A Mother’s Love

I found out this morning that an acquaintance’s mother died last night. I know he’s devastated, and I can feel that devastation. Call me crazy, if you like, but I believe there’s something to the idea of a collective unconscious (actually, I’m more sympathetic to the idea of a collective consciousness, in a stronger sense than Durkheim’s). I believe that when it comes down to it, we’re all just energy, and I honestly think sometimes I can feel the energy of everything around me.

I turned on my television this morning to distract myself after I heard this news, to try settle into my morning routine. I usually try to catch Al Roker and the weather report before I check my work email. Well, this morning was the wedding day for the “Today Throws a Wedding” winners. In a nutshell, Today Show viewers choose the couple and the details of their wedding, and then the couple weds on live television. Today, the show’s hosts were talking in great detail about gowns, table settings and the goat cheese tarts being served at the reception.

I’ve never been interested in any of this stuff, but seeing it this morning, knowing that someone I know’s entire life is irrevocably altered and shattered, just made me so angry.

Bad things happen every day – to me, to people I know, to the people being exploited on the10 o’clock news, to total strangers.

I understand that we shouldn’t let bad things paralyze us and prevent us from living our lives, but I can’t allow myself to think even for a split second that goat cheese tarts are important.

At all.

There is a difference between living and living so entrenched in frivolity that you are nothing more than a series of statistics used in market research.

I don’t mean to sound pretentious or snobbish, because what I’m really just trying to say is that Jean-Paul Sartre was right. We are what ‘they’ tell us we are. Our identities are serial. This starts from birth. It’s part of being a social creature. It’s part of being human. We are directed by pre-existing conditions that have been perpetuated and maintained by humans past.

This doesn’t mean we can’t redirect the seriality, does it?

Can we not perpetuate things that don’t promote elitism, bigotry and false entitlement?

Can’t we at least live our lives really knowing and understanding that there are more important things in the world than goat cheese tarts?

Proust Questionnaire

Marcel Proust made these questionnaires famous. On the back page of Vanity Fair, there’s often an adapted “Proust Questionnaire” given to some famous person. I’m never going to be Marcel Proust or on the back page of Vanity Fair, so here’s mine. (The questions that Vanity Fair uses vary, so I’ve taken a sampling.)

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Finally being able to relax. I’m convinced it’s impossible.

2. What is your greatest fear?
Death. Dying with a lot of regret.

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My ability to procrastinate and not actually live my life.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Unreliability.

5. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Dropping out of law school.

6. Which living person do you most admire?
Bob Dylan.

7. Which living person do you most despise?
The greediest one.

8. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Gilles Deleuze.

9. What is your greatest extravagance?
I’m poor, so I guess my rent.

10. What is your current state of mind?
Very disconnected.

11. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Humility.

12. On what occasion do you lie?
To protect other people from themselves.

13. What is the quality you most like in a man?
Empathy and Silence.

14. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Unbridled intelligence.

15. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
‘I don’t know.’

16. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Dark Chocolate. It has never, on any occasion, ever done me wrong.

17. When and where were you happiest?
The summer after I graduated from high school back in Indiana.

18. Which talent would you most like to have?
Musical talent.

19. What is your most treasured possession?
Probably my computer, sadly. Or, rather, the hard drive.

20. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Giving up when you don’t want to but can’t stop it.

21. What is your favorite occupation?
Of occupations I’ve had? Starbucks Barista.

22. What is your most marked characteristic?
I’ve been told I’m ‘weird’ more than anything else.

23. What do you most value in your friends?
Their conversation.

24. Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Holden Caulfield. Tyler Durden. Jeffrey ‘The Dude’ Lebowski.

25. Who are your heroes in real life?
True artists.

26. What is it that you most dislike?
When we forget to laugh at all of this.

27. What is your greatest regret?
Not asking for help when I have needed it.

28. If not yourself, who would you be?
A drag queen.

29. How would you like to die?
Exactly how and when I choose to.

30. What is your motto?
“Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.”

Where the Neon Madmen Climb

Today is Bob Dylan’s 69th birthday.

I wish I could write some sort of tribute in honor of this man, on this day, because I’m grateful he exists. But, it’d be like writing Shakespeare a sonnet. So, I’ll let him do it for me (with a little help from Johnny Cash).

Inside Your Showroom Doors

I had the unfortunate occurrence of seeing Rihanna’s “Rude Boy” video while at the gym the other day. I’d post a clip of it, but I can’t bring myself to.

The chorus of this “song” is as follows:
“Come here, rude boy, boy, can you get it up?
Come here, rude boy, boy, is you big enough?
Take it, take it, baby, baby, take it, take it, love me, love me”

It gets more blatant.

Now, I have no problem with vulgarity, that’s not my issue with this lyrical atrocity. My problem is that it’s just not artful. It doesn’t challenge the listener. It doesn’t evoke any type of feeling, except maybe for the delusional souls who think they have a chance at sleeping with Rihanna. Not to mention it’s not musically redeeming, either.

Now, I’m not saying that any of the songs I am going to mention are wonderful examples of brilliant songwriting,[1] but I’m just saying that at least there is some attempt at metaphor. Not to mention melody.

