Here we go: another meme. Can't believe how far I've fallen that I'm actually doing this. According to the original post, the BBC claims that most people have only read about six of these books. I'm gonna go ahead and call foul on that. A lot of these books have two listings, and I don't know anyone that's read six of these. My bet is some bored teenager made this up to spam all his friends. Still, it looks like fun, so here we go.
So everything marked with an "X" is something I've read.
Everything with a "+" is something I read and "loved."
And, since I can't just follow the instructions, be on the lookout for some fun-filled commentary.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
- Never going to read it. Ever. Unless it's got zombies in it. Then I might.
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien / (That's a half-X, by the way)
- I've made it halfway through The Two Towers, then decided I was done.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
- Don't remember much about it, other than it's miserable.
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X+
- Yes, I like Harry Potter. And I'm okay with that.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X+
- A junior high favorite. Also, a pretty darn good story.
6 The Bible - X+
- Love the book of Psalms. Good poetry.
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X+
- Not sure why I like this one. Torturous to read, but good.
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X- (And that's a half-+)
- I can't say for certain if I like the book, but I feel everyone should read it.
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
- See Jane Eyre.
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
- This one's on my list to read eventually.
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare /
- I've read some. Others I'll read... maybe... if I feel like it.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X+
- Read it in third grade. Liked it then. Haven't read it since. But the dramatized radio play is a lot of fun.
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
- Also on my list.
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
- George Eliot's a girl, by the way.
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
- Wrote papers on it in college; never read it.
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky X+
- I liked it when I read it, but Russian translations are brutal. I'll never read it again, probably.
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X+
- Steinbeck's depressing, but I love him for it.
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X+
- I know it's probably creepy for a guy to love this book as much as I do, but I don't care.
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
- I started it, but I forgot how painful Russian translations are. Never finished it.
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
- I saw the OLD movies - the BBC ones they aired on PBS. Yeah, those were cool.
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lost World - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini X+
- Not sure I'd read this one again, either, but it was worth reading once.
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X+
- To this day, I'm not sure why I read this book. I think I was trying to appear sensitive to some girl.
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X+
- The Disney films leave out the part where Pooh and Rabbit kidnap Roo and try to blackmail Kanga into leaving the 100 Acre Woods.
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X+
- Orwell makes you think. This, by the way, is a good thing.
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
- Meh.
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
- I was in a musical version of it once. Man, that was a horrible play!
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
- On my list.
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
- List.
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X
- Loved it in junior high. Tried to read it again a couple of years ago, and it bored me to tears. I hate crying, so I didn't finish it.
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
- What's with all the bloody Jane Austen books?!
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
- I read the first chapter.
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X?
- I honestly don't remember if I finished this one.
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
- Ew.
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
- The movie depressed me. Don't know why.
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
- Remember that list of mine? Yeah, this one's on there.
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
- No. Just... just no.
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker X+
- Read it in eighth grade. I keep telling myself I'll read it again. Then I keep buying more movies.
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
- This one's actually on my bookshelf, but I've never read it.
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
- On my list. I'll probably do some baking that day, too.
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X+
- The BEST book to read out loud.
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X+
- Dexter's Laboratory references Heart of Darkness. Seriously.
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X+
- Grown-ups take themselves too f****** seriously.
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams X
- And the cartoon's scary as sin!
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 The Witches - Roald Dahl X
- Big fan of this guy. Should read more of his stuff.
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
- Like this one, for example. And I like the Johnny Depp version. A LOT.
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X
- The whole thing... all 1232 pages of it... NOT fun!
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
The Lighter Side of Art
Recently, I’ve been in a pretty good mood. One could almost describe my disposition as “sunny” – but if I hear anyone say that, I’ll probably rip their throat out with my hands, which I’ll then have to wash compulsively until my hands dry out and crack. So for both our sakes, let’s just stick with “I’m in a good mood.”
Happiness in the middle of winter is kind of a big deal. I doubt I could be diagnosed with SAD, but I’m still generally much more depressed during winter than any other time of year – especially post-Christmas. Shoot, I’ll go ahead and say even during December, but I pretend to be jovial out of fear that, if I’m cranky, Santa’s reindeer will crawl in through my bedroom window and gore me with their merry antlers. Fa-la-la, indeed.
During my most recent battle with the mid-winter blues, I tried to fight them off by watching a few episodes of Pushing Daisies that I borrowed from the library. For those of you that haven’t seen Pushing Daisies… well, I won’t try to explain it all here, but if Roald Dahl and Lorelai from The Gilmore Girls had a daughter, and if that daughter went on to have a son with Tim Burton, and THAT child grew up to be a pie-maker with the ability to raise the dead, then the Hallmark channel would probably make a movie about him called Pushing Daisies: The Ned Piemaker Story, and then Bryan Fuller’s delightful television series would never have been made. So I guess it’s a good thing that Roald Dahl died in 1990 and Lorelai Gilmore is fictional.
Anyway, so I watched Pushing Daisies one Sunday morning, and, for some reason, I could NOT stop laughing. I laughed and laughed and laughed until the characters on the screen stared out from the TV and said, “Seriously, dude, we appreciate the support, but it really wasn’t THAT funny.” I felt pretty foolish after that, but the laughter already had the appropriate effect: I felt much better.
Now that you’ve stuck around now for four paragraphs, it’s time I rewarded you with THE POINT: I used to think that, to be of merit, a work of fiction or art in general had to be weighty, cerebral, and, in some way, “literary.” In case you’ve forgotten, here are the characteristics of “literature”:
1 – The good guys don’t always win.
2 – Good storytelling is less important that making a point.
3 – Everyone has sex all the time, and no one likes it.
Don’t get me wrong – I definitely consider Pushing Daisies artistic. In fact, it’s one of the best television series I’ve ever seen, and I collect The Muppet Show. But it’s not what I’ve always considered to be “high” art. And yet, it made me feel better than most of the “high” art I’ve read.
“High” art – say, a book like 1984 – may change the world, but read too much of it and you’ll start downing Zoloft tablets like they’re Smarties. I mean, there’s probably a reason why so many of the great writers committed suicide – look at Ernest Hemingway, Anne Sexton, and, of course, Sylvia Plath. “High” literature, the kind most often canonized in the Norton Anthologies, tends to be depressing.
But real “art” doesn’t have to be. There’s a lot of good to be said for that which merely entertains. For some, that entertainment, that little fanciful bit of laughter, can heal – an emotional salve. Pushing Daisies didn’t exactly change my life, but it provided me with exactly the kind of release I needed at that moment.
So with that, I thought I’d share with you a poem that actually HAS changed my life: “Special Glasses,” by Billy Collins. Let me give you a bit of back – story first. When I go to buy a new book of poetry, I generally don’t have a specific poet in mind. I browse the titles for something that catches my attention. I flip that book open to a random page in the middle, and I read the poem there. Sometimes I’ll look at a few more, but, generally, if that first poem I read doesn’t engage me on some level, I don’t buy the book. The first time I tried this technique, I found Collins’s The Trouble with Poetry. Now, it wasn’t the title that caught my attention so much as the book itself – my copy is cut like a rhombus, not an actual rectangle. But the quirkiness of a publisher’s error was enough to get me to open the book and read.
The way I was feeling that day I picked up the lopsided book with the bear on the cover, “Special Glasses” was exactly the type of poem I needed to read. At the time, I was going through a break-up (of course, I’d been going through that break-up for over a year by this point. My therapist says I’m getting better). I was also finishing up my final year at Utah State, where I’d immersed myself for years in the idea that “art must be deep.” Then I read Billy Collins. For the first time in a long time, I felt that release, that catharsis that comes from “light” entertainment
So, without further ado, “Special Glasses.” I hope you enjoy it.
I had to send away for them
because they are not available in any store.
They look the same as any sunglasses
with a light tint and silvery frames,
but instead of filtering out the harmful
rays of the sun,
they filter out the harmful sight of you --
you on the approach,
you waiting at my bus stop,
you, face in the evening window.
Every morning I put them on
and step out the side door
whistling a melody of thanks to my nose
and my ears for holding them in place, just so,
singing a song of gratitude
to the lens grinder at his heavy bench
and to the very lenses themselves
because they allow it all to come in, all but you.
How they know the difference
between the green hedges, the stone walls,
and you is beyond me,
yet the schoolbuses flashing in the rain
do come in, as well as the postman waving
and the mother and daughter dogs next door,
and then there is the tea kettle
about to play its chord—
everything sailing right in but you, girl.
Yes, just as the night air passes through the screen,
but not the mosquito,
and as water swirls down the drain,
but not the eggshell,
so the flowering trellis and the moon
pass through my special glasses, but not you.
Let us keep it this way, I say to myself,
as I lay my special glasses on the night table,
pull the chain on the lamp,
and say a prayer—unlike the song—
that I will not see you in my dreams.
Happiness in the middle of winter is kind of a big deal. I doubt I could be diagnosed with SAD, but I’m still generally much more depressed during winter than any other time of year – especially post-Christmas. Shoot, I’ll go ahead and say even during December, but I pretend to be jovial out of fear that, if I’m cranky, Santa’s reindeer will crawl in through my bedroom window and gore me with their merry antlers. Fa-la-la, indeed.
During my most recent battle with the mid-winter blues, I tried to fight them off by watching a few episodes of Pushing Daisies that I borrowed from the library. For those of you that haven’t seen Pushing Daisies… well, I won’t try to explain it all here, but if Roald Dahl and Lorelai from The Gilmore Girls had a daughter, and if that daughter went on to have a son with Tim Burton, and THAT child grew up to be a pie-maker with the ability to raise the dead, then the Hallmark channel would probably make a movie about him called Pushing Daisies: The Ned Piemaker Story, and then Bryan Fuller’s delightful television series would never have been made. So I guess it’s a good thing that Roald Dahl died in 1990 and Lorelai Gilmore is fictional.
Anyway, so I watched Pushing Daisies one Sunday morning, and, for some reason, I could NOT stop laughing. I laughed and laughed and laughed until the characters on the screen stared out from the TV and said, “Seriously, dude, we appreciate the support, but it really wasn’t THAT funny.” I felt pretty foolish after that, but the laughter already had the appropriate effect: I felt much better.
Now that you’ve stuck around now for four paragraphs, it’s time I rewarded you with THE POINT: I used to think that, to be of merit, a work of fiction or art in general had to be weighty, cerebral, and, in some way, “literary.” In case you’ve forgotten, here are the characteristics of “literature”:
1 – The good guys don’t always win.
2 – Good storytelling is less important that making a point.
3 – Everyone has sex all the time, and no one likes it.
Don’t get me wrong – I definitely consider Pushing Daisies artistic. In fact, it’s one of the best television series I’ve ever seen, and I collect The Muppet Show. But it’s not what I’ve always considered to be “high” art. And yet, it made me feel better than most of the “high” art I’ve read.
“High” art – say, a book like 1984 – may change the world, but read too much of it and you’ll start downing Zoloft tablets like they’re Smarties. I mean, there’s probably a reason why so many of the great writers committed suicide – look at Ernest Hemingway, Anne Sexton, and, of course, Sylvia Plath. “High” literature, the kind most often canonized in the Norton Anthologies, tends to be depressing.
But real “art” doesn’t have to be. There’s a lot of good to be said for that which merely entertains. For some, that entertainment, that little fanciful bit of laughter, can heal – an emotional salve. Pushing Daisies didn’t exactly change my life, but it provided me with exactly the kind of release I needed at that moment.
