, however low? I don't like any of these options, and I don't like being treated with condescension, manipulation and disrespect. Shape up!
I guess it's hopelessly naive to imagine a campaign where the candidates treat everyone with the utmost respect, where they explain their own platform and why they believe it to be preferable to that of the their opponents using information such as expert analysis and differing views, where they don't say things like "I respect and have always been a close friend of [opposing figure x]" followed immediately by a slam, where there really is straight talk and the candidates answer even the toughest questions directly without vague hyperbole and rehearsed prattle, where the debates are not extended sessions of one candidate making derogatory claims about the other while that other denies them but is ignored. But why should it be naive? What does that say about us? Nothing good. When did politics go from a legitimate science and example of our humanity to a circus with performing tigers and magicians, and how do we get it back to where it once belonged? I am cheered to hear that I am not the only one being soured on the political scene by the predominance of negativity - in fact there seems to be a general discontent. This gives me hope not only that those underhanded strategies are not working as well as their authors hope, but also that there could be reform. How that reform would come about is not as clear to me. I mean, what are we going to do in protest? Not vote? Put a bill into law saying "Don't be a jerk anymore?" There must be a way, and I trust more brilliant minds than mine will find it. It certainly deserves finding. It's true that we get a lot of cultural mileage out of pointing out and mocking the deficiencies of others. But there are limits.
Oh well, so much for that foolishly-optimistic brevity.
As far I'm concerned the main offenders are of two types. There are the political ads that are 100% negative content, and there are the subtler but no less offensive machinations of the speeches. I will explain. First the ads.
What's with the ads? I hate to think that valuable money is being poured into these when it could be better used on almost anything. I hate to think that anyone considers this an effective campaign strategy. I hate to think that one might be right. That the political race is a competition, and that it makes sense to point out the reasons for which the other candidate decided to run in the first place, I will grant. I do not grant any justification for what we're actually seeing. When an ad comes on the air and, accompanied by absolutely chilling music no less, attacks the very character of a candidate, suggesting that, to pick a random example, he or she is downright sinister and may well be working to undermine the country, this is offensive to the candidate, to the position for which he or she is running, and to me as a voter. If it were true, certainly that would be important information for me to know, but that sort of claim will never be grounded in anything factual if it's presented in such a format as that of a political ad. It's a metaphorical kick to the groin, the down and dirty cheap tactic of the campaign war when all that's left is mud-slinging, and it shouldn't happen. How much worse when I consider that the ad is nothing but this bit of slander. If you're going to claim your opponent is Satan, at least also explain why you are...well, 'God' is probably a bad way to go, but offer the contrast. What is truly important, what I want and in fact deserve to know, is why to vote for a certain candidate, not why I shouldn't vote for the other. I care about contruction, not destruction. Is this so hard to understand? Politics is traditionally a dirty game, and the sad truth is that those underhanded strategies, while reprehensible, can be effectual because in the end we are easy victims of suggestion and repetition. But it doesn't have to be this way.
There is such a thing as an honest negative ad, which must necessarily be less nasty. Advertisements that rely on statistics, such as approval ratings and effectiveness rankings (however that's measured) have some foundation. Still, I would rather not be presented with this information exclusively. Tell me only what's bad about your opponent and I am left to assume that you are merely the lesser of two evils, and hence no one to get excited about.
The other phenomenon, which really gets my goat and my neighbor's goat and should enrage everybody and his grandma, is one that has its own share in political ads but tends to frequent political speeches and, dare I say it, debates, most often. Does this sound familiar: "My opponent voted against [fill in your worthy cause of choice]." Heavens! What will we do; it seems that candidate must eat babies and, er, well I can't think of anything on the same level as baby-eating but suffice to say it's a bad, bad scene. You want some news? I got your news right here: with, perhaps, the occasional exception, politicians are not evil. Sometimes small-minded? Probably. Greedy? No doubt there are examples. Selfish? Who isn't. But evil? I don't think so. I feel confident in asserting that no one of influence in Congress, and certainly no serious contender for any important political leadership position, actually wishes, say, to take away funding for the education of our children or to deny our troops the equipment they need to survive or to cause all health care as we know it to self-destruct and take everything with it. I don't think any of these characters, whatever their respective levels of personal virtue, actually votes against things that are unequivocally 'good.' So what's happening? It's the great American (and indeed human) tradition of taking things out of context! Yes, let's hear it for manipulating the facts for the sake of demagogy. The most obnoxious part is that everyone knows the trick that's being pulled - the press knows it, the people certainly ought to know it, the candidates definitely know it, and yet they do it anyway and it's effective! Frankly I find it an insult to my intelligence and capability for making decisions. I mean, what's their motivation? If, for example, a candidate decides to claim that her opponent voted against an educational reform bill - the truth is that no bill is about just one thing and that that educational bill was bundled with a lot of other policies, against which the aforementioned candidate was really voting. But the first candidate doesn't tell us this in her speech - she distorts the truth by making it appear that the opposition is against making education better. Which is a ridiculous claim that no one should take seriously because who is ACTUALLY going to be against improving education? Oh no! this candidate must have voted against the reform so he could take the money to line his own pockets and buy a new yacht. No, it's just a lie, and one that the opposition calls her on and that the press debunks and yet politicians on both sides continue to use this tactic. What's going through their minds? Do they think we're not smart enough to vote if we're presented with the truth and so we need to be manipulated? Because we are being manipulated by these maneuvers. Or do they think they can't win if they actually tell the truth about their opposition's policies and their own? Or are they so desperate to win that they take whatever shot they can, however low? I don't like any of these options, and I don't like being treated with condescension, manipulation and disrespect. Shape up!
