If you were an adolescent in the early 90s you probably went through the experience of hearing every unfunny douche in your school go around saying “exsqueeze me?” all the time and even though Wayne’s World was okay you still wanted to track down Mike Myers and slap the shit out of him for the legion of double-plus annoying idiots he inspired to imitate him.
That’s kind of how I feel about Tolkien and the genre of pseudo medieval faux European fantasy tropes he unwittingly spawned
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Fiction and the fantastic
Fiction should be fantastical. The entire reason fiction exists is because it can contain and express human-created concepts that have no real-world analogue. If you are writing fiction and you are constraining yourself within the set of things that are real and actual and possible, you are wasting your time and your audience's time as well. You want a story about the horrors of war, or the tragedy of drug addiction, or the quiet malaise of 1950s suburbs? They're out there already. That ground is well-covered by actual people and the actual experiences of their actual lives.
But robots and vampires and aliens and time travelers and superheroes and zombies and talking gorillas? None of that is real, or at least not yet.
Monday, July 11, 2016
The Valentine-O-Gram Lesson
In my high school, every Valentine's Day, every single class got disrupted throughout the day by the constant delivery of Valentine-O-Grams. I found this of interest because I was in the principal's office constantly for "disrupting class" but apparently it was okay to disrupt class for stupid Valentine-O-Grams that I never got from anyone anyway. And I came to realize that they didn't discipline me for disrupting class, in the sense that I was preventing the other students from receiving their education -- they didn't give a shit if class got disrupted as long as it was part of their design -- but for disrupting class when they hadn't planned for class disruption. Even though the end result was the same whether class got disrupted by me or by Valentine-O-Gram delivery, my individual disruption was sign that they lacked control and had to be shut down before anyone else realized it. I never got a Valentine-O-Gram but I did get a valuable look behind the curtains at the invisible machinery that makes society work. And maybe that was even a fair trade.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
A Conspiracy Of Silence (2004? 2005?)
When I was a child my parents told me about this man named Santa Claus. Santa Claus, if you have never heard a similar tale, is allegedly this ageless guy who lives at the North Pole. Every Christmas he travels around the world in his magic sleigh pulled by reindeer, and somehow defies the passage of time by visiting the household of every child to deliver gifts. (Or at least the household of every nice child—naughty children got nothing, as my parents repeatedly warned me every time I acted “out of line.”)
Despite the ridiculous nature of the story, even to the pre-school version of me, I decided to believe it, to take their word for it—after all, why would my parents lie? Didn’t they have my best interests at heart? Didn’t they themselves repeatedly tell me that lying was “wrong,” was one of the Deadly Sins that would make Santa Claus skip my chimney come Christmas? Then, when I reached a certain age and confronted them about it, I found out that (as many of you have already discovered) the whole thing was a lie. The toys I opened on Christmas morn weren’t made by elves at the North Pole, they were made by poorly-paid laborers and purchased at local department stores. That day marked the beginning of my descent into paranoia.
Nobody really thinks about the whole Santa Claus phenomenon much. As a child, when you find out the truth you must still allow your younger siblings or cousins to find out on their own or risk getting in trouble—when the authorities lie, telling the truth is a crime. Then they grow up and tell their own kids about the fat man in the red suit without really thinking about why they’re doing it or what the implications are. Perhaps some clever students of sociology explain it as that culture’s particular rite of passage, initiation into the inner perimeter of adult society.
I like to look at it as a conspiracy. Ever since my Santa Claus illusions were shattered I have been very mistrustful of whatever “authority” figures tell me the truth is, knowing that they could be lying to me FOR ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD REASON. Conspiracies can exist without any of the members involved even being conscious that they are part of any conspiracy. The sad fact about conspiracies is that they do not need to be driven by some Power Elite sitting in a room somewhere puffing on cigars and planning which democratically-elected official to assassinate next, which Manchurian Candidate Lone Gunman to activate, which buildings to fly planes into. Conspiracies can just happen, arise out of social forces no one really understands. This is the lesson of the Santa Claus conspiracy.