So with that, I thought I’d share with you a poem that actually HAS changed my life: “Special Glasses,” by Billy Collins. Let me give you a bit of back – story first. When I go to buy a new book of poetry, I generally don’t have a specific poet in mind. I browse the titles for something that catches my attention. I flip that book open to a random page in the middle, and I read the poem there. Sometimes I’ll look at a few more, but, generally, if that first poem I read doesn’t engage me on some level, I don’t buy the book. The first time I tried this technique, I found Collins’s The Trouble with Poetry. Now, it wasn’t the title that caught my attention so much as the book itself – my copy is cut like a rhombus, not an actual rectangle. But the quirkiness of a publisher’s error was enough to get me to open the book and read.
The way I was feeling that day I picked up the lopsided book with the bear on the cover, “Special Glasses” was exactly the type of poem I needed to read. At the time, I was going through a break-up (of course, I’d been going through that break-up for over a year by this point. My therapist says I’m getting better). I was also finishing up my final year at Utah State, where I’d immersed myself for years in the idea that “art must be deep.” Then I read Billy Collins. For the first time in a long time, I felt that release, that catharsis that comes from “light” entertainment
So, without further ado, “Special Glasses.” I hope you enjoy it.
I had to send away for them
because they are not available in any store.
They look the same as any sunglasses
with a light tint and silvery frames,
but instead of filtering out the harmful
rays of the sun,
they filter out the harmful sight of you --
you on the approach,
you waiting at my bus stop,
you, face in the evening window.
Every morning I put them on
and step out the side door
whistling a melody of thanks to my nose
and my ears for holding them in place, just so,
singing a song of gratitude
to the lens grinder at his heavy bench
and to the very lenses themselves
because they allow it all to come in, all but you.
How they know the difference
between the green hedges, the stone walls,
and you is beyond me,
yet the schoolbuses flashing in the rain
do come in, as well as the postman waving
and the mother and daughter dogs next door,
and then there is the tea kettle
about to play its chord—
everything sailing right in but you, girl.
Yes, just as the night air passes through the screen,
but not the mosquito,
and as water swirls down the drain,
but not the eggshell,
so the flowering trellis and the moon
pass through my special glasses, but not you.
Let us keep it this way, I say to myself,
as I lay my special glasses on the night table,
pull the chain on the lamp,
and say a prayer—unlike the song—
that I will not see you in my dreams.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Braddy vs. Tekken. Fight!
Some of my close friends describe me as a cauldron of boiling hate – probably because I toss the word “hate” around like the name of a famous friend. The list of things I hate is nearly as long as Santa’s naughty/nice list: snow, fishing, The Fray, etc. Women tend to hop from the “hate” list to the “tolerate” list and back again. You’re on my good side right now, ladies, so watch yourselves!
(In case you’re wondering, “boiling hate” is bright pink and has the consistency of tar)
But as much as I use the word “hate,” there are very few things that make me angry. I mean REALLY angry – not angry where we hear about genocide in Darfur, shake our heads, and then go back to watching House. No, I mean beat-the-walls angry, scream-obscenities angry, rip-off-your-clothes-down-to-your-purple-stretchy-pants angry (hereafter referred to as “THAT angry”). I don’t get THAT angry often. Not because I’m cool and level-headed, mind you. It’s probably just because I don’t care. The only thing I can think of that makes me THAT angry is – of all things – a video game.
Specifically, it’s a genre of video games – fighting games, epitomized for my generation by titles like Street Fighter 2. This single video game was (and I think still is) so popular that it’s been repackaged, shipped out, and re-sold multiple times over the past two decades. The most recent version, I think, is known as Hyper Street Fighter 2 Plus Turbo Grand Ultimate World Championship Fighter Xtreme [sic] Edition, or SF2PTGUWCFXE, for short.
I remember walking down to the grocery store on Saturday afternoons as a kid with my parents and brothers to buy ice cream cones. While waiting for the ice cream, I’d stop and stare at the arcade cabinets by the entrance. I loved to watch Street Fighter 2, mainly because I thought the big, furry monster that electrocuted his opponents was wicked awesome. So imagine the embarrassment my 8-year-old self faced when he actually got to play the game and found out that the character he seemed to best with was not, in fact, Blanka, the extra from Ninja Turtles 2. It was Chun-Li, the GIRL. The ONLY girl in the entire line-up. I guess Chun-Li is supposed to be an agent for Interpol, which could be cool, but… yeah, I can’t get over the fact that she looks like a high-school girl with a closet Hello Kitty obsession. Of course, if anyone made fun of me for liking Chun-Li then, I’d lightning-kick them into oblivion.
Since that time, though, things have changed for me. The fighting games I remember so fondly have become button-mashing, hand-cramping torture. My uncle recently gave me a few of his old Playstation games, so I picked up Tekken 2. I remember playing a version of Tekken and really liking it – I played as a little dinosaur that spat fire. Sadly, there are no dinos in Tekken 2 – just a bunch of generic kung-fu teenagers.
Turns out the absence of Yoshi-knockoffs only heralded an evening of disappointment and frustration unseen since… well, the time I played Soul Caliber 3 a few weeks ago. I chose to play as Heihachi (Hey, Chachi!), an old man with hair like the boss from Dilbert. For the first couple of rounds, I did pretty well for myself. I even figured out one of Heihachi’s special moves – some type of electrocuting noogie. By round 4, though, the balance definitely shifted in favor of my computerized opponents, and that can only mean one thing – the computer cheats.
Sure, mastery of fighting games involves intense memorization of button combos and flawless execution, but even a novice should be able to push one button and watch his character throw a punch or ball up his fist or flex or SOMETHING! This isn’t that hard to figure out – push button, get response. Unfortunately for me, that response was most often “get kicked in the face.” Oh, and when I (inevitably) got knocked down, I couldn’t do anything about it. All the buttons I pushed seem to be part of an intricate combo called Impotent Fish Flopping About.
I’ve got theories as to why these fighting games are so imbalanced: playground bullies, now tired of using physical violence to extort quarters from their victims and now armed with college educations and a basic knowledge of computer programming, decided to use their talents for evil and create brutal video games which require the victim to spend his hard-earned allowance just to make it to the next round. And video games, in general, appeal to the demographic that likely got/gets picked on frequently: those with terminally low self-esteem, few friends, and unbearable body odor (or maybe those who play lots of video games turn into the crumbs swept under society’s rug; who knows?). Many video games offer players the opportunity to accomplish something amazing in a fantasy world: save the planet from destruction, rescue the princess, or play act as a muscle-bound monstrosity and beat the pink tar out of your enemies. If an extra quarter means the difference between victory and utter annihilation, then holding back would just be selfish, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?
Video game makers are a bunch of greedy hooligans. The whole thing just steams me up. I need to take out my aggression on something. Can’t wait until I get home tonight! I’ll stick in some Tekken and beat the crap out of… WAIT A MINUTE! It’s a trap! THAT’S how they get you! Those devious little buggers…
Well, I’ll show them. Instead I’ll go to the club, hit on a bunch of women. That way, instead of watching some on-screen avatar get kicked repeatedly in the crotch, I’ll…
Umm… on second though, I don’t like where that thought’s heading. I think I’ll go watch some Marx brothers or something instead.
(In case you’re wondering, “boiling hate” is bright pink and has the consistency of tar)
But as much as I use the word “hate,” there are very few things that make me angry. I mean REALLY angry – not angry where we hear about genocide in Darfur, shake our heads, and then go back to watching House. No, I mean beat-the-walls angry, scream-obscenities angry, rip-off-your-clothes-down-to-your-purple-stretchy-pants angry (hereafter referred to as “THAT angry”). I don’t get THAT angry often. Not because I’m cool and level-headed, mind you. It’s probably just because I don’t care. The only thing I can think of that makes me THAT angry is – of all things – a video game.
Specifically, it’s a genre of video games – fighting games, epitomized for my generation by titles like Street Fighter 2. This single video game was (and I think still is) so popular that it’s been repackaged, shipped out, and re-sold multiple times over the past two decades. The most recent version, I think, is known as Hyper Street Fighter 2 Plus Turbo Grand Ultimate World Championship Fighter Xtreme [sic] Edition, or SF2PTGUWCFXE, for short.
I remember walking down to the grocery store on Saturday afternoons as a kid with my parents and brothers to buy ice cream cones. While waiting for the ice cream, I’d stop and stare at the arcade cabinets by the entrance. I loved to watch Street Fighter 2, mainly because I thought the big, furry monster that electrocuted his opponents was wicked awesome. So imagine the embarrassment my 8-year-old self faced when he actually got to play the game and found out that the character he seemed to best with was not, in fact, Blanka, the extra from Ninja Turtles 2. It was Chun-Li, the GIRL. The ONLY girl in the entire line-up. I guess Chun-Li is supposed to be an agent for Interpol, which could be cool, but… yeah, I can’t get over the fact that she looks like a high-school girl with a closet Hello Kitty obsession. Of course, if anyone made fun of me for liking Chun-Li then, I’d lightning-kick them into oblivion.
Since that time, though, things have changed for me. The fighting games I remember so fondly have become button-mashing, hand-cramping torture. My uncle recently gave me a few of his old Playstation games, so I picked up Tekken 2. I remember playing a version of Tekken and really liking it – I played as a little dinosaur that spat fire. Sadly, there are no dinos in Tekken 2 – just a bunch of generic kung-fu teenagers.
Turns out the absence of Yoshi-knockoffs only heralded an evening of disappointment and frustration unseen since… well, the time I played Soul Caliber 3 a few weeks ago. I chose to play as Heihachi (Hey, Chachi!), an old man with hair like the boss from Dilbert. For the first couple of rounds, I did pretty well for myself. I even figured out one of Heihachi’s special moves – some type of electrocuting noogie. By round 4, though, the balance definitely shifted in favor of my computerized opponents, and that can only mean one thing – the computer cheats.
Sure, mastery of fighting games involves intense memorization of button combos and flawless execution, but even a novice should be able to push one button and watch his character throw a punch or ball up his fist or flex or SOMETHING! This isn’t that hard to figure out – push button, get response. Unfortunately for me, that response was most often “get kicked in the face.” Oh, and when I (inevitably) got knocked down, I couldn’t do anything about it. All the buttons I pushed seem to be part of an intricate combo called Impotent Fish Flopping About.
I’ve got theories as to why these fighting games are so imbalanced: playground bullies, now tired of using physical violence to extort quarters from their victims and now armed with college educations and a basic knowledge of computer programming, decided to use their talents for evil and create brutal video games which require the victim to spend his hard-earned allowance just to make it to the next round. And video games, in general, appeal to the demographic that likely got/gets picked on frequently: those with terminally low self-esteem, few friends, and unbearable body odor (or maybe those who play lots of video games turn into the crumbs swept under society’s rug; who knows?). Many video games offer players the opportunity to accomplish something amazing in a fantasy world: save the planet from destruction, rescue the princess, or play act as a muscle-bound monstrosity and beat the pink tar out of your enemies. If an extra quarter means the difference between victory and utter annihilation, then holding back would just be selfish, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?
Video game makers are a bunch of greedy hooligans. The whole thing just steams me up. I need to take out my aggression on something. Can’t wait until I get home tonight! I’ll stick in some Tekken and beat the crap out of… WAIT A MINUTE! It’s a trap! THAT’S how they get you! Those devious little buggers…
Well, I’ll show them. Instead I’ll go to the club, hit on a bunch of women. That way, instead of watching some on-screen avatar get kicked repeatedly in the crotch, I’ll…
Umm… on second though, I don’t like where that thought’s heading. I think I’ll go watch some Marx brothers or something instead.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Braddy Loves Cheese
It’s been a while since I’ve had so many free evenings to myself – at least since the start of Taming of the Shrew out at the Empress. Since then, I’ve been able to spend my nights doing… well, whatever I want. The other night, I went grocery shopping, worked on some new poems, watched some cartoons, studied for the GRE… I even cooked myself dinner.
