Family Guy: Never Great. Getting Worse All The Time

That was pretty close- a car making with the left turns very nearly hit me. I gave a quick little dodge forward, and of course gave the requisite angry look to the driver- but I wasn't really even close to angry.

Why?

Because I hold very firmly to the belief that it takes two to tango, two to create an accident- you know the second I placed foot to street I was watching that car like a hawk. Well, a hawk that watches the car turning left, but also both sides of the street, because that's a concern too.
And of course like a hawk that doesn't have that birds eye view going on, so he doesn't get to kind of take the scene in all at once before getting busy staring at a vole or something.

Okay, so I wasn't watching like a hawk, more like some very attentive crossing guard.

Thank you Isaac how very... accurate.

Worst simile ever?
Or maybe... best one ever?
No, no, I was right the first time.

***

I forgot to mention this before- but last Sunday I drifted between states of consciousness in front of the television and caught the latter half of the Simpsons and pretty much all of Family Guy. Pretty sure there was a half hour in between those two things that I completely didn't register, but that's not what I'm interested in at the moment.

What I'm interested in: ordinarily I'll be pretty slow to criticise a show or somesuch, I may not have the proper context for viewing, it's possible (I guess) that I just didn't get it, etc., etc., whatever. You have to give things a chance, or try to anyways. But I was actually full on disgusted with that Family Guy episode. Flinching back from the screen disgusted.

There were two stories to follow- Brian the Dog writes a brilliant screenplay for a drama that gets picked up by CBS, but however good his intentions are for it the network guys manage to mess it up by reverting to formula- change the format to a comedy, instead of Elijah Wood they hire James Woods (oh, now I get why they used that pair), age up the daughter character for "hawtness" sake, and of course getting a monkey sidekick.
All well and good.

But the second story was..
I seriously couldn't just change the channel?

Stewie gets knocked down the stairs by the two older kids and by the time he lands he has a huge gash across his head and his arm appears to be dislocated. Instead of getting him to a hospital they play "Weekend at Bernie's" with him, stringing him around like a puppet with various wacky hats covering his head injury which does the opposite of heal. It laeh's. It's gross.

So say that second story is half the episode, 11 minutes- that's 11 minutes (feels much longer)!

This is actually something I can't imagine anyone finding funny.

In theory that second story is the reductio ad absurdum of various wacky hijinks that may wind up on a bad sitcom- taking what happened to Brian's show in story and applying it to the outer world of the Family Guy cast themselves.

That would almost be impressive- to waste an entire episode illustrating how "network guys" can ruin a show. Daring move. However this was just in poor taste.

And of course I don't believe the Family Guy writers are capable of that level of forethought. With them it's just a bunch of simple tricks and nonsense.

Argh, they don't deserve a Han Solo quote affiliated with them.

Please find included: 1 picture I drew

It's suprising the kind of temptation that exists to just write super candidly about myself- a couple days back I was thinking about writing here and it would have been entirely too much.



Another close call- I remain ever vigilant against my insidious enemy.



That said, I did raise some interesting questions to myself, so I may have done some good in that regard.

HOWever let's deal with writing here whatever I'd like to write here.

First- have you seen the Scott Pilgrim trailer? It's a movie I'm definitely excited to see, but I was surprised that its trailer didn't stun me into a blissful stupefaction. I noticed things. Precisely what you don't want in a trailer- I was taken out of the idea of it.

The problem is Michael Cera. Now I greatly enjoy that guy as a comedian who does movies, and I feel reasonably confident that he could even be a bit of an actor when the situation called for it- like his character Francois in "Youth in Revolt"- Cera did a fantastic job with that guy, and if Francois showed up more during "Youth in Revolt" then I wouldn't at all have left the theatre a little disappointed, nervous sweat trapped in the micro-mustache I'd carefully prepared for the occasion. Back to the Scott Pilgrim trailer- there's a flash (hard to call anything a "scene" in a minute or so long trailer) with Cera and his love interest in bed together and I just don't buy it. His face expresses surprise and awkwardness- but what's worse (to me) his hands SCREAM surprise and awkwardness. It's like they're desperately yelling at Cera to touch nothing but the lamp (couldn't resist a quick Aladdin reference- there is no lamp to which I'm referring). I mean he couldn't quite hold his love interest there, and that really bothers me.