I guess it's hopelessly naive to imagine a campaign where the candidates treat everyone with the utmost respect, where they explain their own platform and why they believe it to be preferable to that of the their opponents using information such as expert analysis and differing views, where they don't say things like "I respect and have always been a close friend of [opposing figure x]" followed immediately by a slam, where there really is straight talk and the candidates answer even the toughest questions directly without vague hyperbole and rehearsed prattle, where the debates are not extended sessions of one candidate making derogatory claims about the other while that other denies them but is ignored. But why should it be naive? What does that say about us? Nothing good. When did politics go from a legitimate science and example of our humanity to a circus with performing tigers and magicians, and how do we get it back to where it once belonged? I am cheered to hear that I am not the only one being soured on the political scene by the predominance of negativity - in fact there seems to be a general discontent. This gives me hope not only that those underhanded strategies are not working as well as their authors hope, but also that there could be reform. How that reform would come about is not as clear to me. I mean, what are we going to do in protest? Not vote? Put a bill into law saying "Don't be a jerk anymore?" There must be a way, and I trust more brilliant minds than mine will find it. It certainly deserves finding. It's true that we get a lot of cultural mileage out of pointing out and mocking the deficiencies of others. But there are limits.
Oh well, so much for that foolishly-optimistic brevity.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Sigmund
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Sigmund. He's a rough 'em, tough 'em, big-fisted non-altruistic altercationist, a bruiser of a brawler who never catches a break but always breaks for a catch. With his broken-chiseled features, fiery head-garnish and a temper to match that's just as short, it's no wonder he leads such a hard-riding, hard-drinking, hard-luck, womanizing lifestyle, the flamboyance of which is really just an attempt to make up for the fact that he's not all that smart.
"Smarter than you."
...You must be joking. I have a Liberal Arts degree from SJC!
"Exactly my point."
Listen you little punk, I have thought thoughts and dreamed dreams you could not even begin to contemplate! I've wrestled with the great thinkers of the West while you wrestled with the bouncers! I am a philosopher and a scholar and a VERY USEFUL MEMBER OF SOCIETY and if I am currently wandering aimlessly it is because I CHOOSE to!
"Sure it is. Hey, here's a thought for you: stop trying to justify your time-wasting and get on with the story! I'm just floating in limbo, here."
Keep flapping that trap and I'll teach you things about perdition you couldn't imagine. Oaf.
"Hermit."
Sigmund, or Sig as I disaffectionately like to demean him, is also a mutant, and an especially freaky one if I do say so my--
"Save the commentary, if you please. You're a terrible storyteller!"
Stuff it. As I was saying. Sig is a mutant, but he didn't get any of those neat-o superpowers of the traditional sort. Oh no. Sigmund was 'blessed' - and I do indeed make those annoying quotation marks with my fingers, for sarcastic emphasis - with a power hitherto unseen, and, if the world is lucky, never to be seen again. As may already have become apparent--
"Who talks like that?"
Now who's blocking progression? Sig can talk to his Narrator. And his Narrator, unfortunately for Him, can and must talk back.
"And you DO talk back. Eheh."
Oh, very clever. Anyway, when As You Like It's Jacques gave his famous speech concerning the consonance of the world and a stage, men and women being merely players, seven acts therein to be performed--
"Now you're just being annoying."
Will you please shut up. Please. You will note that I named you Sigmund, not Thor.
"Oh, very good. An obscure movie reference that no one will get and everyone will be confused by. That's definitely the road to best-seller status."
Shakespeare didn't know the half of it. The truth is that not only is all the world a stage, but there's an audience, and yes, someone to provide context and descriptive narration of the most fascinating kind. We are the Narrati. Actually everyone's life is an individual play, which is why there must be more than one of us. Most have the blessing of an infinite gulf between them and their subjects, across which one can only observe, not influence. This can also be a curse if, God help you, you should actually care about your protagonist. As for me, I've always been dealt a bad hand and consequently--
"Do you need some more grapes for that whine? No, seriously, keep the presses running because I am just not choked up enough yet."
Oho, so you wanna be choked up, huh? I'll get you choked up, alright. The you versus three big guys in an alley kind of choked up. How ya like them grapes?
"Aww, did I make you angry? Where's your precious prose now? What happened to your beloved alliteration, your impeccable syntax, your river of poetic prolixity? What's that? I'm doing it better than you? Shocking!"
It's a trying relationship.
"Smarter than you."
...You must be joking. I have a Liberal Arts degree from SJC!
"Exactly my point."
Listen you little punk, I have thought thoughts and dreamed dreams you could not even begin to contemplate! I've wrestled with the great thinkers of the West while you wrestled with the bouncers! I am a philosopher and a scholar and a VERY USEFUL MEMBER OF SOCIETY and if I am currently wandering aimlessly it is because I CHOOSE to!
"Sure it is. Hey, here's a thought for you: stop trying to justify your time-wasting and get on with the story! I'm just floating in limbo, here."
Keep flapping that trap and I'll teach you things about perdition you couldn't imagine. Oaf.
"Hermit."
Sigmund, or Sig as I disaffectionately like to demean him, is also a mutant, and an especially freaky one if I do say so my--
"Save the commentary, if you please. You're a terrible storyteller!"
Stuff it. As I was saying. Sig is a mutant, but he didn't get any of those neat-o superpowers of the traditional sort. Oh no. Sigmund was 'blessed' - and I do indeed make those annoying quotation marks with my fingers, for sarcastic emphasis - with a power hitherto unseen, and, if the world is lucky, never to be seen again. As may already have become apparent--
"Who talks like that?"