Despite evidence to the contrary (rail-thin arms, concave gut, absent chest), I REALLY love food. Don’t know that I could say that the way to my heart is through my stomach (my one and only reference to Valentine’s Day today), but I’ve developed quite a taste for fine flavors. I attribute most of that to my mother, who, as my best friends can tell you, is one of the best cooks extant.
(On an unrelated note, I never realized how big a deal it is that my mother so often fed my friends. Food’s a pricy luxury)
Now, I said that I COOKED dinner… well, I’m not exactly an amazing cook. My definition of “cook” is to grate cheese over noodles and stare at them, saying, “Melt!” A typical day’s diet consists of oatmeal or Pop-Tarts for breakfast (if I have breakfast at all), a Hot Pocket for lunch, and a can of Campbell’s soup for dinner – unless I have buffalo wings in the freezer. Basically, I eat enough sodium, carbs, and preservatives that I should be either a salt lick, a Mr. Potato Head, or a bloomin’ Twinkie by now.
I’ve always wanted to develop a more “refined” taste. I’ve slowly been expanding my culinary horizons – picking up foods I’ve never liked before to discover that they’re really not as bad as my seven-year-old self had led me to believe. I used to hate onions; now I can’t get enough of them. Tofu can be good in the right dish (re: my dad’s Hot and Sour Soup). Today I’ll be getting lunch from a Thai restaurant for the first time, and I must say I’m EXCITED.
Most of all, though, I actually work at being an appreciator of good cheeses. I’ve always wanted to taste a wide variety of cheeses, ever since I first watched Wallace and Gromit. Time was I couldn’t stand any type of cheese other than American cheddar. Heck, I’d even eat E-Z Cheese over provolone. Of course, time was that I actually enjoyed the musical stylings of Nickleback, whom I now consider to be basically the E-Z Cheese of the music industry.
But, no more. I’ve since learned that mozzarella is amazing on pasta, pepper jack makes for amazing hamburgers, and you just can’t have Chicken Cordon Bleu without swiss. Of course, that’s still not enough for me. See, by nature I’m still pretty much a snob – I have to balance all of my “pedestrian” tastes with something resembling sophistication. For example, I have to keep my love of rock in check with an interest in musical theater (and I’ll leave it to you to determine which of the two is “pedestrian” and which “art.” I can argue both ways).
I served a mission for the LDS church in the Czech Republic, where those simple American cheeses I know and love are a scarcity. One Christmas, my companion and I received a block of cheddar cheese from a friend – real cheddar, which was real pricy. We sat down at the breakfast table and ogled that lump of cheese like a hot redhead. By the end of the hour, we had the whole thing devoured. I’m pretty sure eating a block of cheese for a meal is never healthy, but it was WORTH it.
Without the usual availability of cheddar, I turned to other cheeses to get by. Edam was plentiful, but it doesn’t really lend itself to melting. Makes it hard to enjoy a good burger with Edam on it. Niva’s a great cheese – I don’t even know if we have it in the states. Curse you, FDA! Closest I’ve found is bleu cheese (which, as most of you know, is amazing on salads and buffalo wings), but that’s not quite right. Niva looks, smells, and tastes a little like death. Wonderful, delectable, salty death.
Man, I miss that stuff.
The Czechs also have a cheese called tvaroh (in German, I think it’s called “kwark” or something equally Star-Trek-ish) used in making desserts. The tvaroh gets mixed in with a bread dough, which you wrap around pieces of fruit. Boil the dough in water, and serve with butter and powdered sugar. Bam! Fruit dumplings.
(And if I ever channel Emeril again, shoot me in the bleedin’ head!)
My absolute favorite cheese I discovered in Europe can’t make it across the Atlantic, either. Bryndza, a salty goat cheese, is a staple of the national dish of Slovakia: bryndzové halušky. It’s a simple recipe: grate up potatoes into a starchy mush, add flour until the spoon you mix it together with can’t fall over in the dough, and cut the dough into small, round noodles. Boil the noodles until they float, drain, and add bryndza and cubes of bacon (not strips – cubes. Big, fatty dice of bacon). The whole concoction rests like wet cement in your stomach (and who knows WHAT it does to your arteries) but, man, that stuff is good.
So my dinner that fateful night off the other night actually meant something special to me. I’ve started exploring the world of cheeses again. I added some bizarre Greek cheese (myzithra, I think it’s called) to my noodles rather than boring old cheddar. It’s good, really – a hard cheese, salty, with a texture like chalk (Wikipedia describes the texture as “grainy,” but I’ve got to go with my first reaction here). The only thing that could have made me feel more cultured would be a glass of wine, but the equation “me + alcohol” probably comes out to something unsettling.
Speaking of unsettling… I’m pretty sure I just inadvertently made a horrible, horrible cheese pun… I’ma go put my neck in a noose now.
Despite evidence to the contrary (rail-thin arms, concave gut, absent chest), I REALLY love food. Don’t know that I could say that the way to my heart is through my stomach (my one and only reference to Valentine’s Day today), but I’ve developed quite a taste for fine flavors. I attribute most of that to my mother, who, as my best friends can tell you, is one of the best cooks extant.
(On an unrelated note, I never realized how big a deal it is that my mother so often fed my friends. Food’s a pricy luxury)
Now, I said that I COOKED dinner… well, I’m not exactly an amazing cook. My definition of “cook” is to grate cheese over noodles and stare at them, saying, “Melt!” A typical day’s diet consists of oatmeal or Pop-Tarts for breakfast (if I have breakfast at all), a Hot Pocket for lunch, and a can of Campbell’s soup for dinner – unless I have buffalo wings in the freezer. Basically, I eat enough sodium, carbs, and preservatives that I should be either a salt lick, a Mr. Potato Head, or a bloomin’ Twinkie by now.
I’ve always wanted to develop a more “refined” taste. I’ve slowly been expanding my culinary horizons – picking up foods I’ve never liked before to discover that they’re really not as bad as my seven-year-old self had led me to believe. I used to hate onions; now I can’t get enough of them. Tofu can be good in the right dish (re: my dad’s Hot and Sour Soup). Today I’ll be getting lunch from a Thai restaurant for the first time, and I must say I’m EXCITED.
Most of all, though, I actually work at being an appreciator of good cheeses. I’ve always wanted to taste a wide variety of cheeses, ever since I first watched Wallace and Gromit. Time was I couldn’t stand any type of cheese other than American cheddar. Heck, I’d even eat E-Z Cheese over provolone. Of course, time was that I actually enjoyed the musical stylings of Nickleback, whom I now consider to be basically the E-Z Cheese of the music industry.
But, no more. I’ve since learned that mozzarella is amazing on pasta, pepper jack makes for amazing hamburgers, and you just can’t have Chicken Cordon Bleu without swiss. Of course, that’s still not enough for me. See, by nature I’m still pretty much a snob – I have to balance all of my “pedestrian” tastes with something resembling sophistication. For example, I have to keep my love of rock in check with an interest in musical theater (and I’ll leave it to you to determine which of the two is “pedestrian” and which “art.” I can argue both ways).
I served a mission for the LDS church in the Czech Republic, where those simple American cheeses I know and love are a scarcity. One Christmas, my companion and I received a block of cheddar cheese from a friend – real cheddar, which was real pricy. We sat down at the breakfast table and ogled that lump of cheese like a hot redhead. By the end of the hour, we had the whole thing devoured. I’m pretty sure eating a block of cheese for a meal is never healthy, but it was WORTH it.
Without the usual availability of cheddar, I turned to other cheeses to get by. Edam was plentiful, but it doesn’t really lend itself to melting. Makes it hard to enjoy a good burger with Edam on it. Niva’s a great cheese – I don’t even know if we have it in the states. Curse you, FDA! Closest I’ve found is bleu cheese (which, as most of you know, is amazing on salads and buffalo wings), but that’s not quite right. Niva looks, smells, and tastes a little like death. Wonderful, delectable, salty death.
Man, I miss that stuff.
The Czechs also have a cheese called tvaroh (in German, I think it’s called “kwark” or something equally Star-Trek-ish) used in making desserts. The tvaroh gets mixed in with a bread dough, which you wrap around pieces of fruit. Boil the dough in water, and serve with butter and powdered sugar. Bam! Fruit dumplings.
(And if I ever channel Emeril again, shoot me in the bleedin’ head!)
My absolute favorite cheese I discovered in Europe can’t make it across the Atlantic, either. Bryndza, a salty goat cheese, is a staple of the national dish of Slovakia: bryndzové halušky. It’s a simple recipe: grate up potatoes into a starchy mush, add flour until the spoon you mix it together with can’t fall over in the dough, and cut the dough into small, round noodles. Boil the noodles until they float, drain, and add bryndza and cubes of bacon (not strips – cubes. Big, fatty dice of bacon). The whole concoction rests like wet cement in your stomach (and who knows WHAT it does to your arteries) but, man, that stuff is good.
So my dinner that fateful night off the other night actually meant something special to me. I’ve started exploring the world of cheeses again. I added some bizarre Greek cheese (myzithra, I think it’s called) to my noodles rather than boring old cheddar. It’s good, really – a hard cheese, salty, with a texture like chalk (Wikipedia describes the texture as “grainy,” but I’ve got to go with my first reaction here). The only thing that could have made me feel more cultured would be a glass of wine, but the equation “me + alcohol” probably comes out to something unsettling.
Speaking of unsettling… I’m pretty sure I just inadvertently made a horrible, horrible cheese pun… I’ma go put my neck in a noose now.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Where Love Poetry Comes From
I've spent the past few years in intensive study and self-discovery (or "re-discovery," as the case may be)- I've returned to writing and performing in a way that I haven't really done in a long time. Well, now that my most recent show is over, I've decided it's time to explore other talents. So today, you get some of my art:
WHERE LOVE POETRY COMES FROM
Okay, so I'm not really an artist. I can draw some pretty awesome stick figures, but unless I get a scanner, you'll have to settle for what I can conjure up in paint.
And, really, that little comic shouldn't evoke pity from anyone. Cuz, seriously, if poets aren't lonely, when are they going to find time to write?
WHERE LOVE POETRY COMES FROM
Okay, so I'm not really an artist. I can draw some pretty awesome stick figures, but unless I get a scanner, you'll have to settle for what I can conjure up in paint.
And, really, that little comic shouldn't evoke pity from anyone. Cuz, seriously, if poets aren't lonely, when are they going to find time to write?
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A Hymn for the Heartbroken
This is the last of the posts I'll be importing from Facebook. Originally posted on 1.12.09 when I was going through a breakup, a friend's wedding, a romantic comedy, and an otherwise hard time. So sorry.
“Unrequited love is like hanging on a meat-hook – yeah, it hurts, but it’s kind of hard to get off of.” - Stephen Bradford
Yeah, that’s right: I’m prefacing my thoughts on the subject of heartbreak by quoting myself. I actually AM that conceited. You’re welcome. Anyway, it seems a lot of people I know are going through breakups nowadays, so I’ve been thinking about this subject a bit more than usual. I won’t mention any names – y’know, to preserve their anonymity and stuff. Of course, almost all of them have actually written about their recent romantic catastrophes on Facebook, so I can only do so much.
I think it’s funny that people say that spring is the season of love. I know there’s basis for it, but, really, spring seems to be more about tidal waves of hormones crashing on the shore of logic and reason rather than actual romantic love. In my experience, more actual, lasting relationships form in the winter than any other season. My bet is that human beings seek to fight off the elements by hunting down a cuddle-buddy as soon as possible.