An argument could be made that this was a "flash" of one of the times Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers are together in bed and he's feeling guilty about something, or is just generally distracted- there are certainly those moments in the books- but I don't buy that, the tenor of the trailer required that "flash" to be the moment establishing the closeness between Scott and Ramona, not a sneak peek into any of their dissonant moments.



Fun trailer over all, just not perfect.




And that leads me to my youngest brother. He's gone nuts over this trailer- he called it the best trailer ever (just had to re ask him if that's what he called it), not only is he blind to any faults that may exist in said trailer, which would be fine, but he's exhibited a weird kind of ownership and pride in it. Don't really know where that came from, but I certainly enjoyed the caricature that sprang into my mind as a result:




Please note the Mr. Magoo like closed eyes, the incoherent "Boo Bap-- Bum De Bum" words surrounding the belligerent, and impossible, assertion that he has, in fact, invented trailers- and most importantly take note of the dotted-lines indicative of where suspenders would be tugged self aggrandizingly had he been wearing any.


Hmm, maybe this is funnier when it's just me walking around doing this impression. Either way, I'm sure my brother will be a good sport about me having some fun at his expense here.

Two of my favourite things- fun little drawings, and me explaining what makes something funny to me. Excellent.

***

Before I go, took a quick peek at the Toronto Quarterly publication today, and was quite pleased to see my friends poem therein. References to seed catalogues and ledgers? I get that reference. I'm one of the cool people.

And after I'm done writing this, I'm getting a banana!

I'd been wanting to post yesterday, but by the time I had gotten home and had some food and finished watching a slow loading internet video with my bro it was past 12:30 at night, and I was pretty exhausted. So it feels like a cheat to say:

I feel awesome today (it's okay, because I actually still feel really good... in fact, let's just say "today" is everything from 6:30am yesterday to right now 27 hours later)

I've slept really well, had a huge breakfast, ran down Dufferin from Bloor to Ontario Place (they really need a better schedule, it took me at least 25 minutes to run that distance and no buses show up? Again? It's okay, I kind of like it.)

Both yesterday and today (so, going by my earlier criteria, all "day") I've gotten to enjoy how gloriously sore my body is- the advent of warm weather means I can do chin ups at local playgrounds. Yes, it sounds sketchy, but I can't afford a gym membership. I can't believe I have yet to see the Rocky movies- whenever they're on t.v. I only flip to it in time for either a) the awesome training montage or b) the ending of the fight when it's all inspirational and whatnot.

So I've only seen the best parts of 'em. Ya bum.

Aand it was warm enough that I only needed my one zip up sweater thing. Until it wasn't warm enough; after work the cold wind just tore through that thing, but that was pretty invigorating too.

Yes, I've been especially self deprecating lately, but "today" I've just been able to sit back and enjoy all my good qualities, of which I have a few.
I won't bore you with the full list.

I bet the new toothbrush they give you makes the toothpaste taste terrible anyways...

Heading back home after a failed dentist appointment- failed as in we don't have our dates matched up right. I double checked with their office a week ago, but okay.

But I was stopped by our neighbor as he was getting set for a walk around the area. I should say a lonely walk around the area. He's an old man with something of the mad scientist about him. I said it was a nice day out- he gave me a chocolate egg. Said if I ever needed anything I could come to him, 'cause we're friends.

The last time I saw him he asked where I was living, he said he was looking forward to the summer, we could get to know each other better. He completely didn't know who I was, that I'd been living down from him for the past, what, three years now? Four?

That's hard- at any given moment you have to ask-
Who does he think he's talking to?

And that phrase strikes me because that arrangment of those particular words, it jumps out with connotations of shock and anger- but I just am wondering if at this moment you see me, or the shadow of someone from years past?

It's funny that this kind of confusion, I'm used to to some degree, what with people mixing up my brother and me- reduced to smiling and nodding, and yet somehow THAT'S the kind response in this situation.

Ah well.

I just finished the Chester Brown penned Louis Riel biography yesterday, I'm really glad to get some Canadian history in my brain- turns out the Red River Rebellion had its most official throwdowns in 1885- one hundred years before I was born AND the time Doc Brown went to after being struck with a bolt of lightning. I'm not likely to forget the year anytime soon.