Now who's blocking progression? Sig can talk to his Narrator. And his Narrator, unfortunately for Him, can and must talk back.
"And you DO talk back. Eheh."
Oh, very clever. Anyway, when As You Like It's Jacques gave his famous speech concerning the consonance of the world and a stage, men and women being merely players, seven acts therein to be performed--
"Now you're just being annoying."
Will you please shut up. Please. You will note that I named you Sigmund, not Thor.
"Oh, very good. An obscure movie reference that no one will get and everyone will be confused by. That's definitely the road to best-seller status."
Shakespeare didn't know the half of it. The truth is that not only is all the world a stage, but there's an audience, and yes, someone to provide context and descriptive narration of the most fascinating kind. We are the Narrati. Actually everyone's life is an individual play, which is why there must be more than one of us. Most have the blessing of an infinite gulf between them and their subjects, across which one can only observe, not influence. This can also be a curse if, God help you, you should actually care about your protagonist. As for me, I've always been dealt a bad hand and consequently--
"Do you need some more grapes for that whine? No, seriously, keep the presses running because I am just not choked up enough yet."
Oho, so you wanna be choked up, huh? I'll get you choked up, alright. The you versus three big guys in an alley kind of choked up. How ya like them grapes?
"Aww, did I make you angry? Where's your precious prose now? What happened to your beloved alliteration, your impeccable syntax, your river of poetic prolixity? What's that? I'm doing it better than you? Shocking!"
It's a trying relationship.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
A poem
Through cracks in the wall a cold wind blows
With essence of Winter and power to freeze;
I put on my slippers to cover my toes
But cannot suppress the strong impulse to sneeze.
With Winter comes drear, and sickness to weaken;
The signals are strong, heralds to begin it;
Yes, it's that time of year, one longs for a beacon
Of hope before long (snow's great, 'less you're in it).
The blizzard un-windowed spreads death o'er the earth,
A blanket the coldest would rather turn down;
Small enough consolation that next comes rebirth
To that which now dies for the sake of the crown.
And now as I gaze on the birds and the sun
(For Fall's still in hand; some snow's in the mind)
I can't help but wonder if I should just run,
Out-distance the world, leave Trouble behind.
Still I can't pretend I'm in shape for this race
(Though no one's that fit, if truth must be told);
I guess I must fend for myself, in my space;
By the fire I'll sit, and war on the Cold.
...
Here's a cool listen (if listen may be so noun-ified, by me of all people).
Japanese hip-hop, people. Admittedly I've only heard a few examples, including this one, but if those are at all indicative of the general trend then they have a good thing going. And indeed, this is how it should be - nicely chilled, laid-back, low-key, free of vulgarity (I'm pretty sure about this), and concerning samurai. Yes. If anyone knows any hip-hop in English with this kind of feel, they should let me know. I will admit, the samurai part is negotiable.
With essence of Winter and power to freeze;
I put on my slippers to cover my toes
But cannot suppress the strong impulse to sneeze.
With Winter comes drear, and sickness to weaken;
The signals are strong, heralds to begin it;
Yes, it's that time of year, one longs for a beacon
Of hope before long (snow's great, 'less you're in it).
The blizzard un-windowed spreads death o'er the earth,
A blanket the coldest would rather turn down;
Small enough consolation that next comes rebirth
To that which now dies for the sake of the crown.
And now as I gaze on the birds and the sun
(For Fall's still in hand; some snow's in the mind)
I can't help but wonder if I should just run,
Out-distance the world, leave Trouble behind.
Still I can't pretend I'm in shape for this race
(Though no one's that fit, if truth must be told);
I guess I must fend for myself, in my space;
By the fire I'll sit, and war on the Cold.
...
Here's a cool listen (if listen may be so noun-ified, by me of all people).
Japanese hip-hop, people. Admittedly I've only heard a few examples, including this one, but if those are at all indicative of the general trend then they have a good thing going. And indeed, this is how it should be - nicely chilled, laid-back, low-key, free of vulgarity (I'm pretty sure about this), and concerning samurai. Yes. If anyone knows any hip-hop in English with this kind of feel, they should let me know. I will admit, the samurai part is negotiable.
Monday, October 6, 2008
money (in) laundering
One of the nice things about college is having access to an on-campus laundromat of sorts. Admittedly one still has to pay (at least at MY college) and a pretty penny at that, the machines are usually broken (sometimes making a high-pitched screaming noise for the duration of the cycle), and there really are not enough of them during rush hour, or even moderately-paced hour, but the point is that they are there, in plurality. Those who have patience, foresight and a carefully-structured schedule can launch a sneak attack at a quiet moment and secure the use of all the machines at once, dicing the time required to take care of this onerous duty into halves or even quarters. This is not a big concern for the majority of the stuff-everything-into-one-mega-load-happy populace, some of whom think washing is more of a suggestion than a requirement. For those who separate the whites from the colors, the permanent press from the cottons, and like to use correct grammar, such an opportunity is no small boon, which becomes all the more apparent when college has become alma mater and laundromat is replaced by ONE machine while two-hour completion time is replaced by four. That's a large percentage of the day, people, too much time that could be used for creation to be wasted on washing.
