Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Retro Reviews: The Burning (1981)
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Adventures in Literature: The Catcher In The Rye, Chapters 17 & 18
On the way home, Sally suggests they go ice skating and Holden agrees. They are both terrible at skating, so they go inside and have Cokes. Is this product placement? It's working. I'm craving a Coke Zero at this point. They have a conversation that lasts for several pages, and it mostly consists of Holden asking Sally is she ever gets fed up, Sally not understanding his increasingly emo discussion prompts, and Holden ultimately snapping and screaming at her. As you might expect, Sally leaves.
-S
Monday, April 23, 2012
Culture Consumer's Code of Conduct
John: Hey! You know that book you love?!
Max: Oh course! I do love that book!
John: Yeah! I read it! I had a problem with the nature of the characters, some of the plot, and the ending. What the hell was that?!
Max: Oh...I actually really loved all of those things.
John: Yeah, I mean they were okay, but I guess it didn't really move me. I did like it all, but I was definitely disappointed.
Max: I was really moved by it but, it doesn't have to move everybody.
John: The thing with the characters is...why do they always have...
And so on.
Now, John goes into this conversation knowing that Max loves the book he is about to critique. That's crucial. It is very likely that Max would be down with discussing the faults of a book that he's read, but a book that he loves? I know this is something that I need to work through, but when someone wants to tell me all of the reasons they don't like the thing that I love, I want to rip their face off. Yeah, we are all entitled to our opionions, I get it. I like that about society! But I also take it personally. I love stories. I love books, television, and film because they are stories that make my brain buzz with everything from devestating pain to contentment and every possible combination of those feelings and all of the feelings in between. Basically, all of the emotions. I don't get all Julia Sugerbaker about everything I read or see, but when I do find one that completely surrounds me, I really, really love it. I have to find out everything about it. That's part of why I am a contributing author here. So, that is why I want to rip John's face off. I mean do I walk up to him and say, "Hey! You know that kid you love so much? Well, she is really irritating. I mean her verbal skills are so subpar. What's up with that?" No, to answer my own question, I do not do that. It would be rude. And that is really the entire point of all of the words before this. It's rude! I don't think everyone needs to walk around being polite and all...creepy all the time, but I'm down with tact and mutual respect. Until that happens, I will just wait and wait until John starts to tell me about something he loves, and then I will gleefully tell him that I hate it.
Adventures in Literature: The Catcher in the Rye, Chapters 15 & 16
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Adventures in Literature: The Catcher in the Rye, Chapters 13 & 14
Friday, April 20, 2012
Adventures in Literature: The Catcher in the Rye, Chapters 11 & 12
Life, Death, and Television
I have been contemplating death a lot in the past six weeks. Intellectually, I know that anything can happen at any minute, and that life, including my own, is unimaginably fragile. It still surprises me though, when someone I love is suddenly, violently, irrevocably gone. Last week, an old friend of mine was killed in a hit and run accident crossing the street outside of a bar. Gone.
I can’t wrap my mind around his absence, even though I have not seen nor spoken to him in months. I spent so much time, sang so many songs, shared so many bottles, baked so many pies, and laughed at so many jokes with him. I have so many memories of both throw-away moments and major life changes that I either experienced with him or that I could talk about with him. He was never judgmental or malicious. He was enthusiastic and funny. He was going to be a Spanish teacher. And now there’s a hole in the universe where he should be.
I have a tendency to filter my experiences through pop culture I consume. I have been meaning to write a post about Six Feet Under (SFU) and how its treatment of death has shaped my attitude towards life. This seems like an appropriate time. SFU was the most honest look at how people deal with mortality I have ever seen. The title of the finale alone, articulated what I imagine the end to be like: Everyone’s Waiting. Below, in no particular order, are my favorite moments involving music from one of the greatest serials television ever offered.
We have to live to honor the dead, and we have to learn to live with all the trappings of being physical, ephemeral beings. Somewhere, though, is the energy that makes us work. My limited understanding of physics reminds me that energy can’t be created nor destroyed, it just changes. Nate, I know you’re in all these places, always.