Not that I should be surprised (the reviewer praise pasted on the back of the book forewarned me of this-) but the book was pretty successful at not taking sides over Riel, painting both his good and bad points. But really, if the worst of him was going a little crazy, well, years on the run and a $5000 bounty will do that to a guy.

Sir John A MacDonald (I had previously written "Prime Minister Macdonald" but that felt weird... until I hit on the fact that yeah, I've always just referred to him as "Sir John A Macdonald". After a couple years without having to write his name - and we really should catch back up on our correspondence, old boy- I couldn't just know to automatically write the "Sir John A MacDonald", but I could feel it wasn't right. Not that either one is "right", I just mean the one way is how I had always done it growing up. Anyways) came out much the worse for wear. I knew he'd been pretty lame in his time, but I'm always surprised by how bad the guys in charge can be. Couple years ago I read an Al Frankin book and reacted thusly: "wait, you mean the Bush administration aren't morons, they're just evil? That's... worse."

Derailed again. Much like the Canadian railway system would have been derailed if not for Macdonald provocating the Red River guys into the aforementioned Rebellion to sucker extra funding for it and gain some good will for his political career.
Ah, see what I did there with the derailed... nevermind.

Well, that's my understanding anyways, I'm certainly open to learning about any extenuating circumstances that may have been neglected from the book; Brown himself admits he painted Macdonald as a villain because it makes for a better story.

One awesome part of the book: this "frontiersmens frontiersman" Gabriel Dumont is shooting for his life (who knew rebellions were so dangerous?) and Louis Riel is just sitting behind him in a pit. Here's an approximation of the books scene (itself, of course, an approximation of a conversation which may have never have happened):
Riel: Gabriel!
Dumont: What? [Fires his rifle]
Riel: I just had a vision. When sinners die they don't spend eternity in hell.
Dumont: You mean there's no hell? [Ducks under a shot, reloads his rifle]
Riel: Yes there is, but when we die people don't spend eternity in hell, they pay their penance for a time before reuniting in paradise with everyone.
Dumont: That's great. [Fires his rifle]

It's a really funny scene, maybe you have to be there- it helps that Brown's figures look completely serious all the time, and Dumont is fighting a battle on two fronts-the mounties ahead and Riel cutting him off at the knees, stopping Dumont from using guerilla tactics. Kind of mixed my metaphors there.

A little later the metis (okay, so let me address this now- yes, there should be an accent over the 'e' in metis, but I don't care to search out the procedure to create it. I'm only planning on using the word at most twice more) are running out of bullets, so Dumont is pulling everyone back but this one crazy old guy says "Just want to kill one more englishman". According to the notes the crazy old guy may have never said that to Dumont, and he probably didn't say it at the point where everyone had to retreat- BUT apparently the old guy DID in fact say that, and on multiple occasions, which is almost better.

I guess that's fine for now- I'm off to get an english muffin and take some tea and sing "God Save the Queen" as my penance for enjoying any brief metis victories from over a century ago. Okay, well, I'll pretend to do those things.

Forgotten Posts

The thing about having a space like this to write on, you start thinking about things to fill it up with. But when inspiration hits you may not be able to just fly down to the nearest terminal and input whatever has entered your mind. For my part, I've had a very busy week and have only just recovered- so let's see if there's anything of note for me to record.

Of course by "of note" I will hope for entertaining and otherwise take what I can get.

The oldest thing on my mind has to do with a random other blogspot page- feeling I should expand my interests here I read some page that started with a downer of an entry, I almost responded to try and cheer this person up... until I saw that every single post was similar. Glancing to the side with the authors personal info my worst fears were revealed- I was on a site written by an 18 year old girl. The mind recoils in horror.

My Wednesday and Thursday were a couple of Groundhog days- I had the same bus driver to work, and as I was crossing the bridge into the Exhibition grounds from Dufferin the GO train burst through and chugged along by me. It struck me as surreal.