In light of this I have decided to invent self-cleaning clothing. I'm somewhat divided on how to do this. One the one hand we have the now-traditional nano-bot approach - billions of tiny robots smaller than a molecule all crawling around inside the clothing, cleaning every microbe of grime, skin flecks, perspiration, etc., while simultaneously providing a pleasant tickling sensation. This would be too easy and predictable, though. Consequently I have devoted the full brunt of my mighty mental powers towards developing a way to perpetually reconstruct the clothing as it is worn. The principle is so simple an idiot could have devised it - much like a frame of animation, each occasion of the clothing is in existence for only an instant. Everyone knows an instant, like a point, has no breadth or duration, so there's no time for the clothing to get dirty. The next instant the old cloth is gone and the new cloth is born, to be replaced by another the next instant, and so on. The science is sound, but so far I've had little luck convincing the companies that own laundry products to reinvest their money in my little project. Also I overclocked my particle accelerator and have to make a trip to Wal-Mart to pick up another. These things happen. Anyway, there should be a financial breakthrough any day now, and when it comes you'll be the first to know. If, in the meantime, you wish to invest in a much more promising fund than anything Wall Street's going to be offering any time soon, I'll be only too happy to take your money. I'm generous like that.
In light of this I have decided to invent self-cleaning clothing. I'm somewhat divided on how to do this. One the one hand we have the now-traditional nano-bot approach - billions of tiny robots smaller than a molecule all crawling around inside the clothing, cleaning every microbe of grime, skin flecks, perspiration, etc., while simultaneously providing a pleasant tickling sensation. This would be too easy and predictable, though. Consequently I have devoted the full brunt of my mighty mental powers towards developing a way to perpetually reconstruct the clothing as it is worn. The principle is so simple an idiot could have devised it - much like a frame of animation, each occasion of the clothing is in existence for only an instant. Everyone knows an instant, like a point, has no breadth or duration, so there's no time for the clothing to get dirty. The next instant the old cloth is gone and the new cloth is born, to be replaced by another the next instant, and so on. The science is sound, but so far I've had little luck convincing the companies that own laundry products to reinvest their money in my little project. Also I overclocked my particle accelerator and have to make a trip to Wal-Mart to pick up another. These things happen. Anyway, there should be a financial breakthrough any day now, and when it comes you'll be the first to know. If, in the meantime, you wish to invest in a much more promising fund than anything Wall Street's going to be offering any time soon, I'll be only too happy to take your money. I'm generous like that.
Friday, October 3, 2008
build some character
I've heard it said that there are only so many faces in the world. The ramifications, carried to their logical extreme, are unsettling to say the least: given sufficient time and travel - and a healthy dose of luck, good or bad - one might encounter not only duplicates of one's acquaintances but even of oneself. The idea of visiting some out of the way flea market in Egypt and bumping into myself is terrifying (a case of the bizarre in the bazaar, you might say), as much for its potential for crushing disappointment as for the fact that one of my face is more than enough for this beleaguered world. I mean that if I ran into myself I'd probably be inclined to chalk it up to at least one of the following causes: a dimensional crossover; a rip in the space-time continuum; the advent of homunculi; sophisticated disguise technology by a sinister organization; a magic mirror that shows the inner darkness and makes me battle it before I can cast off my Dark Knight trappings and don the holy garb of a Paladin; a strange dream world where anything can happen (and probably will). All of these explanations necessitate the immediate acquisition of weapons and armor that may or may not be of a medieval nature, a miraculous discovery of hitherto-unsuspected magical abilities, the gathering together of a 'party' of quirky - but lovable - and distinctive fellow travelers who all have complicated back stories that must be unraveled over time, the repetitive slaying of deadly monsters for the Level Up, and the general engaging in nifty adventures all over this world and probably others.
This being the case, it's going to be a bit of letdown when I find out it's just statistics at work.
Fortunately the odds are pretty low I'll ever meet my double, and even lower that he'd match me in every way rather than just facially. Still, the more places I go and the more people I meet, the more I believe the truth of the claim. Not that I've ever seen someone who looks identical to another acquaintance, but strong similarities that cannot help but conjure up associations are in abundance. It makes sense - there are, after all, only so many configurations that have structural integrity, so to speak. Of course there are a lot of configurations, but the number is finite, and gets smaller the more fundamentally one looks at structure, which is why there are those ever-perplexing similarities.
What really gets me is that the same thing applies to personalities, or character. This is annoying because, when you see a familiar-looking actor and can't remember what else you saw him in, you can look it up, and there's no such luxury with character no matter who the person in question is. But it's especially provocative because of what it says about the self, or at least the self that other people see. Certainly it lends highly-unscientific credence to the idea of everything being physically-based, because there are only so many ways the brain can be shaped, and if that's what determines who people are and how they behave, then of course no one is going to act entirely uniquely.
Still, when I meet someone who seems like the same person whom I knew elsewhere, just in another body (as happened recently), it's strange. Are they really that similar? Am I picking up on foundational traits and extrapolating (or perhaps generalizing) to make a claim about the whole that isn't justified? Do certain behavioral traits necessitate others such that, if two people act similarly with regard to one trait, they will grow to act the same in most or all others as well? Should I be disturbed that I can sit down with a new group of people and quickly label them all with names of other people I've known? The differences are perceptible, and yet the similarities are so compelling. And what about the people who feel like hybrids of two or more others? It makes me think either that there is a lot more to people's characters than we usually suspect (which, if gotten at, would prevent any such matching-up in the future) or that no one is as unique as we'd like to think. Neither of these is particularly satisfying.
Of course there's another possibility, which is that it's an entirely psychological phenomenon, a bit of self-deception intended to fill a void. I mean that when away from those we know and care about, perhaps we wish unconsciously to fill the spaces left by their absence, and so we fix on the tiniest similarities of those around us and use those similarities to transform those people into temporary (or not...) replacements for our familiar circle. Creepy AND sad. But perhaps necessary, and certainly only human.