But there are of course more lessons to be drawn from this. Those who scoff at conspiracy theories often pull out the line “How could you manage a conspiracy that large? It’s simply impossible!” Yet no conspiracy to kill Kennedy or conceal alien contact or get Bush elected has ever been postulated to be as large as the Santa Claus conspiracy actually IS: almost every adult and many children over the age of eight in North America alone. How does a conspiracy so large manage to operate? How can there still be small children to this day who are deceived, who believe in Santa Claus? The answer is simple: control of information. Any information a child runs into that denies the existence of Santa Claus is dismissed by the authorities he or she goes to to verify it. Famously, the Saturday Evening Post once told a small girl the bald-faced lie: “Yes, Virginia…” Older children who discover the truth either become co-conspirators or keep their mouth shut, out of fear of retribution for leaking the truth.
And of course, maybe the real conspiracy is that there IS a Santa Claus after all. Looking up in the sky once as a child I thought I saw his sled as it was pulled by the reindeer. The problem with paranoia is that it allows no verified truth to stand. Rather like the scientific method which can never completely prove a theory, merely disprove it, paranoia is a tool for deconstructing old realities but very poor for building new realities to replace them. Who can you believe?
Despite the ridiculous nature of the story, even to the pre-school version of me, I decided to believe it, to take their word for it—after all, why would my parents lie? Didn’t they have my best interests at heart? Didn’t they themselves repeatedly tell me that lying was “wrong,” was one of the Deadly Sins that would make Santa Claus skip my chimney come Christmas? Then, when I reached a certain age and confronted them about it, I found out that (as many of you have already discovered) the whole thing was a lie. The toys I opened on Christmas morn weren’t made by elves at the North Pole, they were made by poorly-paid laborers and purchased at local department stores. That day marked the beginning of my descent into paranoia.
Nobody really thinks about the whole Santa Claus phenomenon much. As a child, when you find out the truth you must still allow your younger siblings or cousins to find out on their own or risk getting in trouble—when the authorities lie, telling the truth is a crime. Then they grow up and tell their own kids about the fat man in the red suit without really thinking about why they’re doing it or what the implications are. Perhaps some clever students of sociology explain it as that culture’s particular rite of passage, initiation into the inner perimeter of adult society.
I like to look at it as a conspiracy. Ever since my Santa Claus illusions were shattered I have been very mistrustful of whatever “authority” figures tell me the truth is, knowing that they could be lying to me FOR ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD REASON. Conspiracies can exist without any of the members involved even being conscious that they are part of any conspiracy. The sad fact about conspiracies is that they do not need to be driven by some Power Elite sitting in a room somewhere puffing on cigars and planning which democratically-elected official to assassinate next, which Manchurian Candidate Lone Gunman to activate, which buildings to fly planes into. Conspiracies can just happen, arise out of social forces no one really understands. This is the lesson of the Santa Claus conspiracy.
But there are of course more lessons to be drawn from this. Those who scoff at conspiracy theories often pull out the line “How could you manage a conspiracy that large? It’s simply impossible!” Yet no conspiracy to kill Kennedy or conceal alien contact or get Bush elected has ever been postulated to be as large as the Santa Claus conspiracy actually IS: almost every adult and many children over the age of eight in North America alone. How does a conspiracy so large manage to operate? How can there still be small children to this day who are deceived, who believe in Santa Claus? The answer is simple: control of information. Any information a child runs into that denies the existence of Santa Claus is dismissed by the authorities he or she goes to to verify it. Famously, the Saturday Evening Post once told a small girl the bald-faced lie: “Yes, Virginia…” Older children who discover the truth either become co-conspirators or keep their mouth shut, out of fear of retribution for leaking the truth.
And of course, maybe the real conspiracy is that there IS a Santa Claus after all. Looking up in the sky once as a child I thought I saw his sled as it was pulled by the reindeer. The problem with paranoia is that it allows no verified truth to stand. Rather like the scientific method which can never completely prove a theory, merely disprove it, paranoia is a tool for deconstructing old realities but very poor for building new realities to replace them. Who can you believe?
Saturday, October 31, 2015
"But it's ILLEGAL!"
If there's any laws you don't follow -- laws you think are stupid, laws that it is convenient or advantageous or fun for you to break -- if you are someone who assumes the right to pick and choose laws like the legal code is a buffet table, then you are a hypocrite should you get uptight over other people choosing which laws they will follow. Say, if you are someone that gets mad over illegal immigration or illegal drug use or people driving faster than the speed limit or whatever other outlawed bugaboo crawled up your butt that day, but you yourself have decided that you are allowed to ignore certain laws to your own benefit, than you are, I say again, a hypocrite. You ever notice that when someone commits murder, the outrage isn't because murder is illegal but because murder is wrong? When someone molests children, the ire is not because the law against child molestation has been flouted? The only time people get uptight about things specifically because they are illegal is when the illegal things are quite debatably not wrong in any universal or moral sense. So. Either you respect the rule of law in its entirety or you don't. Period. What makes you so special that you and you alone are granted permission to break laws as you see fit?