I was thinking about this one friend of mine the other day, let's call him Steve. I was thinking about how he could be really sweet and nice, but also selfish, self involved; if you were to ask him about his own philosophy of life he would actually say something akin to "I look out for what's best for me".
While I'm sure it's no surprise to hear someone can be both good and bad (to put it as simply as possible) the real suprise comes when Steve flat out will tell you he's bad. It seems to me that this is a response to Steve trying to reconcile his disparate sides- because he knows he can't be good all the time, because he knows he has that other side to him, he chooses to embrace that other. It serves as both an excuse to have his other side (I do bad because I am bad) and as a protection against other peoples expectations. I know this because I do this as well, though for me I'll say (to use one example) something along the lines of "yes, I'm a pretty lazy guy" but then I'll be doing something and can sit back and watch myself and think "you know, I'm actually a really hard worker". So maybe I'm just projecting onto "Steve" and he's actually just a huge jerk. How should I know?? Well, unless I'm "Steve".
Hopefully I've made it as impossible as possible to tell who Steve could be- is it me, is it you? I guess I shouldn't obsess over obfuscating that identity.

Ah, I wallow in the certainty of a small readership.

That's everything I can remember I wanted to bring up.. I've got an interview for the supervisor position at Ontario Place tomorrow, so that's cool.

My dreams used to be 96% good. It's a radically different ratio these days. I wanted to say that to someone but it puts to much pressure on them. There's no good response they can give.

Varied Colours

While walking to work a few days ago I noticed an orange crayon on the ground, partially smashed with the little broken parts forming a sort of explosive effect.

To have a lone crayon like that, out on a deserted street, I thought was a powerful image. I was a little disappointed to find another crayon, purple, five feet away. You think somethings unique..

I then noticed my left hand was balled into a little fist (which genuinely surprised me), the taut skin between thumb and forefinger numb, the sole target of the remaining cold wind, like some kind of ineffective sail to the rest of my body.

For the remainder of the evening I couldn't help but try and put those two observations together into some kind of poetic cohesion- nothing really came to mind. So it's just the facts Ma'am.

I was pleased to note that the next day on my way to work the crayons were still there- even worse for wear, but there.

***

I saw a little girl call her mother "mumsy" (or something else appropriately folksy, pretty sure it was mumsy, but I was wracking my brain trying to be sure. All I can say with certainty was how it jumped out at me with its anachronistic sweetness. Cracked my heart a bit.)

My latest library holds weren't in the public access space, maybe they just hadn't been moved there yet, so the librarian went and got them for me from their safe spot behind the counter (I've recieved aid from that librarian before, hers is a face I've known for running on seven years now though I don't know her name. The cane is new, as is the limp. Not fair that she has to move around for the sake of my Incredible Hulk DVD. Cracked my heart a bit more.)

***

On the grass, just short of the street, on my way home- a green marker, still in one piece, sits on the off-green grass.

Putting Words to Ideas

I blasted my way through this "Batman and Philosophy" book last night... in fact I kept going and read a third of this book of essays on Spider-Man. It's way too easy to instruct me with a super hero teaching aide.

I'm pleased to note that there are a number of names that always show up; Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger and others- it's comforting that this ISN'T the first time I've read those names.

I especially enjoyed Heidegger in this book, here's a passage that caught my eye... okay here it is:
"But what does it mean to want to have a conscience? According to Heidegger, much of what passes for human behaviour is motivated by self-deception, both intentional and unintentional. People are constantly fleeing from their own possibilities, their past, and the inevitability of their own death, toward what is familiar and comforting. This state of fleeing is the defining characteristic of fallenness. We want existence to be something settled, to know we had no real choice in our failures or misfortunes, and that life has a clear-cut purpose we just need to find. As a result, much of social life ends up being an elaborate diversion to avoid contemplating the reality of our own mortality. As Heidegger sees it, we cannot authentically desire to have a conscience as long as we buy into a world in which everything in life is settled and death is some vague and distant event, since the only purpose that conscience can have under these conditions is censoring our individuality."

That was written by Jason J. Howard, most probably utilizing concepts from Heidegger's "Being and Time".
But I really wish I had written that instead.