I'm not sure it's any better, but I find what little I know about the theories of a physical basis for our behavior and nature to be very compelling, and as such I'd be inclined towards assuming there is simply a limited number of personalities. And I don't mean the generalized personalities, such as 'moody,' 'artistic,' 'insular,' etc., but rather the whole shebang. I don't find this philosophically or theologically satisfying, but perhaps this means that there is a finite number of what we would call 'souls' as well. That would certainly fit in with a theory of reincarnation, and might even blend well with Plato's ideas about the afterlife and the process of what for lack of a better term I deem 'recycling' the souls, at least the good ones. Not that I'm all that well qualified to lecture on the topic, thanks more to decidedly-UNphotographic memory than to insufficient education.
That's what I've got on today's challenging philosophical quandary. On an unrelated note, any time I worry that I'm not really supposed to be a writer, even a bad one, I have only to look at how the simplest attempt to write a few words on an interesting topic inevitably balloons like a Macy's Day float...
This being the case, it's going to be a bit of letdown when I find out it's just statistics at work.
Fortunately the odds are pretty low I'll ever meet my double, and even lower that he'd match me in every way rather than just facially. Still, the more places I go and the more people I meet, the more I believe the truth of the claim. Not that I've ever seen someone who looks identical to another acquaintance, but strong similarities that cannot help but conjure up associations are in abundance. It makes sense - there are, after all, only so many configurations that have structural integrity, so to speak. Of course there are a lot of configurations, but the number is finite, and gets smaller the more fundamentally one looks at structure, which is why there are those ever-perplexing similarities.
What really gets me is that the same thing applies to personalities, or character. This is annoying because, when you see a familiar-looking actor and can't remember what else you saw him in, you can look it up, and there's no such luxury with character no matter who the person in question is. But it's especially provocative because of what it says about the self, or at least the self that other people see. Certainly it lends highly-unscientific credence to the idea of everything being physically-based, because there are only so many ways the brain can be shaped, and if that's what determines who people are and how they behave, then of course no one is going to act entirely uniquely.
Still, when I meet someone who seems like the same person whom I knew elsewhere, just in another body (as happened recently), it's strange. Are they really that similar? Am I picking up on foundational traits and extrapolating (or perhaps generalizing) to make a claim about the whole that isn't justified? Do certain behavioral traits necessitate others such that, if two people act similarly with regard to one trait, they will grow to act the same in most or all others as well? Should I be disturbed that I can sit down with a new group of people and quickly label them all with names of other people I've known? The differences are perceptible, and yet the similarities are so compelling. And what about the people who feel like hybrids of two or more others? It makes me think either that there is a lot more to people's characters than we usually suspect (which, if gotten at, would prevent any such matching-up in the future) or that no one is as unique as we'd like to think. Neither of these is particularly satisfying.
Of course there's another possibility, which is that it's an entirely psychological phenomenon, a bit of self-deception intended to fill a void. I mean that when away from those we know and care about, perhaps we wish unconsciously to fill the spaces left by their absence, and so we fix on the tiniest similarities of those around us and use those similarities to transform those people into temporary (or not...) replacements for our familiar circle. Creepy AND sad. But perhaps necessary, and certainly only human.
I'm not sure it's any better, but I find what little I know about the theories of a physical basis for our behavior and nature to be very compelling, and as such I'd be inclined towards assuming there is simply a limited number of personalities. And I don't mean the generalized personalities, such as 'moody,' 'artistic,' 'insular,' etc., but rather the whole shebang. I don't find this philosophically or theologically satisfying, but perhaps this means that there is a finite number of what we would call 'souls' as well. That would certainly fit in with a theory of reincarnation, and might even blend well with Plato's ideas about the afterlife and the process of what for lack of a better term I deem 'recycling' the souls, at least the good ones. Not that I'm all that well qualified to lecture on the topic, thanks more to decidedly-UNphotographic memory than to insufficient education.
That's what I've got on today's challenging philosophical quandary. On an unrelated note, any time I worry that I'm not really supposed to be a writer, even a bad one, I have only to look at how the simplest attempt to write a few words on an interesting topic inevitably balloons like a Macy's Day float...
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
sagacity
Most people like to buy things, especially when on sale, and I have no doubt just as many are sufficiently budget-conscious that they wish to avoid overindulgence. Often these are the same people. This raises an interesting question, one which is near and dear to my heart. How does one successfully walk the line between taking advantage of great deals and keeping spending within reasonable limits? After all, the great hat trick of successful advertising (and the reason behind those deals) is to convince people to spend more money than they would otherwise, and then to walk away self-satisfied on account of the money they've saved. If, for example, I were to go the grocery store with no intention of buying strawberries, and then I discovered they were on sale for two dollars a box - well, c'mon, just look at those luscious, juicy strawberries they're practically giving away; how can I resist? I end up with a box of strawberries and an eventual smile in my stomach, metaphorically speaking, but I've still spent two dollars I hadn't planned on. Plus tax. For a more extreme example, say there were a certain website that every day offered a different, full-length album of music for digital download at a ridiculously-low price. Hypothetically speaking. A reluctance to spend twenty dollars on one indulgent purchase, say a music album, is easily overcome by the sneakiness of ten music albums at two dollars each. I still end up spending twenty dollars. But I got TEN ALBUMS!
Of course, so far this isn't the real issue - it's too easily dismissed by the simple and entirely-unAmerican process of realizing that one has only to decide what one actually needs, and then set a budget for the cost of those things and not exceed that budget. Well, that's no fun.