And really, why not go for the winter relationship? On paper, at least, there’s a lot of good that can go on in the winter – playful snowball fights, candle-lit Valentine’s dinners, New Years Eve kisses. Not to mention you’re that much more likely to get at least ONE thoughtful Christmas present.
Of course, the real drawback to a winter relationship would be the winter break-up. If you’re like me…
“Whiny and emotionally insecure?”
Shut your face up!
*ahem* If you’re like me, you find yourself more prone to depression during the winter months, when the cold makes your joints stiff and sore, the snow blocks you in to your own driveway, and the clouds block the yellow-sun radiation that enables you to fly. Basically, winter sucks. And heartbreak in the wintertime is suddenly a hundred times worse. Before long, you find yourself sitting in the dark, writing poems of longing while Savage Garden sings “Gunning Down Romance” through your iTunes.
Since I’ve mentioned music… A while back I complained that I never hear much “girl-hating” music. There was no reason for me to be hatin’ on the ladyfolk at the time – I just felt mildly misogynistic. Anyway, since then, I think I’ve finally found the ultimate in woman-bashing music: “Gives You Hell,” by the All-American Rejects.
Lead-singer Tyson Ritter (who may be one of the most effeminate singers since… well, Darren Hayes of Savage Garden), plays with the girls’ emotions by singing: “And truth be told I miss you/And truth be told I'm lying.” Then a whole chorus of guys comes in, chanting:
“When you see my face
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell.
When you walk my way
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell.
If you find a man that's worth a damn and treats you well,
Then he's a fool. You’re just as well, hope it gives you hell.”
You can tell, by the way, that it’s a chorus of guys because they can’t seem to keep the melody.
So I hear the song and think, “Awesome! Finally, a really good break-up song!” But then I keep thinking, and I realize, “Crap. I don’t actually WANT anyone I’ve ever dated to feel that way.” See, I’ve had… more than one ex-girlfriend in my time, and I’ve always tried to make sure things end amiably. Doesn’t always work, of course, mainly because of the aforementioned emotional insecurity…
Wait, that was YOU that said that! I hate you!
Anyway, the thing is, even after a “friendly” break-up (and they CAN happen), I have trouble dealing with my exes. It took me three years to get over my first girlfriend, and I spent two of those years in another country. Then I dated another girl a few years ago in college. We only dated for a few months, but, every time I saw her after we broke up, I felt as though my heart had been forced through a cheese grater. And, since I worked in the university library, I got to see a lot of her – and whatever guys were putting their arms around her. So I may not have a lot of experience, but I have enough that I can say with the great William Shakespeare, “My broken heart hath ached, forsooth/This royally sucketh a horse’s hoof.”
Seriously, it’s from “MacBeth.” Look it up.
I recently read a good description of grief and loss. You never really “get over” losing someone. You go to bed at night, thinking you’ll feel better in the morning, but when you wake up you still feel the same way, because she (or he) still isn’t there. The wound never fully heals, but you learn to live with it. However, I read that bit of advice in a Wolverine comic book, so I don’t know that the APA would really approve of that assessment.
Break-ups are a pain I don’t wish anyone – not even the ones that broke my heart. To all those who are going through hard times right now, I offer the only consolation I can – It really sucks, but it’s hardly the end of the world. After she breaks your heart, life goes on – and you also get these really cool heart scars that make you look emotionally tough.
“Unrequited love is like hanging on a meat-hook – yeah, it hurts, but it’s kind of hard to get off of.” - Stephen Bradford
Yeah, that’s right: I’m prefacing my thoughts on the subject of heartbreak by quoting myself. I actually AM that conceited. You’re welcome. Anyway, it seems a lot of people I know are going through breakups nowadays, so I’ve been thinking about this subject a bit more than usual. I won’t mention any names – y’know, to preserve their anonymity and stuff. Of course, almost all of them have actually written about their recent romantic catastrophes on Facebook, so I can only do so much.
I think it’s funny that people say that spring is the season of love. I know there’s basis for it, but, really, spring seems to be more about tidal waves of hormones crashing on the shore of logic and reason rather than actual romantic love. In my experience, more actual, lasting relationships form in the winter than any other season. My bet is that human beings seek to fight off the elements by hunting down a cuddle-buddy as soon as possible.
And really, why not go for the winter relationship? On paper, at least, there’s a lot of good that can go on in the winter – playful snowball fights, candle-lit Valentine’s dinners, New Years Eve kisses. Not to mention you’re that much more likely to get at least ONE thoughtful Christmas present.
Of course, the real drawback to a winter relationship would be the winter break-up. If you’re like me…
“Whiny and emotionally insecure?”
Shut your face up!
*ahem* If you’re like me, you find yourself more prone to depression during the winter months, when the cold makes your joints stiff and sore, the snow blocks you in to your own driveway, and the clouds block the yellow-sun radiation that enables you to fly. Basically, winter sucks. And heartbreak in the wintertime is suddenly a hundred times worse. Before long, you find yourself sitting in the dark, writing poems of longing while Savage Garden sings “Gunning Down Romance” through your iTunes.
Since I’ve mentioned music… A while back I complained that I never hear much “girl-hating” music. There was no reason for me to be hatin’ on the ladyfolk at the time – I just felt mildly misogynistic. Anyway, since then, I think I’ve finally found the ultimate in woman-bashing music: “Gives You Hell,” by the All-American Rejects.
Lead-singer Tyson Ritter (who may be one of the most effeminate singers since… well, Darren Hayes of Savage Garden), plays with the girls’ emotions by singing: “And truth be told I miss you/And truth be told I'm lying.” Then a whole chorus of guys comes in, chanting:
“When you see my face
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell.
When you walk my way
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell.
If you find a man that's worth a damn and treats you well,
Then he's a fool. You’re just as well, hope it gives you hell.”
You can tell, by the way, that it’s a chorus of guys because they can’t seem to keep the melody.
So I hear the song and think, “Awesome! Finally, a really good break-up song!” But then I keep thinking, and I realize, “Crap. I don’t actually WANT anyone I’ve ever dated to feel that way.” See, I’ve had… more than one ex-girlfriend in my time, and I’ve always tried to make sure things end amiably. Doesn’t always work, of course, mainly because of the aforementioned emotional insecurity…
Wait, that was YOU that said that! I hate you!
Anyway, the thing is, even after a “friendly” break-up (and they CAN happen), I have trouble dealing with my exes. It took me three years to get over my first girlfriend, and I spent two of those years in another country. Then I dated another girl a few years ago in college. We only dated for a few months, but, every time I saw her after we broke up, I felt as though my heart had been forced through a cheese grater. And, since I worked in the university library, I got to see a lot of her – and whatever guys were putting their arms around her. So I may not have a lot of experience, but I have enough that I can say with the great William Shakespeare, “My broken heart hath ached, forsooth/This royally sucketh a horse’s hoof.”
Seriously, it’s from “MacBeth.” Look it up.
I recently read a good description of grief and loss. You never really “get over” losing someone. You go to bed at night, thinking you’ll feel better in the morning, but when you wake up you still feel the same way, because she (or he) still isn’t there. The wound never fully heals, but you learn to live with it. However, I read that bit of advice in a Wolverine comic book, so I don’t know that the APA would really approve of that assessment.
Break-ups are a pain I don’t wish anyone – not even the ones that broke my heart. To all those who are going through hard times right now, I offer the only consolation I can – It really sucks, but it’s hardly the end of the world. After she breaks your heart, life goes on – and you also get these really cool heart scars that make you look emotionally tough.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Fear and Loathing in SLC
Still bringing old blogs over from Facebook. Today's entry was originally posted on 10.30.08. Guess what it's about?
Halloween may very well ranks as one of my favorite holidays, although the peace, harmony, and wanton avarice of a modern Christmas do provide stiff competition. Halloween is one of the few great “unchained holidays” – it’s the perfect opportunity for seriously awesome parties. Go ahead, hand out with all your friends until the early hours of the morning! Eat candy until sugar crystals form along the walls of your arteries! If you’re a man, wear eyeliner and women’s pants! No one will think you’re gay!
(Seriously, my emo-rock star costume is probably my favorite costume ever, followed closely by my Euro-trash getup and the year I went as Stupendous Man from Calvin and Hobbes).
So in honor of Halloween, I’d like to compile a list of my top scary movies. Unfortunately, I don’t really watch any scary movies. Case in point: I threw a Halloween party my sophomore year in high school. We had a blast with tons of good food and costumes. We even went to a haunted house some other kids in my neighborhood had put together. It was, if I may borrow a colloquialism, off the hizzook.
(We interrupt this note to inform our concerned public that Stephen Bradford has just had his right to borrow colloquialisms eternally and irreversibly revoked).
The party ran into a bit of a snag when it came time to show the scary movie at the end of the night. I choose the movie closest to a true horror that I could think of: The Mummy. That’s right, our big Halloween scare was watching Brendan Frasier try to act while fighting off badly-rendered CGI mummies. The horror, the horror.
Actually, one of the girls at the party went home that night and had a nightmare about being chased through the halls of a pyramid by a giant mummy. So I guess the movie did have an appropriate scare factor. Plus, I was in her dream, too, apparently, and was the only one smart enough to bring a friggin’ shotgun to fight off the mummy. Any event which leads to me looking like a hero, even if it is only in a dream, must be categorically defined as “awesome.”
So, yeah, don’t know much about the horror movie genre. After The Mummy, the only other horror movies I’ve ever seen are Young Frankenstein (which doesn’t really count because it’s actually a parody of the whole horror genre) and The Sixth Sense (which only counts because it convinced M. Night Shyamalan that he should make MORE movies).
Okay, there’s one legitimately scary horror movie that I’ve seen, and even this one might be a bit of a stretch. It’s an old silent picture called Nosferatu, and it was the first cinematic interpretation of Brahm Stoker’s Dracula. The director’s take on the vampire is a bit different from the glittery, effeminate, love-monkeys that we’re used to seeing these days (shame on you, Stephanie Meyer). Whatever else goes on in that movie, the vampire is actually scary. Even though, by today’s standards, a lot of the acting, the special effects, and, of course, the screens of text that interrupt the action are outright laughable, everyone will gasp in surprise and shock when Count Orlock first appears with his pointed ears and rat-teeth. It’s a truly frightening moment, and Hollywood should really try to return to the rodent-vampire thing.
Speaking of Brahm Stoker, I COULD take this moment to go over the most frightening books I’ve ever read. I mean, I got my undergraduate degree in English, so I should know a lot about books, right? Sadly, that’s not the case. I read Dracula in eighth grade, and I don’t really remember it being all that scary. Other than that, I can think of exactly three horror writers, and I’ve never really read any of them extensively. First, there’s Stephen King – whose work, to be honest, I’ve never actually read, but if they read anything like the movies based off them, I think I’ll pass. I’ve seen people who are actually afraid of clowns watch the movie It and be cured.
The biggest name in horror fiction may very well be Edgar Allen Poe. And I may have to turn in my English major badge after this, but I have to say I really don’t like Poe at all. Too wordy. Nineteenth-century American literature generally doesn’t age very well. I did once have a lot of fun recording a radio play of “The Telltale Heart” way back when I was in fifth grade. My classmates and I recorded it in the back room of the library. We made the sound of the heart beating by jumping up and down on the ground as loudly as we could. The librarian got mad at us and almost kicked us out. That’s a scary story, right?