“You got the peaches I got the cream
Sweet to taste saccharine”
~ “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard

“Rubbin’ sticks and stones together makes the sparks ignite”
~ “Afternoon Delight” by Starland Vocal Band

And, in the slightly more subtle department:

“If she’s put together fine
And she’s readin’ my mind
I can’t stop, I can’t stop myself
Lightning is striking again”
~ “Lightning Strikes” by Lou Christie

Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” is possibly the most innuendo laden song I’ve ever heard:

“I want to be your sledgehammer
Why don’t you call my name
Oh let me be your sledgehammer
This will be my testimony
Show me round your fruitcage
Cause I will be your honey bee
Open up your fruitcage
Where the fruit is as sweet as can be”

And then, there’s Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin’s entire discography is about sex. Really, if it’s not about LOTR,[2] it’s about sex. Here’s the tip of the iceberg in “Trampled Underfoot”:

“Trouble-free transmission, helps your oil’s flow
Mama, let me pump your gas, mama, let me do it all

Dig that heavy metal, underneath your hood
Baby, I could work all night, believe I’ve got the perfect tools”[3]

On second thought, maybe bad metaphor isn’t really any better than no metaphor.

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[1]Peter Gabriel being the obvious exception.
[2]That’s Lord of the Rings, for you unenlightened folks.
[3]Also, the song from which this entry title comes.

When This You See

Disclaimer: I assume this is going to be controversial, because it involves me discussing 9/11. This also contains major spoilers for the movie Remember Me.

I saw Remember Me last weekend. Yesterday, I was curious, so I began to check out the reviews it received. I found one review that said Remember Me was slow, offensive, and manipulated the viewer. This seems a bit harsh.

I like slow movies, so I cannot really respond to the first.

Regarding the manipulation, though, I thought movies were supposed to manipulate the viewer in some way. If you don’t get pulled into the story and taken for a ride, what’s the point? I think the reviewer was responding to the surprise ending, which wasn’t actually a surprise at all, because you knew right from the start that the movie took place in New York City in 2001.

However, it seems like a great majority of reviews I have seen and read repeat this sentiment, accusing the movie of being manipulative and breaking the viewer’s trust. I assume this is because it is not promoted as a 9/11 movie. The thing is, it’s not really a “9/11 movie.” It’s a movie about tragedy and how people cope with it. It could have been any tragedy, at any time and any place, and that’s the point.

What would have been offensive would be if, given the setting and time period, they didn’t include the events of 9/11 in some way.

People died in the attack on the World Trade Center – people with their own personal histories, families, back stories, joys and tragedies. Is it exploitation to create fictional characters who were affected by 9/11? I just don’t think so. Historical fiction as a genre does this all the time. It is the emotional portrayal that makes historical fiction universally appealing. The problem, really, is what is the statute of limitations on something being considered historical? Is it just too soon to view 9/11 as a historical event?

The movie is touted as a romance, but it isn’t really.[1] It’s a film about loss and acceptance. People react differently to tragedies, which the movie thoroughly demonstrates, but ultimately, I think the purpose is to show that even after the most horrible of circumstances, people can continue living and breathing all the while continuing to remember.[2] Acceptance is one of the most difficult things for human beings to accomplish emotionally, and the end of the movie gives the viewer hope in that direction.

The last few scenes of the movie are supposed to reveal the way that Tyler had left his fingerprints on the lives of the people who loved him. I don’t care what the reviewers say, continuing to live and not crumble in the aftermath of loss is an important theme for a film to portray.

Note: Not all reviews/reactions have been bad. I agree with what is expressed here.  Oh, and I don’t know a darn thing about acting, so I’m not going to comment on that aspect of the reviews. Personally, I thought Robert Pattinson wasn’t perfect but gave Tyler’s character some depth, and never for a moment did I think I was watching Edward Cullen.

 

I know this, because Tyler knows this.

 

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[1]That’s the fault of the studio, not the film itself.
[2]And, what do you know? That’s the title of the movie. Funny how that works.

When They Fight, They Fight

I love this.

That bass line is the jam.

Note: The video is fan made. Also, thanks to my friend Nicole for introducing me to this band.

The Country Mouse and the City Mouse

I wish I took more photographs.

There’s an overpass in Memphis, downtown on Madison Ave. before Fourth St., and when you drive over it heading west, you have a view of Memphis where it really looks like a city. There aren’t jutting skyscrapers, by any means, but tall buildings pierce the landscape, towering over the narrow streets. There are stoplights at every block, pedestrians, shops. It feels like you are in a major city.

I wish I had a picture of that view.

If you keep going down Madison avenue and turn past the pyramid, you can cross a bridge and suddenly, everything stops. You reach the Mississippi River, and the city disappears. You could paint a landscape by the river with no sign of the human inhabitants living yards away. For all man has conquered of this world, there are still things he can’t defeat, and the Mississippi river is one of those things.

I want a picture of that view, too.

If I were to hold those pictures side by side, you wouldn’t guess they were taken mere miles apart. Both have their aesthetic qualities, but together they show a strange dichotomy. Country and city seem to coexist, but the experiences of being in one and the other are so diametric, they might as well be different worlds.

This is the view you always see in photographs.

For my mind, there’s nothing quite like the feel of grass beneath your feet, the sound of moving water or the smell of fresh water and sand…