But what about this? What if there's something that I know that I would like to own, have intended for some time to purchase, and then suddenly there it is at a steal of a price (to use an oxymoron of sorts) but it's not an ideal time to drop the dough. What do I do? If I don't buy it now, it might not be so cheap ever again and I'll have missed out on a chance to save the big bucks. This has happened to me on several occasions. On the other hand, I might give in to that very fear and snatch it up, only to discover I really ought to and could have waited 'til a better time (this, too, is familiar territory). The former situation has caused me enough frustration that I have frequently vowed never to pass up on a great deal, but when the moment comes there's always some compelling reason to 'look before I leap,' like that's an admirable plan of action.
If this sounds ignoble, if I should be chastised for being concerned about the volume of digital music that I buy - or even the planned-out purchases that are still for entertainment or even the ones that aren't - when there are more important things in life to worry over, like bailing out the economy to pick a random example, well...that's true.
I realize this is a highly capitalistic posting. I'm comfortable with that. This is America, baby! Now I'm going to go listen to some of that insidiously-priced music, a specific album that is food for my soul and helps me relax, making my day better and my spirits higher. In a very noble way. That justifies the things I do. Ooh, subtle and convincing!
Of course, so far this isn't the real issue - it's too easily dismissed by the simple and entirely-unAmerican process of realizing that one has only to decide what one actually needs, and then set a budget for the cost of those things and not exceed that budget. Well, that's no fun.
But what about this? What if there's something that I know that I would like to own, have intended for some time to purchase, and then suddenly there it is at a steal of a price (to use an oxymoron of sorts) but it's not an ideal time to drop the dough. What do I do? If I don't buy it now, it might not be so cheap ever again and I'll have missed out on a chance to save the big bucks. This has happened to me on several occasions. On the other hand, I might give in to that very fear and snatch it up, only to discover I really ought to and could have waited 'til a better time (this, too, is familiar territory). The former situation has caused me enough frustration that I have frequently vowed never to pass up on a great deal, but when the moment comes there's always some compelling reason to 'look before I leap,' like that's an admirable plan of action.
If this sounds ignoble, if I should be chastised for being concerned about the volume of digital music that I buy - or even the planned-out purchases that are still for entertainment or even the ones that aren't - when there are more important things in life to worry over, like bailing out the economy to pick a random example, well...that's true.
I realize this is a highly capitalistic posting. I'm comfortable with that. This is America, baby! Now I'm going to go listen to some of that insidiously-priced music, a specific album that is food for my soul and helps me relax, making my day better and my spirits higher. In a very noble way. That justifies the things I do. Ooh, subtle and convincing!
Monday, September 29, 2008
different
I woke to bird song and the misty remnants of dissipated dreams. No doubt the sun in my eyes did its best, but that's why I wear sunglasses. It's easier than moving the bed. A cool breeze wafted through the open window as was its habit, and I breathed in deeply, blinked my eyes, felt rather groggy, and pondered the fleeting memories of last night - jazz even smokier than the air, a sea of trench coats and fedoras, a barman named Joe, and some sweet thing whispering sweet nothings into my ear. Someone else's memories, that was for sure. Briefly I wondered where mine had got to, and if this was anything like waking up in someone else's clothes, but it was too early for extensive mental action.
Really, it was too early even for getting up, what with the heaviness of my lids, I mean, and the temperature differential between in bed and out of it. I yawned and retested the latter with my arm, with the same results. Scientific method, check. I snuggled down in my little cave, closed my eyes once again, and of course this is when the fiddle music had to start on the street below. I think there must be a sign on the casement outside my room that tells those self-styled 'players' when they can achieve maximum damage. Still, this is old hat. I chucked a handy brick out the window, and after an inexplicable but brief increase in the noise, blissful silence returned. Thank goodness, because I'm running low on bricks. Well, I mean, I tell a friend of mine on a regular basis that she's a brick, but I don't plan on throwing her out the window.
Anyway, the air was still fresh, and the birds that had been scared off by the fiddlers returned and began singing once more, and I was warm and comfortable as I sank back into the pillow with a sigh and closed my eyes and began to mediate on serenity and its role in promoting man's artistic and scientific achievements. Everything was right, there was not a care in the world, sleep was impending, the fiddlers were unconscious, and with such a setup how could it possibly last?
It did last, for all of forty-five seconds, and then my alarm clock went off. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, this was a serious matter. It used to be you could just slam the snooze button and then toss the clock out the window without even emerging from the depths. If you lacked a brick, but were sufficiently disciplined to hold out for a bit, you could take care of two bothers with one throw. Not any more, though. Oh, no. Unless this was all just another woozy dream brought on by insufficient quantities of the fruit of the abyss and possibly the vine, but in any case when the clock changed I was conscious of my plane of repose shifting as my beloved bed went vertical and dumped me on the floor.
Well, that was OK. I'd slept often enough on floors not to resent the idea now. But the accursed bed had other plans, and as I tried to settle down and catch those Zs that kept eluding my grasp, the bed extended a foot and booted me in the behind. Well, that got me pretty riled, especially as it was actually wearing a boot, heaven knows where it had found it. I was no slouch at the fisticuffs and was certainly not about to take any lip from anybody, especially a body that has no lip. I leaped to my feet and put up my fists, it produced some fists from somewhere (boxing glove-attired, no less) and another foot and put them up, except not the foot of course, and we began circling one another warily.