The last horror author I have any kind of familiarity with (and I’m pretty embarrassed to admit this) is a fellow by the name of H. P. Lovecraft. This is the man that invented the Chthulhu mythos, if you know what that is. If you don’t know what that is, you’ve probably been on a date in the last month. Chthulhu is some type of ancient, tentacled, alien-God-creature that is so horrifying to look at that anyone who sees him is instantly struck with madness. Lovecraft INVENTED the cliché of the monster that’s too horrible for words to describe. Anyone else see the problem in telling a story about “monsters too horrible for words to describe” in a novel? Lovecraft, unfortunately, didn’t.
So the only genre I really know anything about after eliminating books and movies would be video games. And here I can come up with some scary titles. Like, for example, Resident Evil 4 (this time, it’s not Resident Evil 3). The first quarter of the game has the player running around a dilapidated Spanish village, avoiding villagers who may or may not want to eat your brains/cut your face off with a chainsaw. My money’s on “may.” There’s nothing quite like standing alone in a quiet street, suddenly starting as a maniac with a bag over his head fires up a chainsaw behind you, then watching in horror as he literally mows you down even after you emptied an entire clip from your handgun into his chest. Hopefully, I’ll only ever see that in a video game and never have to live through it in real life again.
The problem with Resident Evil 4 is that, after that first quarter, there’s nothing really that scary again. Sure, you run around a hedge maze while evil, bloodthirsty dogs howl at the mist-veiled moon. But the instant the dogs appear and sprout tentacles, all the fear leaves my body to be replaced by the bitter cynicism rooted in my heart. I mean, seriously, what were the game developers thinking?
“So we’ve got these dogs that chase you through the hedge maze. How do we make them scarier?”
“I know! Let’s have them grow tentacles out their backs!”
“Tentacle-dogs, I love it. Now, we’ve got this maniacal little man-child with Napoleonic delusions of grandeur…”
“Ooh, ooh! He turns into a giant tentacle monster!”
“Oookay, more tentacles. And lastly, we’ve got this mysterious supporting character who wants to help but winds up dying tragically after the cult leader stabs him in the back with a knife…”
“Not a knife! A tentacle!”
“Sit down, Jenkins, or I’ll take away your juice box!”
Who decided that tentacles are scary? Oh, right. Lovecraft. That hack.
My most recent “scary game” acquisition is Fatal Frame 2 (this time, it’s not Fatal Frame 1). I haven’t played very far in it because, truth be told, the game scares the CRAP out of me. The premise is pretty ridiculous – ghosts are attacking you, and the only way you can defeat them is to take their picture. It’s like Ghostbusters on safari.
But, actually, the game is pretty scary. You play as a teenage Japanese girl, dragging your crippled sister around a deserted town. Why exactly you’re in the town, I don’t know. You probably took a wrong turn playing hopscotch. Anyway, there are ghosts, and corpses hanging from the rafters, and yadda yadda yadda, then, “Boo!” – some horrifying beastie jumps out of nowhere and screams at you, and you have exactly two seconds to take its picture before it vanishes again. Or kills you.
Now, I’m a perfectionist, so when I play this game, I have to try to get a picture of every ghost. A transcript of me playing this game would look something like this:
Japanese girl takes a picture of the mystic, ghostly altar. The picture develops, and then transforms into the picture of a bleeding, screaming man. Suddenly, a ghostly man appears.
GHOSTLY MAN: DON’T LOOK AT ME!!!
STEPHEN: Holy crap! [Stephen drops the controller and screams. The ghost disappears.] Dang, that was scary. [Pause]. Aw, crap, I forgot to get the ghost’s picture. Gotta reset.
Again, Japanese girl takes a picture of the mystic, ghostly altar. The picture develops, and then transforms into the picture of a bleeding, screaming man. Suddenly, a ghostly man appears.
GHOSTLY MAN: DON’T LOOK AT ME!!!
STEPHEN: Geez, it did it again! [Stephen drops the controller again]. I think I’m getting goosebumps. [Pause]. Crap!
So, yeah, scary stuff. But I get the feeling that I still don’t have many of you scared yet. Maybe I’m just the kind of guy that should stick to the “fun” aspects of Halloween and leave the fear to the professionals and Captain Howdy. Or maybe I just haven’t unleashed the one demon that truly terrifies me every time I see it, the one that, no matter what I do, I can only stare at in mute, speechless fear:
A pretty, intelligent woman with a kind heart and a strong, confidant personality.
Anyone else scared? Just me? Man, I suck at this game!
Saturday, February 7, 2009
The Chick Flick, or, Ten Things I Hate About American Cinema
This first week or so, I'll be republishing blogs I posted originally on Facebook. The following, published on 8.22.08, deals with - well, women. One of my favorite subjects.
I remember I used to be quite the workaholic – never giving up on a project until it was finished, almost never letting myself get distracted. Things have changed quite a bit since those days, though. The pivot moment probably came at the same time I switched my college major from Math Education to English, when I traded hours of math homework every night for “read this book by the end of the week and then tell us what you think about it in 750 words.” Math majors are suckers, pure and simple.
I do focus on a task when it needs to get done, and I do get all the work done I need to. However, with my job, it generally takes me AT MOST four of the eight hours I’m scheduled to sit here to make all my phone calls, schedule all the patients, etc., etc. So I need a lot of distractions to pass the time so I don’t go bonkers at my desk. When I’m not reading young adult adventure novels, doing some “independent study” with random Wikipedia articles, or falling asleep, I swap messages over Facebook with other nine-to-fivers who also need the distraction. I’ve been talking a lot with my friend Melissa about dating and romance (a topic which, with Melissa, is pretty freakin’ hard to avoid), and the conversation turned to the “chick flick.”
So it took me two paragraphs to say, “I’ve got a bone to pick with chick flicks, and you can blame Melissa for getting me on the subject.”
Nearly every single chick flick (pretty much all the ones I’ve seen) have a mushy, delusional happy ending triggered by an overly absurd deus ex machina. Now I've got no problems with “happy endings” in general – where would the first Star Wars movie be without the dramatic awards ceremony at the end where Luke and Leia exchange flirtatious grins long before realizing that their union would send Mother Nature into epileptic fits of disgust? The real trouble with the "happy couple" ending up together in a chick flick is that it's the only archetype out there. There's no other template: you never see a movie where the guy DOESN'T get the girl, despite the fact that things go so well. If a guy gets hung up on a girl, he always winds up winning her by the end of the movie.
Almost as common is the mismatched couple. The members of the relationship aren't really all that great for each other, but they still somehow manage to have their montage-worthy screen kiss as the sun sets in the background during the final scene. Take a look at this scenario:
“If you ever fall in love with your arch-enemy and want her to love you back, try this little trick: create an alternate identity to stalk her online while you court her in real life. When she has trouble deciding between you and… the other you… just whisk back the black curtain and – TA DAH! – you’ve just been screwing with her head all this time. I bet she’ll think that’s a cute trick.”
Sound a bit like one of Jack Handy’s “Deep Thoughts”? I hope so, because that’s the effect I was going for. In actuality, though, this is Tom Hanks’ strategy in the movie “You've Got Mail” (which, by the way, I actually like). Sure, all in all, Tom Hanks is a pretty good guy in the movie, but the little stunt he pulls on Meg Ryan’s character online is a total creep move. Total. Creep. Move.
The problem I have with chick flicks is that they perpetuate a lot of myths about romance that I don't believe are true (and since I don't really BELIEVE in romance, I doubt this comes as a surprise). You always see the "one fateful love that changes the world and makes daisies rain down from the heavens," which usually comes after months or years of heartache and disappointment. But you nevereverever SEE the heartache and disappointment - unless you saw "Failure to Launch," expecting a GOOD movie. You were probably disappointed then.
The truth is you can be totally in love with some gorgeous guy or hot girl or whatever. You can seem to be a perfect couple, complimenting each other's virtues and helping to shore up weak character points. In the end, though, it can STILL all blow up in your face.
But Hollywood almost never shows those relationships, to my knowledge. Every once in a while, you get a flick that ends tragically, like “A Walk to Remember,” but there’s a HUGE difference between a real break-up and leukemia (although, in the first stages of the break-up, you might not think so). Just once, I want to see a “chick flick” which portrays two young and unrealistically-attractive individuals who fall madly in love, only to break up after a few months. Then, two years down the road, they run into each other again at a Christmas party. The guy can be all, “Dude! This is, like, totally serendipitous!” And then the girl says, “Sorry, but I’m married now with three kids.”
And it doesn’t count if there’s been some other Girl B in the picture the whole time who’s kind of shy but madly in love with the guy, who’s completely oblivious of her feelings but still likes Girl B as a friend and always goes to her for help with his relationship with Girl A. Then, after Girl A breaks his heart, he looks around and finally notices that Girl B isn’t actually less attractive than Girl A. Girl B is just dark-haired, so her good looks aren’t as close a match to the Hollywood standard of feminine beauty as Girl A’s. At the same time, the guy realizes that Girl A is nothing more than a warm body with the morals of the Nixon administration who regularly eats baby seals. And then, in the end, the suitably attractive man marries Girl B and they live happily ever after, while Girl A’s husband gives her syphilis and dies.
Which brings me to another issue (no, not VDs): The guys in chick flicks set an almost completely unattainable standard for the rest of us “real world-ians” to live up to. Here’s just a sampling of chick-flick actors:
Tom Hanks: Yeah, I’m harping on this guy a lot, and why not? I admit he’s not the most attractive guy in the world. But that doesn't change the fact that he's TOM FREAKIN' HANKS!!! Which means that he's smart, charming, funny, witty... and, even if he's not those things, he's one of the world's best actors, so he can just fake it.
Hugh Grant: Sure, he's got bad teeth, but he makes up for it by being so cuddly and childlike. Plus, he's British, so he's got the accent that American chicks seem to love so much.
Will Smith: “Hitch” comes pretty close to being one of my all-time favorite movies. We get to see Alex Hitchin’s transformation from a bumbling nerd in college to Dr. Phil with abs. But, seriously, Will Smith can’t really muster up any geek cred outside of his years in “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” which only works now because the fashions of the early nineties are laughably awful to our evolved and superior 21st-century tastes.
You never see the real physically-unattractive love interest in the chick flick (or in any of Hollywood’s movies, for that matter – that’s another rant, though). You occasionally get a fat guy played by Kevin James or Jack Black – but they always pull the “fat comedian” card, which makes it okay.
So fat guys have to be funny, tall guys have to be handsome and built, rich guys have to become heart-of-gold blobs of sensitivity, and the rest are relegated to supporting “comic relief” roles. I know it’s supposed to be escapism, but, ladies, you’re going to have to face the harsh reality someday:
The guy you marry has probably cut someone off on the freeway. His body has made strange, rumbling noises during dinner parties. He owns at least one video game system and will devote more time to it than to you sometimes. He probably does not look great in a tuxedo. He’s played Dungeons and Dragons before. He has a zit. Oh, and the way he stutters when he’s around you isn’t because you’ve charmed him speechless. It’s because he’s borderline illiterate.
No, I don’t condone rude behavior, flatulence jokes, D&D, or negligence in a relationship. These are serious issues, though, that will probably take months and years of long conversations and the occasional setback to work out satisfactorily. All life’s romantic issues cannot be solved by a lonely stroll through the park where you gaze longingly at all the happy couple who just magically appeared for the occasion, while wistful music full of longing and regret plays in the background.
If you want to stick with your escapist romantic cinema, that’s fine by me. I might even watch them with you, sometimes – provided you buy me popcorn and let me put my arm around you. And if you’re a girl, of course. For me and most guys, the “chick flick” is a means to an end, a way to strengthen a relationship that’s already gone way beyond the awkward early-date stages. If I want escapist entertainment, I’ll go with “Dexter’s Laboratory” reruns on Boomerang. And if I want unrealistic expectations of romance, I’ll find them in guy movies, where apparently shooting a guy in the face is an enormous turn-on for all girls in the area.