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Resolving the Fermi Paradox
Possibility #1: Some sort of Galactus/Unicron type being that consumes entire planets.
Possibility #2: Physical space is an incubator for higher minds, who upon reaching a certain level leave this realm and thus are not sending out broadcasts of alien I Love Lucy for us to detect.
Possibility #3: Perhaps amidst all the UFO hoaxes and sloppy ancient astronaut theories there is an actual account of an actual visitation.
Possibility #4: While there may be other intelligent life in the universe, there is no particularly strong reason to assume we are not the first and oldest of them.
Possibility #5: Every time an intelligent race gets sophisticated enough, they choke on their own pollution and/or bomb themselves into extinction over subtle ideological differences.
Possibility #6: We are living in a vast computer simulation and, for whatever reason, the simulation only spawned one race of intelligent "life" and it's right here.
Possibility #7: There is intelligent life but they are for some reason (intentionally or not) concealing their presence from us.
Possibility #8: The life that has evolved elsewhere takes such radically different forms and utilizes such wildly different technology that we could be looking right at them and do not even realize it.
Possibility #9: God made Adam and Eve, not Xadam and Ee'hv.
Possibility #2: Physical space is an incubator for higher minds, who upon reaching a certain level leave this realm and thus are not sending out broadcasts of alien I Love Lucy for us to detect.
Possibility #3: Perhaps amidst all the UFO hoaxes and sloppy ancient astronaut theories there is an actual account of an actual visitation.
Possibility #4: While there may be other intelligent life in the universe, there is no particularly strong reason to assume we are not the first and oldest of them.
Possibility #5: Every time an intelligent race gets sophisticated enough, they choke on their own pollution and/or bomb themselves into extinction over subtle ideological differences.
Possibility #6: We are living in a vast computer simulation and, for whatever reason, the simulation only spawned one race of intelligent "life" and it's right here.
Possibility #7: There is intelligent life but they are for some reason (intentionally or not) concealing their presence from us.
Possibility #8: The life that has evolved elsewhere takes such radically different forms and utilizes such wildly different technology that we could be looking right at them and do not even realize it.
Possibility #9: God made Adam and Eve, not Xadam and Ee'hv.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Am I Statler or am I Waldorf in this exchange?
Attila: You hear that Ronda Rousey wants to play Captain Marvel?
Me: Man, you cast ONE pro wrestler in your cinematic universe, pretty soon they all want in.
Attila: She's not a wrestler. She's MMA.
Me: Exactly! That means it requires NO acting skills!
Me: Man, you cast ONE pro wrestler in your cinematic universe, pretty soon they all want in.
Attila: She's not a wrestler. She's MMA.
Me: Exactly! That means it requires NO acting skills!
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Nothing Means Everything, Everything Means Nothing
You're born for no reason. You live for no reason. You die for no reason. The world goes on without you, for no reason, because the world exists at all for no reason. No reason, no purpose, no meaning, to any of it. Some will tell you that it means whatever you want it to mean; this is a long and roundabout way of saying that it means nothing. Because you mean nothing. What it means to you, what you choose to have it mean to you, means nothing. Nothing means anything, and everything means nothing.
Saturday, November 22, 2014
a pithy primer on perfunctory primate pack politics
I have a question. When gas is $4 everyone blames Obama, but now it's under 3 and shouldn't those same people be praising him? Since, like, they think he's in charge of making the prices or something.
- @BDCThug (Twitter)
Well, you see, @BDCThug, you've made a common mistake. You are expecting there to be a consistent and rational line of thought behind the widespread Obama hatred. You are imagining, perhaps, civilized human beings, dressed in fine clothing adorned with pocket watch and cravat, reasonably discussing their beliefs.
Picture instead a group of rabid chimpanzees, beating their chests and flinging poo. The rational cerebrum that human beings possess is only used after the fact to justify this animalistic primate response, but it is not utilized to the point where they might realize how irrational and inconsistent they are, because then their entire belief bubble would pop.