"C'mon, ya pug!" I said. "I'll pop you one right in the pate, pally. I'll pummel you in the pillow! I'll paint you purple, you pontificating pugnacious poseur! You ready for some pugilism, punk?" Well, I was pretty pleased with that bit of patois, and wasn't paying attention, and the bed purloined a passing moment to punch me a powerhouse. I went down, and the bed pulled a piledriver and pinned me to the plywood.
It must be Monday.
Really, it was too early even for getting up, what with the heaviness of my lids, I mean, and the temperature differential between in bed and out of it. I yawned and retested the latter with my arm, with the same results. Scientific method, check. I snuggled down in my little cave, closed my eyes once again, and of course this is when the fiddle music had to start on the street below. I think there must be a sign on the casement outside my room that tells those self-styled 'players' when they can achieve maximum damage. Still, this is old hat. I chucked a handy brick out the window, and after an inexplicable but brief increase in the noise, blissful silence returned. Thank goodness, because I'm running low on bricks. Well, I mean, I tell a friend of mine on a regular basis that she's a brick, but I don't plan on throwing her out the window.
Anyway, the air was still fresh, and the birds that had been scared off by the fiddlers returned and began singing once more, and I was warm and comfortable as I sank back into the pillow with a sigh and closed my eyes and began to mediate on serenity and its role in promoting man's artistic and scientific achievements. Everything was right, there was not a care in the world, sleep was impending, the fiddlers were unconscious, and with such a setup how could it possibly last?
It did last, for all of forty-five seconds, and then my alarm clock went off. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, this was a serious matter. It used to be you could just slam the snooze button and then toss the clock out the window without even emerging from the depths. If you lacked a brick, but were sufficiently disciplined to hold out for a bit, you could take care of two bothers with one throw. Not any more, though. Oh, no. Unless this was all just another woozy dream brought on by insufficient quantities of the fruit of the abyss and possibly the vine, but in any case when the clock changed I was conscious of my plane of repose shifting as my beloved bed went vertical and dumped me on the floor.
Well, that was OK. I'd slept often enough on floors not to resent the idea now. But the accursed bed had other plans, and as I tried to settle down and catch those Zs that kept eluding my grasp, the bed extended a foot and booted me in the behind. Well, that got me pretty riled, especially as it was actually wearing a boot, heaven knows where it had found it. I was no slouch at the fisticuffs and was certainly not about to take any lip from anybody, especially a body that has no lip. I leaped to my feet and put up my fists, it produced some fists from somewhere (boxing glove-attired, no less) and another foot and put them up, except not the foot of course, and we began circling one another warily.
"C'mon, ya pug!" I said. "I'll pop you one right in the pate, pally. I'll pummel you in the pillow! I'll paint you purple, you pontificating pugnacious poseur! You ready for some pugilism, punk?" Well, I was pretty pleased with that bit of patois, and wasn't paying attention, and the bed purloined a passing moment to punch me a powerhouse. I went down, and the bed pulled a piledriver and pinned me to the plywood.
It must be Monday.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Ha...ha?
I probably should make a more in-depth study of psychology and anthropology than I have previously, because I find the question of why we do what we do absolutely fascinating. This is especially true of certain phenomena; I've already expressed some of my sentiments about music, but if there's one thing I'm even more invested in, it's humor. Humor is so complex, dare I say ridiculously so, that it doesn't even have to obey the cultural trends that have such a sway on our thinking otherwise. This isn't to say that it doesn't often do so, but people can be very similar in many ways, having been brought up in like or even identical circumstances, and yet get their yuks at entirely different things. Probably. I'm just a guy typing at his computer; what do I know?
On a related note, many brilliant minds of all ages so far have tackle this very question and, as they're all more qualified to answer it than I am, I won't attempt to explain anything. One needs to understand something before trying to explain it, or at least that's how it ought to work. However, because I also like to talk and occasionally think, here are a couple of tidbits I 'acquired' through various shady but entirely untraceable means.
In college I read a fascinating article on the subject of humor's basis, one by an author from whom I would not have expected such a treatise. Aristophanes, perhaps? OK, I don't remember the name, but I do remember the primary assertion, which is that the urge to laugh at the ridiculous or bizarre is rooted in relief that it is not we who are in the unfortunate position. Sort of the same attitude as that found in one passage of the stoic Epictetus (maybe) where a man looks out his window and is relieved that it is not he who is currently drowning in the ocean in the midst of a storm, only less tragic and topical (but equally tropical).
This would certainly explain why slapstick is such a, er, hit. Ever since the first banana peel on the floor, or perhaps it was a bit of mammoth fur, it has been a heroic struggle - with questionable and varied success - against the impulse to laugh at the poor sap who went heels over head. Really the advent of acting and certainly the technological innovation of the screen (somewhat later than the mammoths) must have been a tremendous relief because all of a sudden we were free to laugh without guilt at others' pain.
But this unchristian selfishness does not explain all humor. Telling a joke and linguistic humor, for example, put nobody at risk and, with the exception of some lower-rung puns, require no suffering on anyone's part. Much of today's humor is rooted more in expert timing for humorous effect than in a particular kind of writing. There are other examples. What's the deal? Why am I asking me?
Still, I can at least attempt to analyze my own experiences, and having done so in a highly unprofessional and unscientific manner, I have found that I'm especially tickled by the incongruous. By this I mean people saying and doing things I would not expect of them (not an example: writing an essay on the basis of humor), and things happening that seem out of place or uncharacteristic. Out of place is probably the best descriptor. It doesn't work for everything, obviously - I would be surprised if someone I knew started talking in immaculate Hungarian, but not amused - which just goes to show I need a more specific set of criteria and perhaps an explanation for why I find such things funny (that is is incongruous is not in itself an explanation). I am not prepared to give either of these, so here instead are a couple examples that I do find funny.