Wait, that’s stupid.
I remember I used to be quite the workaholic – never giving up on a project until it was finished, almost never letting myself get distracted. Things have changed quite a bit since those days, though. The pivot moment probably came at the same time I switched my college major from Math Education to English, when I traded hours of math homework every night for “read this book by the end of the week and then tell us what you think about it in 750 words.” Math majors are suckers, pure and simple.
I do focus on a task when it needs to get done, and I do get all the work done I need to. However, with my job, it generally takes me AT MOST four of the eight hours I’m scheduled to sit here to make all my phone calls, schedule all the patients, etc., etc. So I need a lot of distractions to pass the time so I don’t go bonkers at my desk. When I’m not reading young adult adventure novels, doing some “independent study” with random Wikipedia articles, or falling asleep, I swap messages over Facebook with other nine-to-fivers who also need the distraction. I’ve been talking a lot with my friend Melissa about dating and romance (a topic which, with Melissa, is pretty freakin’ hard to avoid), and the conversation turned to the “chick flick.”
So it took me two paragraphs to say, “I’ve got a bone to pick with chick flicks, and you can blame Melissa for getting me on the subject.”
Nearly every single chick flick (pretty much all the ones I’ve seen) have a mushy, delusional happy ending triggered by an overly absurd deus ex machina. Now I've got no problems with “happy endings” in general – where would the first Star Wars movie be without the dramatic awards ceremony at the end where Luke and Leia exchange flirtatious grins long before realizing that their union would send Mother Nature into epileptic fits of disgust? The real trouble with the "happy couple" ending up together in a chick flick is that it's the only archetype out there. There's no other template: you never see a movie where the guy DOESN'T get the girl, despite the fact that things go so well. If a guy gets hung up on a girl, he always winds up winning her by the end of the movie.
Almost as common is the mismatched couple. The members of the relationship aren't really all that great for each other, but they still somehow manage to have their montage-worthy screen kiss as the sun sets in the background during the final scene. Take a look at this scenario:
“If you ever fall in love with your arch-enemy and want her to love you back, try this little trick: create an alternate identity to stalk her online while you court her in real life. When she has trouble deciding between you and… the other you… just whisk back the black curtain and – TA DAH! – you’ve just been screwing with her head all this time. I bet she’ll think that’s a cute trick.”
Sound a bit like one of Jack Handy’s “Deep Thoughts”? I hope so, because that’s the effect I was going for. In actuality, though, this is Tom Hanks’ strategy in the movie “You've Got Mail” (which, by the way, I actually like). Sure, all in all, Tom Hanks is a pretty good guy in the movie, but the little stunt he pulls on Meg Ryan’s character online is a total creep move. Total. Creep. Move.
The problem I have with chick flicks is that they perpetuate a lot of myths about romance that I don't believe are true (and since I don't really BELIEVE in romance, I doubt this comes as a surprise). You always see the "one fateful love that changes the world and makes daisies rain down from the heavens," which usually comes after months or years of heartache and disappointment. But you nevereverever SEE the heartache and disappointment - unless you saw "Failure to Launch," expecting a GOOD movie. You were probably disappointed then.
The truth is you can be totally in love with some gorgeous guy or hot girl or whatever. You can seem to be a perfect couple, complimenting each other's virtues and helping to shore up weak character points. In the end, though, it can STILL all blow up in your face.
But Hollywood almost never shows those relationships, to my knowledge. Every once in a while, you get a flick that ends tragically, like “A Walk to Remember,” but there’s a HUGE difference between a real break-up and leukemia (although, in the first stages of the break-up, you might not think so). Just once, I want to see a “chick flick” which portrays two young and unrealistically-attractive individuals who fall madly in love, only to break up after a few months. Then, two years down the road, they run into each other again at a Christmas party. The guy can be all, “Dude! This is, like, totally serendipitous!” And then the girl says, “Sorry, but I’m married now with three kids.”
And it doesn’t count if there’s been some other Girl B in the picture the whole time who’s kind of shy but madly in love with the guy, who’s completely oblivious of her feelings but still likes Girl B as a friend and always goes to her for help with his relationship with Girl A. Then, after Girl A breaks his heart, he looks around and finally notices that Girl B isn’t actually less attractive than Girl A. Girl B is just dark-haired, so her good looks aren’t as close a match to the Hollywood standard of feminine beauty as Girl A’s. At the same time, the guy realizes that Girl A is nothing more than a warm body with the morals of the Nixon administration who regularly eats baby seals. And then, in the end, the suitably attractive man marries Girl B and they live happily ever after, while Girl A’s husband gives her syphilis and dies.
Which brings me to another issue (no, not VDs): The guys in chick flicks set an almost completely unattainable standard for the rest of us “real world-ians” to live up to. Here’s just a sampling of chick-flick actors:
Tom Hanks: Yeah, I’m harping on this guy a lot, and why not? I admit he’s not the most attractive guy in the world. But that doesn't change the fact that he's TOM FREAKIN' HANKS!!! Which means that he's smart, charming, funny, witty... and, even if he's not those things, he's one of the world's best actors, so he can just fake it.
Hugh Grant: Sure, he's got bad teeth, but he makes up for it by being so cuddly and childlike. Plus, he's British, so he's got the accent that American chicks seem to love so much.
Will Smith: “Hitch” comes pretty close to being one of my all-time favorite movies. We get to see Alex Hitchin’s transformation from a bumbling nerd in college to Dr. Phil with abs. But, seriously, Will Smith can’t really muster up any geek cred outside of his years in “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” which only works now because the fashions of the early nineties are laughably awful to our evolved and superior 21st-century tastes.
You never see the real physically-unattractive love interest in the chick flick (or in any of Hollywood’s movies, for that matter – that’s another rant, though). You occasionally get a fat guy played by Kevin James or Jack Black – but they always pull the “fat comedian” card, which makes it okay.
So fat guys have to be funny, tall guys have to be handsome and built, rich guys have to become heart-of-gold blobs of sensitivity, and the rest are relegated to supporting “comic relief” roles. I know it’s supposed to be escapism, but, ladies, you’re going to have to face the harsh reality someday:
The guy you marry has probably cut someone off on the freeway. His body has made strange, rumbling noises during dinner parties. He owns at least one video game system and will devote more time to it than to you sometimes. He probably does not look great in a tuxedo. He’s played Dungeons and Dragons before. He has a zit. Oh, and the way he stutters when he’s around you isn’t because you’ve charmed him speechless. It’s because he’s borderline illiterate.
No, I don’t condone rude behavior, flatulence jokes, D&D, or negligence in a relationship. These are serious issues, though, that will probably take months and years of long conversations and the occasional setback to work out satisfactorily. All life’s romantic issues cannot be solved by a lonely stroll through the park where you gaze longingly at all the happy couple who just magically appeared for the occasion, while wistful music full of longing and regret plays in the background.
If you want to stick with your escapist romantic cinema, that’s fine by me. I might even watch them with you, sometimes – provided you buy me popcorn and let me put my arm around you. And if you’re a girl, of course. For me and most guys, the “chick flick” is a means to an end, a way to strengthen a relationship that’s already gone way beyond the awkward early-date stages. If I want escapist entertainment, I’ll go with “Dexter’s Laboratory” reruns on Boomerang. And if I want unrealistic expectations of romance, I’ll find them in guy movies, where apparently shooting a guy in the face is an enormous turn-on for all girls in the area.
Wait, that’s stupid.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Cliched Confessions of a Video Game Junkie
This is the third installment of what you could call my "Greatest Hits from Facebook." The following, originally posted as a Facebook note on 7.30.08, deals with my unfortunate obsession with video games. In case you're curious, I'm no longer in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and I do deeply regret using the term "internets."
For the past couple of months, I’ve been heavily involved in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the Empress Theatre, which, by the way, is still running for two more weeks. Call (801) 347-7373 for tickets. Now the obligatory advertising is out of the way… Ever since we started performances, I find that I have a lot more free time in the evenings. Of course, with performances every Friday, Saturday, and Monday night, my most “valuable” evenings are still shot. And, as much as I love answering phones and checking my Facebook profile like an OCD hacker for eight hours every day, my job generally robs me of my desire to participate in socially-constructive activities, like miniature golf or playing Frisbee or whatever it is kids do these days. You little scoundrels, you.
Now, I DID spend some time outside this past weekend – I went swimming in a friend’s outdoor pool. It’d been almost 8 or 9 years since I’d actually been swimming (or even been outside without a shirt on), so my ivory-white skin is now… well, I was about to make some crack about how my skin is now redder than Bill Engvall’s neck, but, frankly, I don’t want to encourage him.
So I spend a lot of my time these days playing video games (it’s a good thing I still have the play to keep me busy on Friday nights; after that little confessions, my chances for getting a date probably went down about 63%). Just before graduation, I went out and bought myself a knock-off of the old 8-bit Nintendo system I had from childhood. I’ve got fond memories of our old Nintendo. On Christmas morning, 1988 or so, I got to unwrap the large black box that held the little grey box that played those other little gray boxes and filled my days with vaguely human-shaped sprites and epilepsy-inducing flashes. Yeah, the Nintendo was supposed to be for all of us, but I’M the one who got to unwrap it, and, when you’re four years old, that’s a big deal.
Sometimes I wonder if I’d have been better off without ever taking up video games as a hobby. I know that NES is supposed to stand for “Nintendo Entertainment System,” but I think it would be better as “NES Eats Souls” (yay recursive acronyms!). Video games have devoured more of my time than almost any other single pursuit. I feel especially driven to this question as I’m currently running on four hours of sleep as a result of staying up until 1:00 trying to figure out how to get my pinky up to that stupid orange button on Guitar Hero…
…which leads me right to one of my major complaints about video games. I imagine myself sometimes at a party, playing against a cute girl in Guitar Hero III, and I totally wow everyone watching (and there is quite a crowd gathered around the telly) as I proceed to get 100% accuracy on “Cliffs of Dover.” The girl, too, is quite impressed, and therefore taken with me, as you all should be, ladies *condemning stare*.
(On a completely unrelated note, comedian Demetri Martin claims that the best way to sound like a complete creep is to just add the word “ladies” to the end of everything you say. Not sure why I thought of that).
Once upon a time, I used to fantasize about being a rock star – a fantasy shared by many mentally-healthy men, I imagine. But now, rather than actually PLAYING the guitar in my fantasies, I’m mashing brightly-colored buttons on a cheap plastic toy in front of grown-ups, and I’m not ashamed of it. Video games are taking over my fantasies.
Now, good storytelling captures the imagination, and I’m all for this. And there have been some very commendable efforts towards turning video games into a real art form. For your consideration, the game Psychonauts, which gets props from me for having a quirky, compelling story with a dozen or so fully-developed and deranged supporting characters. Plus, you get to condemn squirrels to a blazing eternity in purgatory by lighting them on fire with your brain – which I’m pretty sure falls squarely into the “Things that are Totally Awesome” category on the Jeopardy! board. As much as I love the game Psychonauts, the public at large doesn’t. According to that great Oracle of the Internets, Wikipedia, Psychonauts is on the list of the biggest commercial failures in video game history, a little fact which supports my theory that video gamers are all mouth-breathing twits.
But I’m not really talking about “good” storytelling. Believe it or not, there actually IS a plot to Guitar Hero III – something about dueling the devil to see who rocks harder – but that storyline exists solely to give the programmers an excuse to create cut scenes in between song sets, which are kinda funny, but ultimately pointless – like Brendan Fraser.