This is not to say that there are not a host of perfectly good, valid and rational reasons to criticize and mistrust Obama -- in fact, many of them would apply straight across the board to ANY U.S. president -- but rather that most people seem to find it nigh impossible to articulate any of them, choosing instead to parrot whatever talking points the television has spoon-fed them this week.
So, when Barack Obama saluted the troops while holding a coffee, THIS MARXIST MUSLIM HAS NO RESPECT FOR OUR HEROES, but when George W. Bush saluted the troops while holding a dog, HOW DARE YOU QUESTION THE PRESIDENT?!?! HES A GOOD AMURCAN!!! USA! USA!
How does this relate to the price of gas? Well, when the price of gas went up, the television told the people that Barack Obama must be to blame, and so by gum he was to blame. Then when the price of gas went down, the television had moved on to a completely different and unrelated reason to hate Obama, and the people (who have the collective memory span of a hummingbird on methamphetamines) certainly would never remember to make that connection themselves.
- @BDCThug (Twitter)
Well, you see, @BDCThug, you've made a common mistake. You are expecting there to be a consistent and rational line of thought behind the widespread Obama hatred. You are imagining, perhaps, civilized human beings, dressed in fine clothing adorned with pocket watch and cravat, reasonably discussing their beliefs.
Picture instead a group of rabid chimpanzees, beating their chests and flinging poo. The rational cerebrum that human beings possess is only used after the fact to justify this animalistic primate response, but it is not utilized to the point where they might realize how irrational and inconsistent they are, because then their entire belief bubble would pop.
This is not to say that there are not a host of perfectly good, valid and rational reasons to criticize and mistrust Obama -- in fact, many of them would apply straight across the board to ANY U.S. president -- but rather that most people seem to find it nigh impossible to articulate any of them, choosing instead to parrot whatever talking points the television has spoon-fed them this week.
So, when Barack Obama saluted the troops while holding a coffee, THIS MARXIST MUSLIM HAS NO RESPECT FOR OUR HEROES, but when George W. Bush saluted the troops while holding a dog, HOW DARE YOU QUESTION THE PRESIDENT?!?! HES A GOOD AMURCAN!!! USA! USA!
How does this relate to the price of gas? Well, when the price of gas went up, the television told the people that Barack Obama must be to blame, and so by gum he was to blame. Then when the price of gas went down, the television had moved on to a completely different and unrelated reason to hate Obama, and the people (who have the collective memory span of a hummingbird on methamphetamines) certainly would never remember to make that connection themselves.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
But In The REAL Real World
People who talk about "the real world" fail to consider that that the world they believe to be real is a world that is almost entirely generated and created by the actions and mindsets of human beings. Who are capable of different actions and alternate mindsets. "The real world" is a meme in the classical sense of the term, an idea that exists to perpetuate itself. In talking about the existence of the "real world," they help to reinforce the idea and keep it alive a little longer.
Saturday, June 21, 2014
On Hating Everyone
I hate everyone. But it's not that simple. I'm a complicated man (like John Shaft) so there are plenty of people for whom my emotions are more nuanced and detailed than just mere hate. I may love them too. Love and hate are not actually mutually exclusive. They often go hand in hand.
There's two kinds of reactions one gets when they say they hate everyone:
1. A shocked, hurt look. "Why... why do you hate me???" Obviously, I hate you because you ask dumb fucking questions like that. Okay? Now go slink into your sulk-hole and leave me alone.
2. A broad grin, possibly a thumbs up. "Oh, me too, me too! People fucking suck!" Me and this second stripe tend to get along famously. It's easier to love people that hate people. Is that irony, Alanis? You fucking moron?
The thing about hating everyone is that it's pure, and fair. Most people are very limited in their hate. They hate people of a different race, or a different sexual orientation. They hate people from different countries, or people who cheer for different sports franchises. They hate people with different politics or different religions. What a bunch of assholes. Hating everyone, on the other hand, is mathematically equivalent to loving everyone, and a fuck of lot easier to accomplish.
Loving everyone? Now that's hard. Because most people are stupid and annoying and entitled and helpless and rude and inconsiderate and thoughtless. If you can actually manage it, you might be an evolved soul like Jesus. Who was brutally killed. By people.