It's interesting the different kind of language used in "Batman and Philosophy" versus "Webslingers". The philosophy entries are incredibly exact, introducing and defining each new term and how they relate to each other. Part of that is just to get things across to a layman- but I rather get the impression that this isn't too different from most academic writing on the subject. Not that I should really need to rely on my impression- I have read some academic philosophy (by which I mean modern philosophy and modern commentary on philosophy) at school, so- unequivocally (I'm taking a stand. In my chair. Metaphorically, I'm taking a stand.) this is how academic philosophy is presented!

With "Webslingers", on the other hand, there's much more freedom in the presentation, and far less concern with bringing up and arguing against the opposing points of view. The subject matter is necessarily different as well- philosophical subject matter contends with finding the good, maximizing potential, the meaning of life, all that simple stuff- while the others subject matter (it's easy to categorize the contents of "Batman and Philosophy" as philosophy- they tell me what to call it right in the title!) follows the varied interests and interpretations of the various writers involved- the first essay considers the Spider-Man origin story as subversive horror sliding through the Comics Code Authority, another addresses the evident self loathing responsible for keeping Spidey from getting his life together- it's sociology, psychology, politics, AND philosophy.

It's generally broader and, yes, easier, than just philosophy. In fact, in the one essay so far from "Webslingers" by a philosopher (I mean a professional student of philosophy, I wouldn't go so far as to say none of the others are philosophers.) says that if philosophy doesn't make you a bit uncomfortable, then it isn't doing its job right. That's a tough sales pitch.

A final thing, unless it isn't- my title "Putting Words to Ideas", aside from the obvious transference of certain words from in my brain to on this screen, I haven't really addressed why specifically that title was chosen for this post. Howard's interpretation of Heidegger expressed something that I have only barely, if ever, been able to articulate- and it's fantastic to me when that happens. When I see something that speaks to me, that is a real reflection of something in me, it tells me that maybe it is possible to communicate something and connect with someone. I get that with Wordsworths frustration at finding the right thing to write about... I think with Keats too, but it's been a couple of years on that one.
But then watch I'll explain what excited me about someones work (let's say to Wordsworth for hilarities sake) and he'll hear me out and then go- "yeeeah no. No, that's not what I meant at all."

One persons green is another persons orange. But they still call it green. If you get my meaning. It's okay if you don't, just so long as you think you do.

Learning is fun

A while ago I picked up the biography about Steve Ditko "Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko". It's an amazing coffee table style book (you know, if I believed in coffee tables), it's over sized, and chock full of Ditko's work. It does an excellent job of illustrating the difficulties of getting into the comic biz, and really just the entire comic environment during the era.

But I hardly needed a Ditko biography to learn about that, the fiction story "The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon does that just as well, if not better. Actually, I don't really know where I first learned about that era, it's just something that I've naturally absorbed over time from various sources. Still, you could do much worse than checking out that Chabon book.

Anyways, back to Ditko's book: what I actually learned from it was some of the history of Ayn Rand, as well as some of the concepts and precepts of objectivism- a philosophy that quickly became wholly intertwined with Ditko's life.

Now while I'm not particularly a fan of objectivism, at the time I sounded pretty excited about it- why? Well, I just liked the idea of sitting back, reading something, and coming away with a few tangible facts that just stuck in my head. Often times when I read, well, I know the story, but very often it isn't particularly didactic about anything. Or if it is, it's something that I already learned in the past from a show or something. Maybe I learned it from Rocky and Bullwinkle? It's pretty likely.

So I returned home from the library yesterday with the books "Batman: Anarchy" and "Batman and Philosophy". The former is a collection of comics ranging from the 80's to a couple of years ago, while the latter is a collection of philosophical essays discussing topics relevant to a Batman style world "Is it right to make a Robin?", "Is the Joker morally acountable for his actions?" that kind of thing.

After being presented with the ideas in both books, I tried to remember what I'd learned about objectivism, as a sort of excercise to make sure I could still count that as information within my power, and though it took a bit longer to jog my memory than I'd care to admit, it did all come back. Yeah, that's pretty much the only reason I wanted to bring up Ditko and objectivism- so now let's talk about this new stuff I've been reading! (oh, what, you wanted to hear my understanding of objectivism? eeeeh, maybe later. I'm more interested in this newer info)

SO with Batman: Anarchy we chiefly follow the character (of course) named Anarchy, created by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, with all of the stories written by Alan Grant.
I think the chief difficulty in selling the character Anarchy is that what "anarchy" means to Grant and Breyfogle (and as a result Anarchy himself) is different from the generally accepted definition of the word.
Let me just use the definition found on dictionary.com for reference

Anarchy:
1. a state of society without government or law.