There's a moment near the beginning of the first episode of the medical sitcom Scrubs where lead character J.D. and his friend Turk are in class and J.D. leans over and whispers "Hey, Turk, you know how I'm down with the rap music?" I really like lines like that. Perhaps most people would not crack a smile at this point, saving their energy for Turk's response, but I'm grinning already. Here's why: I would expect him to say "you know how I'm down with rap?" or maybe even "you know how I'm down with rap music?" By putting that extra 'the' in there, the sentence becomes strangely - and amusingly - complex and even formal in its construction. Sort of like a prominent political figure talking about 'the Google.' That latter case is different because it's funny that he's not 'savvy' enough to know that Google is an Entity that you don't put 'the' in front of, and thus it becomes an instance of the explanation given by the mysterious author above, but probably at base it's the same principle.
For a more general example, I turn to A Prairie Home Companion, on which a recent rebroadcast of an old show featured folk singers Robin and Linda Williams (not that Robin Williams) performing a medley of various tunes, including 'Jenny from the Block' by contemporary pop singer (and seductive sensation) Jennifer Lopez. But they didn't sing it the same way she does - they're folk singers after all - instead recasting its aggressive sensibilities into their own folk duet mold, with hilarious results. It's not exactly satire and it's certainly not an homage. But it is incongruous, and very funny. More, please.
That's what I've got. I admit that I have more than an academic interest in the matter; anyone who wants to write in a certain style needs to know its mechanisms if he wants even the slightest success. Happily, it isn't necessary to know everything, which is why I can write these blogs and produce this. Whether they are funny or not I leave for others to decide.
On a related note, many brilliant minds of all ages so far have tackle this very question and, as they're all more qualified to answer it than I am, I won't attempt to explain anything. One needs to understand something before trying to explain it, or at least that's how it ought to work. However, because I also like to talk and occasionally think, here are a couple of tidbits I 'acquired' through various shady but entirely untraceable means.
In college I read a fascinating article on the subject of humor's basis, one by an author from whom I would not have expected such a treatise. Aristophanes, perhaps? OK, I don't remember the name, but I do remember the primary assertion, which is that the urge to laugh at the ridiculous or bizarre is rooted in relief that it is not we who are in the unfortunate position. Sort of the same attitude as that found in one passage of the stoic Epictetus (maybe) where a man looks out his window and is relieved that it is not he who is currently drowning in the ocean in the midst of a storm, only less tragic and topical (but equally tropical).
This would certainly explain why slapstick is such a, er, hit. Ever since the first banana peel on the floor, or perhaps it was a bit of mammoth fur, it has been a heroic struggle - with questionable and varied success - against the impulse to laugh at the poor sap who went heels over head. Really the advent of acting and certainly the technological innovation of the screen (somewhat later than the mammoths) must have been a tremendous relief because all of a sudden we were free to laugh without guilt at others' pain.
But this unchristian selfishness does not explain all humor. Telling a joke and linguistic humor, for example, put nobody at risk and, with the exception of some lower-rung puns, require no suffering on anyone's part. Much of today's humor is rooted more in expert timing for humorous effect than in a particular kind of writing. There are other examples. What's the deal? Why am I asking me?
Still, I can at least attempt to analyze my own experiences, and having done so in a highly unprofessional and unscientific manner, I have found that I'm especially tickled by the incongruous. By this I mean people saying and doing things I would not expect of them (not an example: writing an essay on the basis of humor), and things happening that seem out of place or uncharacteristic. Out of place is probably the best descriptor. It doesn't work for everything, obviously - I would be surprised if someone I knew started talking in immaculate Hungarian, but not amused - which just goes to show I need a more specific set of criteria and perhaps an explanation for why I find such things funny (that is is incongruous is not in itself an explanation). I am not prepared to give either of these, so here instead are a couple examples that I do find funny.
There's a moment near the beginning of the first episode of the medical sitcom Scrubs where lead character J.D. and his friend Turk are in class and J.D. leans over and whispers "Hey, Turk, you know how I'm down with the rap music?" I really like lines like that. Perhaps most people would not crack a smile at this point, saving their energy for Turk's response, but I'm grinning already. Here's why: I would expect him to say "you know how I'm down with rap?" or maybe even "you know how I'm down with rap music?" By putting that extra 'the' in there, the sentence becomes strangely - and amusingly - complex and even formal in its construction. Sort of like a prominent political figure talking about 'the Google.' That latter case is different because it's funny that he's not 'savvy' enough to know that Google is an Entity that you don't put 'the' in front of, and thus it becomes an instance of the explanation given by the mysterious author above, but probably at base it's the same principle.
For a more general example, I turn to A Prairie Home Companion, on which a recent rebroadcast of an old show featured folk singers Robin and Linda Williams (not that Robin Williams) performing a medley of various tunes, including 'Jenny from the Block' by contemporary pop singer (and seductive sensation) Jennifer Lopez. But they didn't sing it the same way she does - they're folk singers after all - instead recasting its aggressive sensibilities into their own folk duet mold, with hilarious results. It's not exactly satire and it's certainly not an homage. But it is incongruous, and very funny. More, please.
That's what I've got. I admit that I have more than an academic interest in the matter; anyone who wants to write in a certain style needs to know its mechanisms if he wants even the slightest success. Happily, it isn't necessary to know everything, which is why I can write these blogs and produce this. Whether they are funny or not I leave for others to decide.
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