There's two kinds of reactions one gets when they say they hate everyone:
1. A shocked, hurt look. "Why... why do you hate me???" Obviously, I hate you because you ask dumb fucking questions like that. Okay? Now go slink into your sulk-hole and leave me alone.
2. A broad grin, possibly a thumbs up. "Oh, me too, me too! People fucking suck!" Me and this second stripe tend to get along famously. It's easier to love people that hate people. Is that irony, Alanis? You fucking moron?
The thing about hating everyone is that it's pure, and fair. Most people are very limited in their hate. They hate people of a different race, or a different sexual orientation. They hate people from different countries, or people who cheer for different sports franchises. They hate people with different politics or different religions. What a bunch of assholes. Hating everyone, on the other hand, is mathematically equivalent to loving everyone, and a fuck of lot easier to accomplish.
Loving everyone? Now that's hard. Because most people are stupid and annoying and entitled and helpless and rude and inconsiderate and thoughtless. If you can actually manage it, you might be an evolved soul like Jesus. Who was brutally killed. By people.
Batmans and Robins and Rankings
Dick Grayson might not have been the best Batman. Damien Wayne might not have been the best Robin. But, Dick and Damien together were the best Batman and Robin, with the Bruce Wayne/Tim Drake pairing as the second best Dynamic Duo. Number three, Batman One Million and Robin the Toy Wonder. The Bruce/Dick partnership, as classic as it was, pulls in at number four. Number five might be Bruce and Damien, or maybe Bruce and Carrie Kelley.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Earth Hater Heart
I've come to you today to preach the gospel of hate. Hate gets a very bad rap, doesn't it? It's about the one thing everyone can agree on, that hate is bad. Bad, bad, bad, so very bad indeed. Not like love, noooo. Love good! Hate, BAD!!!
Is hate a bad thing? So much of today's hatred is fueled by ignorance and pre-conception and clinging to old ways and beliefs, that it certainly seems unarguable that hate is bad. Racism, homophobia, sexism. Ignorant hate is terrible.
But not because it is hate. Because it is ignorant. Hate itself is a powerful motivator for change and it always has been, and presumably always will be.
We created medicines because we hate being sick.
We created vehicles because we hate walking everywhere.
We created society because we hate being alone.
Love? Love doesn't change a thing. Love accepts everything, just the way it is. If love had its way we would still be protoplasm floating without meaning in the primoridal soup. It's because of hate that change exists.
I don't know any of you, but I hate you all. And it's wonderful.
Is hate a bad thing? So much of today's hatred is fueled by ignorance and pre-conception and clinging to old ways and beliefs, that it certainly seems unarguable that hate is bad. Racism, homophobia, sexism. Ignorant hate is terrible.
But not because it is hate. Because it is ignorant. Hate itself is a powerful motivator for change and it always has been, and presumably always will be.
We created medicines because we hate being sick.
We created vehicles because we hate walking everywhere.
We created society because we hate being alone.
Love? Love doesn't change a thing. Love accepts everything, just the way it is. If love had its way we would still be protoplasm floating without meaning in the primoridal soup. It's because of hate that change exists.
I don't know any of you, but I hate you all. And it's wonderful.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Maleficent trends
The movie Maleficent which opened recently seems to be an interesting confluence of a few recent unfortunate trends in modern pop culture storytelling. I'm thinking about it right now, so I will record these thoughts. The two trends in particular are the "dark re-imagining" of fairy tales, and the perceived need to explain villains away. Let's explore, shall we?
The DARK RE-IMAGINING of a CLASSIC FAIRY TALE
Alice In Wonderland got it. Little Red Riding Hood got it. Snow White got it TWICE in one year. Now it's Sleeping Beauty's turn. The DARK, GRITTY "re-imagining" of a fairy tale Disney property. This one is so ironic it is practically a cure for anemia. Because if you spend like five minutes doing the knowledge, you find out that fairy tales were FUCKED UP. Dark? That's not even the half of it. Read some of the original works sometime. Does the wolf eat Red Riding Hood in the end? Yes! Does Sleeping Beauty get raped? Yes! These were the prevailing myths of their era, and like any era's myths, reflective of the time they came from. And that time was FUCKED the FUCK UP to the FUCKED DEGREE.