2. political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control: The death of the king was followed by a year of anarchy.

3. a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.

4. confusion; chaos; disorder: Intellectual and moral anarchy followed his loss of faith.

Okay, so none of these definitons really surprise me, because that is the definition I think most people have been inculcated to accept as correct, with the greatest emphasis on the fourth definition. For the character Anarchy, however, he would only accept the first and third definitions as accurate.
So right off the bat we're dealing with a communications barrier to understanding what Alan Grant is trying to get across. It would be far more palatable to call it something like, I don't know, demarchy, and then propose your ideals.

Now, as much as I enjoyed Anarchy's ideas, my thinking is more along the lines of Plato and Hobbes- that people (in general) do need governance, otherwise they'd fall into "confusion; chaos; disorder", that fourth accepted definition of anarchy. There are a lot of people who could self govern, that would fully live up to the ideals Alan Grant is espousing- they are amazing people, but I think they're outnumbered. And it totally sucks that I think that. It's very negative.

Then I started reading "Batman and Philosophy" and I was pretty excited to see one essay make reference to "Batman: Anarchy" right after I'd just read it.

Frankly, I'm pretty sure after reading these pop-philosophy books I will have learned more about philosophy than I was taught from an entire intro to philosophy class.

Boy, I've sure typed "philosophy" a lot just now, didn't I?

Anyway, it's all very interesting to me, that's what I'm trying to say.

Say Anything

It must have been within the last year, but okay, to be safe let's say within the last two years, that I saw the movie "Say Anything".

All I knew of the film was that at some point John Cusack held up a boom box to a girls window and it was somehow awesome enough that I'd absorbed knowledge of it through all the spoofs and references to it in the greater cultural arena. I can't even really think of a specific example, I can only feel the edges of the different versions kaleid with one another to create this awareness.

I'm sure I had my alarm set, but whatever the reason I missed the first ten minutes of the movie. Mornings are hard. It would be repeated later in the day, and again I missed the opening.

Cut to today, what was it, three in the morning? Doing some laundry, I couldn't go to bed before my clothes were tucked away for the night in the dryer, but I'd only just started the washing process. I figured I'd do some reading, propped upon three pillows quintessentially mine- but first I scrolled down through channels to check the weather... I never made it.

Two button presses north of the forecast and I caught the image of Lloyd Dobler and Diane Court. The movie was halfway over but I was immediately enthralled- Lloyd's straightforward beating around the bush, his nervous what d'ya call it... uuuh not twitching, not quite fumbling, but it could be described as either. Ah well. His simplicity and just plain sincerity. And then there's Diane- she tries to be completely rational about her feelings and verbalize everything, every instant so specifically, because she has a plan! She knows how things are supposed to work! And nothing works out that way at all. She's got these bright blue eyes, softest looking lips, and this quirky mouth with its underbite- when she's sad you want to comfort her, and when she's happy (usually when she's with Lloyd) she gets the widest smile and then I get the widest smile and everything is warm and fantastic in the world.

I should seriously consider buying this movie.

For several reasons I began to think about The Graduate as I was watching Say Anything. If you don't sit back and compare and contrast movies at approaching 4 in the morning, well when are you going to do it? 'Cause it's gotta be done people!
I thought of The Graduate, first of all, because in a similar fashion, they are both movies that I knew only through cultural osmosis until recently. I must have only just watched The Graduate last December or January (it's the movie that has gotten me all nuts about Simon and Garfunkel, even though their close harmonies make it difficult to find a note and sing along. And I don't know the words. But that's what showers and solitary walks are for, consarnit! Singing a single line from some song you barely know over and over again!) and loved it.

Both films are about the beginning of the next chapter, about finding/deciding what your next step is going to be. I had to go back to add the "/deciding" because in my mind that's the key difference between the two leading pairs.