And then there are the images. I’m the type of person who likes to lie awake in bed at the end of the day and, well, “daydream,” if you can call it that when it’s dark out. Sometimes I indulge in a bit of idle fantasizing, like when I imagine myself as a superhero (given a choice of superpowers, I’d pick flight every time). Sometimes I flesh out ideas for novels that will almost inevitably not get written. And sometimes I somehow come up with a great idea for a poem, and that’s generally enough to drag me out of bed to get it written down. This, by the way, explains why I write so many poems in my underwear. Not, of course, that you needed an explanation for why I write poetry in my underwear, because most of you probably didn’t KNOW that I write poetry in my underwear, so… umm… never mind.
Video games don’t allow for free thinking. If I’ve been playing games before going to bed, when I close my eyes, I see nothing but images from the game. If the game’s visually exciting, like, say, Psychonauts (heh, burning squirrels), I won’t be too bothered. But I’ve spent hours in bed replaying, in my head, Tetris, Solitaire, and Bejeweled. And nothing will make you feel like a bigger waste of human flesh than losing at a game of Bejewled in your own head.
I suppose I could forego video games altogether, spend some time outside, get a bit more tan so I don’t have to worry about those redneck burns anymore (curse you, Engvall!). However, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from video games, it’s that nature is actively trying to kill me. I could just be walking along, minding my own business, and then, all of a sudden, a Blue Slime, Giant Rat, Ocelot, or some other cartoonish monstrosity will jump out of nowhere and proceed to bite on my ankles. Worst of all would be a bird – doesn’t matter if you’re a ninja chasing drug smugglers through the mountains or the son of a blacksmith in a Transylvanian castle, all the birds in the vicinity will immediately dive at you like (insert your own tasteless suicide bomber/kamikaze pilot joke here).
Besides, there’s still a way to get the social interaction every growing child needs: the second-player controller.
For the past couple of months, I’ve been heavily involved in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the Empress Theatre, which, by the way, is still running for two more weeks. Call (801) 347-7373 for tickets. Now the obligatory advertising is out of the way… Ever since we started performances, I find that I have a lot more free time in the evenings. Of course, with performances every Friday, Saturday, and Monday night, my most “valuable” evenings are still shot. And, as much as I love answering phones and checking my Facebook profile like an OCD hacker for eight hours every day, my job generally robs me of my desire to participate in socially-constructive activities, like miniature golf or playing Frisbee or whatever it is kids do these days. You little scoundrels, you.
Now, I DID spend some time outside this past weekend – I went swimming in a friend’s outdoor pool. It’d been almost 8 or 9 years since I’d actually been swimming (or even been outside without a shirt on), so my ivory-white skin is now… well, I was about to make some crack about how my skin is now redder than Bill Engvall’s neck, but, frankly, I don’t want to encourage him.
So I spend a lot of my time these days playing video games (it’s a good thing I still have the play to keep me busy on Friday nights; after that little confessions, my chances for getting a date probably went down about 63%). Just before graduation, I went out and bought myself a knock-off of the old 8-bit Nintendo system I had from childhood. I’ve got fond memories of our old Nintendo. On Christmas morning, 1988 or so, I got to unwrap the large black box that held the little grey box that played those other little gray boxes and filled my days with vaguely human-shaped sprites and epilepsy-inducing flashes. Yeah, the Nintendo was supposed to be for all of us, but I’M the one who got to unwrap it, and, when you’re four years old, that’s a big deal.
Sometimes I wonder if I’d have been better off without ever taking up video games as a hobby. I know that NES is supposed to stand for “Nintendo Entertainment System,” but I think it would be better as “NES Eats Souls” (yay recursive acronyms!). Video games have devoured more of my time than almost any other single pursuit. I feel especially driven to this question as I’m currently running on four hours of sleep as a result of staying up until 1:00 trying to figure out how to get my pinky up to that stupid orange button on Guitar Hero…
…which leads me right to one of my major complaints about video games. I imagine myself sometimes at a party, playing against a cute girl in Guitar Hero III, and I totally wow everyone watching (and there is quite a crowd gathered around the telly) as I proceed to get 100% accuracy on “Cliffs of Dover.” The girl, too, is quite impressed, and therefore taken with me, as you all should be, ladies *condemning stare*.
(On a completely unrelated note, comedian Demetri Martin claims that the best way to sound like a complete creep is to just add the word “ladies” to the end of everything you say. Not sure why I thought of that).
Once upon a time, I used to fantasize about being a rock star – a fantasy shared by many mentally-healthy men, I imagine. But now, rather than actually PLAYING the guitar in my fantasies, I’m mashing brightly-colored buttons on a cheap plastic toy in front of grown-ups, and I’m not ashamed of it. Video games are taking over my fantasies.
Now, good storytelling captures the imagination, and I’m all for this. And there have been some very commendable efforts towards turning video games into a real art form. For your consideration, the game Psychonauts, which gets props from me for having a quirky, compelling story with a dozen or so fully-developed and deranged supporting characters. Plus, you get to condemn squirrels to a blazing eternity in purgatory by lighting them on fire with your brain – which I’m pretty sure falls squarely into the “Things that are Totally Awesome” category on the Jeopardy! board. As much as I love the game Psychonauts, the public at large doesn’t. According to that great Oracle of the Internets, Wikipedia, Psychonauts is on the list of the biggest commercial failures in video game history, a little fact which supports my theory that video gamers are all mouth-breathing twits.
But I’m not really talking about “good” storytelling. Believe it or not, there actually IS a plot to Guitar Hero III – something about dueling the devil to see who rocks harder – but that storyline exists solely to give the programmers an excuse to create cut scenes in between song sets, which are kinda funny, but ultimately pointless – like Brendan Fraser.
And then there are the images. I’m the type of person who likes to lie awake in bed at the end of the day and, well, “daydream,” if you can call it that when it’s dark out. Sometimes I indulge in a bit of idle fantasizing, like when I imagine myself as a superhero (given a choice of superpowers, I’d pick flight every time). Sometimes I flesh out ideas for novels that will almost inevitably not get written. And sometimes I somehow come up with a great idea for a poem, and that’s generally enough to drag me out of bed to get it written down. This, by the way, explains why I write so many poems in my underwear. Not, of course, that you needed an explanation for why I write poetry in my underwear, because most of you probably didn’t KNOW that I write poetry in my underwear, so… umm… never mind.
Video games don’t allow for free thinking. If I’ve been playing games before going to bed, when I close my eyes, I see nothing but images from the game. If the game’s visually exciting, like, say, Psychonauts (heh, burning squirrels), I won’t be too bothered. But I’ve spent hours in bed replaying, in my head, Tetris, Solitaire, and Bejeweled. And nothing will make you feel like a bigger waste of human flesh than losing at a game of Bejewled in your own head.
I suppose I could forego video games altogether, spend some time outside, get a bit more tan so I don’t have to worry about those redneck burns anymore (curse you, Engvall!). However, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from video games, it’s that nature is actively trying to kill me. I could just be walking along, minding my own business, and then, all of a sudden, a Blue Slime, Giant Rat, Ocelot, or some other cartoonish monstrosity will jump out of nowhere and proceed to bite on my ankles. Worst of all would be a bird – doesn’t matter if you’re a ninja chasing drug smugglers through the mountains or the son of a blacksmith in a Transylvanian castle, all the birds in the vicinity will immediately dive at you like (insert your own tasteless suicide bomber/kamikaze pilot joke here).
Besides, there’s still a way to get the social interaction every growing child needs: the second-player controller.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
I Hate Dating
For the first little while, I'll be re-posting some of my favorite notes I've written over on Facebook here. Today's post (originally from 6.19.08) deals with my second-favorite topic of all time.
Normally I think I would have held off on this rather touchy subject until that late night hour when inhibitions are a memory, emotion is completely subsumed by rage and depression, and pants are an optional luxury. Instead, I’m tackling it in broad daylight, with the soothing sounds of Don Henley’s “The Heart of the Matter” dripping from the speakers (stupid over-playing soft radio hasn’t ruined this one yet. Give it time).
You all knew I’d probably write about this one sooner or later. After all, I am a Mormon male, single at age 24, just teetering on the edge of that dividing line between “late bloomer” and “menace to society”… although I doubt that even the Utah culture here really views older singles as lusty rampaging hell-raisers. I think they see us more as shadows, drifting on the edge of civilized society. Fodder for their other single friends.
Apparently, it doesn’t take that much common ground for two mutually dateless individuals to “be perfect for each other.” I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard people (my mom) tell me, “Oh, you two would have so much fun together. I mean, you’re both single…” She trails off, coughs, and then goes right back into a yenta fit with “I think you should try it.” Good advice, Mom.
I’ve never been a fan of arranged courtship anyway. The “blind date” just leaves too much up to chance, and I’m far too domineering to surrender that much control over any situation. It’s a bit too much like allowing someone else to select your meal at a restaurant. Yeah, their taste may be good, but it doesn’t matter how delicious and leafy green their salad is if you’re violent, savage, bleeding-cow eater.
Yeah, I’m sorry about the food metaphor. Never been a fan of food metaphors when it comes to talking about human relationships. Too much room for interpretation. For example: A while back, I went to a fireside meeting with other young men from my church. These meetings, especially in college towns, are really a form of dating boot camp. The presiding individual, bless his heart, chastised us for not taking advantage of the numerous dating opportunities presented to us. “Mothers send their daughters to Utah to find worthy young men to marry,” he said with a straight face. “There are three women out there for every one of you. It’s like a buffet.”
I don’t know what effect that statement would have had on you, but I went absolutely NUTS. I wanted to go up after the meeting, shake his hand, and ask him what I should do if the salad I pick for myself at the “buffet” decides to jump onto another guy’s tray.
If dating were REALLY like a buffet, it would allow for a greater level of customization. I could just step in the line, pick all the features I want out of plastic bowls sitting in ice-filled carts: “Okay, I’ll take green eyes, long black hair – curly, not straight… and throw in one of those badonkadonks.”
“You know how rich those are, right?”
“Pretty sure my heart can take it. While we’re at it, let’s throw in… I don’t know, ‘good cook,’ ‘housekeeper,’ ‘violinist,’ and… Hey, get those ‘career ambitions’ out of there! She’s got to have time to take care of me… I mean, the kids.”
Violinists are hot, and you know it!
No, in the REAL world, dating is more like a jigsaw puzzle. Except instead of 10000 pieces fitting together to make one picture (preferably one that, like Demetri Martin suggests, displays the words “Go Outside!” on it), you get one piece and have to match it up to one of 9999 other pieces to create some shining golden “happily ever etc.” Now, some pieces are obviously completely incompatible, so you can throw those aside. But then you get those that are just too cute to pass up on, so you find yourself madly beating the two pieces with a sledgehammer, trying to get them to fit. When you’re finally forced to admit that there’s no match there, you get so depressed over your failure that you curl up with tissues and a bucket of Fudge Ripple in front of a Gilmore Girls marathon. You ladies aren’t the only ones, you know!
So there’s a lot of detective work that goes into real courtship – asking questions, keeping an eye open for details, Google searches, Facebook stalking, etc. And even if two people are absolutely PERFECT for each other, there’s still a plethora of pitfalls awaiting them if they decide to pursue something together.A prolonged relationship simply SHOULD NOT happen if the two individuals in question aren’t good for each other. And I’m not just talking about whether they use the right amount of tongue when they kiss (Geez, I just grossed myself out!). When you’re with the one you “love,” or “like,” or “just can’t get enough of”… well, other people should want to be with you more because of him or her. Your “li’l pookie” had darn well better make you want to be a better person.