And then, in the last century, Disney cleaned up all these gruesome, grisly, quite frankly disturbing stories into something that was "suitable for children" -- so out went all the violence, and the rape, and the murders, and the fucked up unhappily ever after endings, and the entire story of Bluebeard (because just TRY fitting THAT into the Disney formula) and in came the bright colors, and the catchy sing-songs, and the cute comic relief characters. And to entire generations who couldn't be bothered doing the five minutes of knowledge mentioned above, those ARE what fairy tales are. Not gruesome time capsules of a far less civilized era. Cutesy, and magical, and princess-erific.
Now, in this century, with the culture's obsession with DARK and GRITTY, those cutesy colorful sanitized sing-along stories have no place. They seem strangely irrelevant. So instead we now have the wholly modern "dark re-imagining" that is entirely ignorant of how very dark the originals' imagining could be in the first place. Maleficent falls squarely into this trend. Go back and read Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty. Then watch Angelina Jolie ham it up with enhanced cheekbones against a green screen. I'm just saying.
The SAD BACKSTORY of a CLASSIC VILLAIN
Ah, villains. They don't make them like they used to. Time was, you could just be deliciously evil and chew up scenery for the sake of being deliciously evil and chewing up scenery. Now every villain has to have a thoroughly dumb origin story that EXPLAINS why they're so deliciously evil and prone to chewing scenery. Darth Vader is sad because he misses his mommy. Hannibal Lecter is sad because Nazis ate his little sister. Boba Fett is sad because his dad got his head cut off. Dracula is sad because his wife is dead. The Wicked Witch Of The West is sad because... I don't remember, actually. It's been a long time since I read that book. My point is, everyone is sad, sad, sad. So sad! Maleficent is just the latest victim of the "needs an explanation for the evulz" trend.
Now, I'm not against villains with well-rounded, fully-sketched out characters and a clear motivation for their villainy. Magneto, for example, is a villain who cannot survive without his ties to the Holocaust, and specifically being sad because of said Holocaust. Frankenstein's Monster was always infused with tragic motivations for his monstrous deeds. But Darth Vader, man? Hannibal Lecter? Come on! Can't evil just be evil for the sake of being evil? Especially in stories that aren't meant to be realistic psychological studies of human nature but are intended as pure escapism? Just let them chew the damn scenery already! And now we have poor Maleficent, seemingly the last of the classic melodramatic evil mold, given a backstory that explains why she too is sad, so very sad indeed.
On second thought, it's just as well Bluebeard has been utterly forgotten. Because otherwise he'd probably be next in line with a dark re-imagining that explains why he, like his beard, is so blue.
The DARK RE-IMAGINING of a CLASSIC FAIRY TALE
Alice In Wonderland got it. Little Red Riding Hood got it. Snow White got it TWICE in one year. Now it's Sleeping Beauty's turn. The DARK, GRITTY "re-imagining" of a fairy tale Disney property. This one is so ironic it is practically a cure for anemia. Because if you spend like five minutes doing the knowledge, you find out that fairy tales were FUCKED UP. Dark? That's not even the half of it. Read some of the original works sometime. Does the wolf eat Red Riding Hood in the end? Yes! Does Sleeping Beauty get raped? Yes! These were the prevailing myths of their era, and like any era's myths, reflective of the time they came from. And that time was FUCKED the FUCK UP to the FUCKED DEGREE.
And then, in the last century, Disney cleaned up all these gruesome, grisly, quite frankly disturbing stories into something that was "suitable for children" -- so out went all the violence, and the rape, and the murders, and the fucked up unhappily ever after endings, and the entire story of Bluebeard (because just TRY fitting THAT into the Disney formula) and in came the bright colors, and the catchy sing-songs, and the cute comic relief characters. And to entire generations who couldn't be bothered doing the five minutes of knowledge mentioned above, those ARE what fairy tales are. Not gruesome time capsules of a far less civilized era. Cutesy, and magical, and princess-erific.
Now, in this century, with the culture's obsession with DARK and GRITTY, those cutesy colorful sanitized sing-along stories have no place. They seem strangely irrelevant. So instead we now have the wholly modern "dark re-imagining" that is entirely ignorant of how very dark the originals' imagining could be in the first place. Maleficent falls squarely into this trend. Go back and read Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty. Then watch Angelina Jolie ham it up with enhanced cheekbones against a green screen. I'm just saying.