Benjamin Braddock is completely directionless after graduating, he ultimately latches on to the famous Mrs. Robinson's daughter Elaine. Latches is such a negative word. But there it is- how much is it the case that Ben loves this girl and how much is it rather that getting her is the all encompassing new problem for him to focus all his energy on. We've all heard of the moment at the end of the film when Ben and Elaine are on the bus and the euphoria of fighting off a church crowd with a cross has run its course and the two characters have that "so, what now?" look.

Compare that to the end of Say Anything, Lloyd and Diane are together, on a plane bound for England as the camera fades to black. Perhaps if the camera stayed on a second longer we would have seen another "so, what now?" look... but I don't think so. I think if anything the two would just be looking at each other, probably before Diane pulls Lloyd in for another soft kiss. These two people (yes, so very fictional) have managed to find each other, and I believe they'd have wound up with a fantastically happy life.

As you could imagine, I only did some reading during the comercials...

I really must apologize for spending all this time going on about the love lives of two fictional characters, except that I don't have to apologize for that. So many will completely disregard a piece of art because it isn't real. Well, as they say, what is real? That smile and inner warmth I described coming from my person before, that sure felt real to me. Something sure caused that.

Ah, I'm getting all defensive in preparation for an attack that isn't coming.

Sometimes I feel really behind the times- there are so many things out there for me to check out still, but even so there's a certain charm in finally (in this instance) seeing the movie that came out twenty years ago. It takes me back to the hot boring saturday afternoons, when a seven year old (six? eight?) could chose between watching golf and watching an incomprehensible old movie, set in sepia and making the world sepia with it. It was dark and made me sleepy, but when the Rancor appeared I couldn't watch and I couldn't not watch when a green sliver commanded my attention in the bright of day floating above the perilous nightmare inducing maw. Now I've gone and made myself all nostalgic.

Denizens of the Deep

I've just finished "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson- why I couldn't have slept through two more hours and started reading again at 7 I'll never know.

That's just an expression, I know it's because my sleep schedule is all out of whack.

Though I've certainly got a thing or two to report on the book, it seems much of it was covered in the afterword by one Dan Chaon. He even references Pinky and the Brain. Clearly there isn't much left for me to add.
I came to this book already knowing it, the principal characters, setting, the uncanny transformation from a straight laced member of society to the, well, guy that does whatever he wants. I would have said"evil" or the like, but that attributes too much to Mr. Hyde; a selfish little animal who can only control his own appetites to the degree necessary to avoid being hung for his crimes until such a point as he no longer succeeds in that and must "Hyde" (Oh, I just got it! I'm kidding.) in the form of Dr. Jekyll.

That Chaon really took the wind out of my sails, he already commented on how, though we all know the story, we actually know very little of the details themselves. I was surprised to find that Jekyll was a full bodied individual, getting on in years, and that, when transformed into Hyde, was a smaller figure, actually shorter, not just hunched over, and that he was actually younger. The process involved wasn't merely the dissolution of the conscience, but the displacement by the inner entity, the different being, that was Hyde.

A quick word on "dissolution"- as I read the book and the process was described, Jekyll talks of it instead as a 'solution' instead of dissolution. His meaning is clear, but it's interesting that they probably didn't have the word dissolution back then (the book was released in 1886). Dissolution suddenly strikes me the same as saying 'irregardless' instead of 'regardless' a habit I fell out of quite happily several years ago at my friends insistence.

There was a reason I wanted to read this book, beyond it being a well known classic and that I had still to read anything by the author (I also haven't read Stevenson's 'Treasure Island')- preying on my mind during the holidays was the idea of that multifarious nature of myself and man in general. Hardly a new thought, but one that had been bugging me all the same.

My specific concern was the idea that when I engage in idle chatter with strangers (with varying degrees of strange) I'd naturally engage in a flippancy that, while a crowd pleaser, wasn't a fair representation of myself, and that I was doing a disservice to myself for not being more genuine, as well as to others for not giving them a chance to get past that wall.
"That isn't me," I'd think after the fact, " some smug guy that thinks he knows everything and has the clever riposte to your last comment. I don't like that guy, and it's really weird to me that other people do."

While I was complaining about this to a friend a couple of weeks ago he essentially said that whether I liked it or not, that is a part of who I am. When he said that I was struck by the idea that I could just have another part of me. Oh, yeah, just, you know, a whole other me. And though I didn't always like him, I can appreciate that he possesses a useful skill set, and it is mine. Isn't it amazing that we all have that? I'm amazed.