The SAD BACKSTORY of a CLASSIC VILLAIN
Ah, villains. They don't make them like they used to. Time was, you could just be deliciously evil and chew up scenery for the sake of being deliciously evil and chewing up scenery. Now every villain has to have a thoroughly dumb origin story that EXPLAINS why they're so deliciously evil and prone to chewing scenery. Darth Vader is sad because he misses his mommy. Hannibal Lecter is sad because Nazis ate his little sister. Boba Fett is sad because his dad got his head cut off. Dracula is sad because his wife is dead. The Wicked Witch Of The West is sad because... I don't remember, actually. It's been a long time since I read that book. My point is, everyone is sad, sad, sad. So sad! Maleficent is just the latest victim of the "needs an explanation for the evulz" trend.
Now, I'm not against villains with well-rounded, fully-sketched out characters and a clear motivation for their villainy. Magneto, for example, is a villain who cannot survive without his ties to the Holocaust, and specifically being sad because of said Holocaust. Frankenstein's Monster was always infused with tragic motivations for his monstrous deeds. But Darth Vader, man? Hannibal Lecter? Come on! Can't evil just be evil for the sake of being evil? Especially in stories that aren't meant to be realistic psychological studies of human nature but are intended as pure escapism? Just let them chew the damn scenery already! And now we have poor Maleficent, seemingly the last of the classic melodramatic evil mold, given a backstory that explains why she too is sad, so very sad indeed.
On second thought, it's just as well Bluebeard has been utterly forgotten. Because otherwise he'd probably be next in line with a dark re-imagining that explains why he, like his beard, is so blue.
Friday, May 30, 2014
Cogito Ergo Some?
I've boiled down what I know to "something seems to be experiencing something." The first something is me, or my mind, or my soul, or my ego, or my consciousness, or whatever. The second something is everything else that I seem to be experiencing: all of it.
Except that I am not actually a THING, a static noun, I am a verb, a motion, a wave; and all that goes double-plus for what I seem to be experiencing. It is a multitude of things that are not things, breaking off, coming together, interacting in infinitely predictable yet also infinitely novel ways.
Another problem with the idea of boiling it down to two somethings (or two some-not-a-things) is that there is actually only one thing. And, of course, that it is not a thing at all per se.
Plus: the very use of the verb "to be" is always suspect, hard as it is to avoid. (See?)
So... I don't actually know ANYTHING, do I?
Except that I am not actually a THING, a static noun, I am a verb, a motion, a wave; and all that goes double-plus for what I seem to be experiencing. It is a multitude of things that are not things, breaking off, coming together, interacting in infinitely predictable yet also infinitely novel ways.
Another problem with the idea of boiling it down to two somethings (or two some-not-a-things) is that there is actually only one thing. And, of course, that it is not a thing at all per se.
Plus: the very use of the verb "to be" is always suspect, hard as it is to avoid. (See?)
So... I don't actually know ANYTHING, do I?
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Two Americas
America was founded by religious nuts looking to get away from the religious nuts in their original countries. This double whammy of religious nut-ism has led to there being functionally two different Americas today: the one that was founded by religious nuts; and the one that was founded as an escape from the influence of religious nuts. Today these two Americas are often called "conservative" and "liberal."
Monday, April 28, 2014
Love, and the Axe
Kids, I'm going to impart some wisdom to you that no one ever imparted to me and I had to figure it out for myself. Maybe I can pass it on to someone who can be saved the trouble.
Life is finite. Anyone, ANYONE, that is not willing or not able to love you for who you are, must be cut out of your life or have their impact on your life minimized to the greatest possible extent. Anyone. Your parents. Your children. Your wife or husband. The mother or father of your children. Your oldest childhood friends. Anyone. At. All. Must be cut out of your life if they cannot love you for who you are.
I'm not saying to be mean about it. I'm not saying to be melodramatic. You don't have to hate them, or be angry with them. You don't have to say horrible hurtful things to them. You don't even necessarily need to let them know they've been cut out. Just, cut them out. If it hurts them, that is not on you.
Life is short, and then it is over. Surround yourself with people that love you for who you are. More importantly, love yourself for who you are. Life is short, too short for anything else.
Life is finite. Anyone, ANYONE, that is not willing or not able to love you for who you are, must be cut out of your life or have their impact on your life minimized to the greatest possible extent. Anyone. Your parents. Your children. Your wife or husband. The mother or father of your children. Your oldest childhood friends. Anyone. At. All. Must be cut out of your life if they cannot love you for who you are.
I'm not saying to be mean about it. I'm not saying to be melodramatic. You don't have to hate them, or be angry with them. You don't have to say horrible hurtful things to them. You don't even necessarily need to let them know they've been cut out. Just, cut them out. If it hurts them, that is not on you.
Life is short, and then it is over. Surround yourself with people that love you for who you are. More importantly, love yourself for who you are. Life is short, too short for anything else.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Astrology Made Sensible
It's real simple. Everything is cyclical, and 99% of free will is an illusion. The same patterns keep playing out, like a fractal on a treadmill. By and large, people born at THIS position in the cycle are more likely to have THESE traits and go through THESE events, as opposed to people born at OTHER positions in the cycle. Now, there's also a lot of random noise, and the 1% of free will that does exist is by nature unpredictable, so even the best and most accurate astrology can never be anything more than a series of guideposts. In ancient times, when things were less complicated and individual will had less power, the patterns were clearer, clear enough to mark off by the stars they saw in the sky. But like the story of the finger pointing at the moon, they confused the stars as INDICATORS of what position the cycle was in with the stars as the DETERMINATOR of what position the cycle was in. And most people are dumb and uneducated, and 99% of free will is an illusion. Which brings us to today. And so ends today's lesson.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
personal sovereignty in scarequotes civilization
When you hand over your personal sovereignty to anyone, ANYONE, the risk is always there that your trust will be abused and the power they collect as millions all hand over their own personal sovereignties in turn will be utilized in things you personally would want no part with. It's virtually impossible to hold onto ALL of your personal sovereignty, and I wholeheartedly recommend rendering unto Caesar and all that, but no one should ever be surprised when human beings -- untrustworthy and awful -- turn around and do untrustworthy and awful things. At any level of what we might call scarequotes civilization.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Who was Jesus? Glad you asked! (an overly long response to a somewhat flippant question on Facebook)
Jesus was a revolutionary and visionary from thousands of years back who, despite growing up in a backwards time and among a more or less backwards people, looked out at the mass of injustice and hypocrisy in the world and how cruel people were to one another and assembled a different view of how things could be and how people should behave towards one another. The people who are on top today, he said, will be on the bottom when the reckoning comes. And those who have lost shall be comforted. He suggested letting go of an attachment to physical possessions, especially when in comparison to the worth of any human life. He strongly renounced self-righteous hypocrites.
No one at the time knew what to make of him. Some thought he must be some sort of god himself because he was so clearly ahead of his time. Others, threatened that someone so simple and poor and humble could yet be so vastly superior to them, had him executed in one of the most grisly and sadistic manners "humanity" has ever devised. Immediately afterwards, or soon enough as dammit, the same sort of status quo wealth-and-power assholes who had him killed latched on to his name and his movement, had him declared a god for reals, and have ever since done all sorts of terrible things in his name, becoming exactly the kind of self-righteous hypocrites the dude spent his life denouncing.
Meanwhile, there are those have still managed to pick up the greatest portion of his message, undiminished across centuries, and are still working steadily to make his dream of heaven on Earth a reality. Or so they say. In any case, he prophesied that one day the dead would rise again, and while the loopy superstitious cats who wear his torture device on their necks believe this will be some supernatural divine shit, I am pretty sure it will be good old fashioned human know-how that eventually makes this miracle a reality. Those with ears, let them hear.
No one at the time knew what to make of him. Some thought he must be some sort of god himself because he was so clearly ahead of his time. Others, threatened that someone so simple and poor and humble could yet be so vastly superior to them, had him executed in one of the most grisly and sadistic manners "humanity" has ever devised. Immediately afterwards, or soon enough as dammit, the same sort of status quo wealth-and-power assholes who had him killed latched on to his name and his movement, had him declared a god for reals, and have ever since done all sorts of terrible things in his name, becoming exactly the kind of self-righteous hypocrites the dude spent his life denouncing.
Meanwhile, there are those have still managed to pick up the greatest portion of his message, undiminished across centuries, and are still working steadily to make his dream of heaven on Earth a reality. Or so they say. In any case, he prophesied that one day the dead would rise again, and while the loopy superstitious cats who wear his torture device on their necks believe this will be some supernatural divine shit, I am pretty sure it will be good old fashioned human know-how that eventually makes this miracle a reality. Those with ears, let them hear.
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