I've also been playing this video game, Persona 4, which deals with this- in fact every boss battle thus far is with the inner side of one of the main characters, a side that, once disavowed, turns into a giant monster to fight until it's accepted as a part of the character in question. Sure wish they'd get accepted BEFORE I wasted all my items.

Suddenly it seems quite natural that I'd want to pick up and finally read "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", right?

As for the text itself, it is written in a very prim Victorian style, which I generally am a fan of, though I admit it can still lull you into a doze if you haven't the energy for it at the moment. As Chaon points out, the descriptions aren't very specific- except for a case of child brutality and the murder, we are left to our own devices to imagine the kind of skullduggery Hyde gets into. And our own devices are enough! It's a very simple impressionistic style, but effective. A little over half of the book is the account from the perspective of the lawyer Utterson, and so the story is a mystery. Personally, I like mysteries, but they're pretty boring when you have been told the ending over and over again for the past century.

The latter half is the written account of Dr. Jekyll explaining his deeds and sensations, and that is the part I tore through at 5 this morning when I should have been sleeping. I was especially drawn in by certain passages that surprised me with how relevant they were to the kind of discourse I was looking for:
"I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering."

"I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth (...) that man is not truly one, but truly two (...) I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens."

"I saw that (...) even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both."

I'd ramble on for a bit more, but these quotations are really cool sounding, so I should stop one sentence ago.

Word I learned: Lacunar, from lacuna, an empty space or a missing part; a gap

***

My next book is a collection of short stories by this famous Voltaire guy. He may by famous, but I have no clue what I'm in for.

Getting over myself

It's a very fine line between getting across one's own personality and just being completely unaccessible.

I have a great tendency to go off into various asides while writing, usually utilizing my much beloved parentheses (in fact I will sometimes write an aside, and then be tempted to write an asides aside, but am stopped by the idea that THAT, somehow, is crossing a line. I dare say it's an overpowering command of my super ego. And for that we should all be thankful that the planet Freud blew up and sent us the lone survivor who became Super Ego.) One of my favourite teachers once told me I shouldn't use those parentheses- that if I'm going to say something I should just say it, intimating that the words in brackets "don't really count". I got that advice years ago, and though I obviously don't hold to it, it has stuck with me.

But for me parenthesis are an excellent visual cue reflecting how I speak, or rather, communicate. It's true that the ultimate goal of sending out words into the void is to get a specific idea across, and I regret when I fail to achieve that (it does happen often enough), but there's also the "how" and "why" to consider.

Whoah there, I almost lost you there. Me too. Let me break it down for myself.

I think we're pretty familiar with the who, what, when, where, why, and how of getting a story across- the important facts of what has happened. But let's say (to humour me) that there's a corresponding who, what, when, where, why, and how to telling a story- the who, what, when, and where has to do with the facts of the matter themselves that anyone can relate.

But then there's also the "how" and "why" to consider (I'm using the same words as above for emphasis. I'm fully conscious of the repetition)
the HOW are we going to get this information across? and-
the WHY am I the one telling this story?

Those two questions are key (whether we remember them or not) for our personal communiques, and their answers are inextricably linked with each other. Why am I the one telling this story? Because no one else can tell it with the exact same point of view, life experience, and style as I can. How am I going to get this information across? I'm going to use my point of view, life experience, and style as the focus for expressing this story.

Yes, both questions have nearly identical answers, don't be alarmed, that was expected.

It was a very liberating feeling when I read Emily Dickinson- her use of the hyphen everywhere (or, if that was later added in by editors for the sake of our sanity, then her use of spacing and non-punctuation) affirmed my own view of just being comfortable with how ones self writes. Any reluctance to include parentheses and hyphens in my own writing virtually disappeared after encountering her, to the great chagrin of grammarians everywhere.

But all that confusing-ness said- Dude! Isaac! Could you TRY to make more sense to people? I'm glad you're all liberated and whatnot, but get over yourself.

***

In other news, I've just read the introduction to a copy of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, and anticipate a fun post in regards to that book. It shouldn't take too long before that happens, it's a rather short book, but it all depends on when I get into it.