Then, of course, there’s the biggest factor in any relationship: desire. Or, as Bono would say, “De-si-ay-ay-ay-i-ay-i-errr!” Strangely enough, this means that couples who do not actually WANT to be together won’t (or shouldn’t) be in a relationship. Go figure.
Now I said “couples,” but really, that should just be “individuals.” That’s right, guys, it doesn’t matter how strongly you feel about Miss Hot-Awesome, or if God told you that she’s the one for you – if she doesn’t feel the same way, then there’s nothing happening there. I firmly believe it is possible for one person to get a lot out of a relationship that is detrimental for the other – what’s right for one may not be right for both. Sorry.
“Wow, Stephen,” I hear you say in voices filled with awe, “you sure do know a lot about dating and relationships. You’re very wise.”
Thank you. Kind of you to say.
“So we’re guessing you must have a lot of experience with women. You probably go on dates every weekend with three girls at the same time.”
Now, if we were in the same room, you would see me suddenly occupy myself with an invisible spot on the leg of my pants and clear my throat.
Yeah, I don’t really date all that much. In the past year, I’ve been on… two real dates. One was a blind date that actually wound up being kind of a fiasco (thanks a lot, Biz!). So in the past year I have successfully, without excessively wetting myself, asked out one girl. Go me!
So what’s the deal with my reluctance to date? Well, there’s a lot behind it. One part of it, I think, is a simple flaw in my nature. Dating, especially frequent dating, is an exercise in patience and optimism, whereas I’m a roiling, boiling cesspool of cynicism and self-loathing. Therefore dating ranks just under “Beat my head against a proverbial brick wall” on my list of “Ways I want to waste my time.”
However, I’ve recently come across another explanation. I was sitting with a couple of friends in a movie theater, waiting for “Kung Fu Panda” to start, unaware that the coming demonstration of martial arts brilliance would make us go blind from over-exposure to pure awesomeness. During the idle banter before the movie started, I told them a bit about my family – I have three brothers, no sisters. And it hit me: I’ve never really been around women much in my life. I don’t really know how to interact with them in a meaningful, non-embarrassing way. Girls, I may well be afraid of you.
I suppose I COULD take this moment to overcome my fears with some self-affirming recommitment to putting myself out there. Let’s see what that would look like:“All right, ladies, listen up! I’ve had it with awkward, aimless conversations and pussy-footing around the real issues. You know why I’m talking to you, and I’m not afraid to let you know about it. I like you – all of you! I’m going to swallow my pride, stick out my chest, and get back out on the market! And I’m coming to your house after school!”
Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to be changing anything. Now if only I could convince Facebook to let me change my relationship status to “Atheist,” I’d be all set.
Normally I think I would have held off on this rather touchy subject until that late night hour when inhibitions are a memory, emotion is completely subsumed by rage and depression, and pants are an optional luxury. Instead, I’m tackling it in broad daylight, with the soothing sounds of Don Henley’s “The Heart of the Matter” dripping from the speakers (stupid over-playing soft radio hasn’t ruined this one yet. Give it time).
You all knew I’d probably write about this one sooner or later. After all, I am a Mormon male, single at age 24, just teetering on the edge of that dividing line between “late bloomer” and “menace to society”… although I doubt that even the Utah culture here really views older singles as lusty rampaging hell-raisers. I think they see us more as shadows, drifting on the edge of civilized society. Fodder for their other single friends.
Apparently, it doesn’t take that much common ground for two mutually dateless individuals to “be perfect for each other.” I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard people (my mom) tell me, “Oh, you two would have so much fun together. I mean, you’re both single…” She trails off, coughs, and then goes right back into a yenta fit with “I think you should try it.” Good advice, Mom.
I’ve never been a fan of arranged courtship anyway. The “blind date” just leaves too much up to chance, and I’m far too domineering to surrender that much control over any situation. It’s a bit too much like allowing someone else to select your meal at a restaurant. Yeah, their taste may be good, but it doesn’t matter how delicious and leafy green their salad is if you’re violent, savage, bleeding-cow eater.
Yeah, I’m sorry about the food metaphor. Never been a fan of food metaphors when it comes to talking about human relationships. Too much room for interpretation. For example: A while back, I went to a fireside meeting with other young men from my church. These meetings, especially in college towns, are really a form of dating boot camp. The presiding individual, bless his heart, chastised us for not taking advantage of the numerous dating opportunities presented to us. “Mothers send their daughters to Utah to find worthy young men to marry,” he said with a straight face. “There are three women out there for every one of you. It’s like a buffet.”
I don’t know what effect that statement would have had on you, but I went absolutely NUTS. I wanted to go up after the meeting, shake his hand, and ask him what I should do if the salad I pick for myself at the “buffet” decides to jump onto another guy’s tray.
If dating were REALLY like a buffet, it would allow for a greater level of customization. I could just step in the line, pick all the features I want out of plastic bowls sitting in ice-filled carts: “Okay, I’ll take green eyes, long black hair – curly, not straight… and throw in one of those badonkadonks.”
“You know how rich those are, right?”
“Pretty sure my heart can take it. While we’re at it, let’s throw in… I don’t know, ‘good cook,’ ‘housekeeper,’ ‘violinist,’ and… Hey, get those ‘career ambitions’ out of there! She’s got to have time to take care of me… I mean, the kids.”
Violinists are hot, and you know it!
No, in the REAL world, dating is more like a jigsaw puzzle. Except instead of 10000 pieces fitting together to make one picture (preferably one that, like Demetri Martin suggests, displays the words “Go Outside!” on it), you get one piece and have to match it up to one of 9999 other pieces to create some shining golden “happily ever etc.” Now, some pieces are obviously completely incompatible, so you can throw those aside. But then you get those that are just too cute to pass up on, so you find yourself madly beating the two pieces with a sledgehammer, trying to get them to fit. When you’re finally forced to admit that there’s no match there, you get so depressed over your failure that you curl up with tissues and a bucket of Fudge Ripple in front of a Gilmore Girls marathon. You ladies aren’t the only ones, you know!
So there’s a lot of detective work that goes into real courtship – asking questions, keeping an eye open for details, Google searches, Facebook stalking, etc. And even if two people are absolutely PERFECT for each other, there’s still a plethora of pitfalls awaiting them if they decide to pursue something together.A prolonged relationship simply SHOULD NOT happen if the two individuals in question aren’t good for each other. And I’m not just talking about whether they use the right amount of tongue when they kiss (Geez, I just grossed myself out!). When you’re with the one you “love,” or “like,” or “just can’t get enough of”… well, other people should want to be with you more because of him or her. Your “li’l pookie” had darn well better make you want to be a better person.
Then, of course, there’s the biggest factor in any relationship: desire. Or, as Bono would say, “De-si-ay-ay-ay-i-ay-i-errr!” Strangely enough, this means that couples who do not actually WANT to be together won’t (or shouldn’t) be in a relationship. Go figure.
Now I said “couples,” but really, that should just be “individuals.” That’s right, guys, it doesn’t matter how strongly you feel about Miss Hot-Awesome, or if God told you that she’s the one for you – if she doesn’t feel the same way, then there’s nothing happening there. I firmly believe it is possible for one person to get a lot out of a relationship that is detrimental for the other – what’s right for one may not be right for both. Sorry.
“Wow, Stephen,” I hear you say in voices filled with awe, “you sure do know a lot about dating and relationships. You’re very wise.”
Thank you. Kind of you to say.
“So we’re guessing you must have a lot of experience with women. You probably go on dates every weekend with three girls at the same time.”
Now, if we were in the same room, you would see me suddenly occupy myself with an invisible spot on the leg of my pants and clear my throat.
Yeah, I don’t really date all that much. In the past year, I’ve been on… two real dates. One was a blind date that actually wound up being kind of a fiasco (thanks a lot, Biz!). So in the past year I have successfully, without excessively wetting myself, asked out one girl. Go me!
So what’s the deal with my reluctance to date? Well, there’s a lot behind it. One part of it, I think, is a simple flaw in my nature. Dating, especially frequent dating, is an exercise in patience and optimism, whereas I’m a roiling, boiling cesspool of cynicism and self-loathing. Therefore dating ranks just under “Beat my head against a proverbial brick wall” on my list of “Ways I want to waste my time.”
However, I’ve recently come across another explanation. I was sitting with a couple of friends in a movie theater, waiting for “Kung Fu Panda” to start, unaware that the coming demonstration of martial arts brilliance would make us go blind from over-exposure to pure awesomeness. During the idle banter before the movie started, I told them a bit about my family – I have three brothers, no sisters. And it hit me: I’ve never really been around women much in my life. I don’t really know how to interact with them in a meaningful, non-embarrassing way. Girls, I may well be afraid of you.
I suppose I COULD take this moment to overcome my fears with some self-affirming recommitment to putting myself out there. Let’s see what that would look like:“All right, ladies, listen up! I’ve had it with awkward, aimless conversations and pussy-footing around the real issues. You know why I’m talking to you, and I’m not afraid to let you know about it. I like you – all of you! I’m going to swallow my pride, stick out my chest, and get back out on the market! And I’m coming to your house after school!”
Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to be changing anything. Now if only I could convince Facebook to let me change my relationship status to “Atheist,” I’d be all set.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Greatest Hits: Why I Write
So for the first little while, I'm going to repost here blogs that I originally wrote over on Facebook. Probably not all of them, mind - just the ones that I still enjoy. The following first appeared on Facebook on June 12, 2008.
For some reason, I feel like I have to defend myself every time I tell anyone I want to be a poet. I imagine that when someone asks what I want to do with my life, and I answer, “I want to be a writer,” all they hear is, “I want to live in my parents’ basement until I’m thirty-five and obese with Cheetos stains on all of my clever novelty tee-shirts” or “I want to be mistaken for a homeless man, with wild, unkempt hair and exactly three warts on my nose, until my chronic depression and savage alcoholism drive me to stick my head in an oven.” (Sorry, Sylvia).
Writing, especially poetry, never seems like the most practical option. When I got into college and declared as a math major, I cited practicality. “I can get a job with math because math is practical.” By the way, Webster’s dictionary defines “practicality” as “a prostitution of one’s hopes and dreams. See also ‘conformity.’” Look it up.
But a lot of the stigma I perceive against writers may actually be projected on the “teeming masses” from my own biases. When I declared as a Creative Writing major, I expected that my classes would be full of hermitic nerds with second-hand jackets as patchy as their beards and spiral notebooks full of handwritten fanfictions about Hermione Granger’s passionate love affair with Legolas from Lord of the Rings. These social orphans generally refer to themselves as “fantasists.” The rest of us call them “nerds.”
For a long time during my childhood, I actually aspired to join up with the fantasists. I read fantasy novels. My first real exposure to fantasy literature came the summer when I was eight years old: my father introduced me to the Dragonlance series of novels. If you’ve never heard of Dragonlance, then you probably have friends.
Today I almost blush to admit that I genuinely liked reading stories about Schwarzeneggerian titans slaying dragons with their large toenails and wooing women dressed like they came out of a ninth-century Victoria’s Secret catalog. But those books actually contributed to my academic success in grade school, surprisingly enough. Nearly every year, I had a certain requirement for reading pages, usually in the 500-1000 range. I averaged at least double that every time, accumulating hundreds of points of extra credit while my muscles melted into limp balloons filled with Jell-O and all those other “normal, adjusted” children went OUTSIDE.
I’ve long since abandoned fantasy novels for the more respectable realm of “literary fiction.” An Oxford study I just made up identifies three distinguishing characteristics of literary fiction:
1 – The good guys don’t always win.
2 – Good storytelling is less important that making a point.
3 – Everyone has sex all the time, and no one likes it.
The great ethereal “they” say that all great writers should be great readers first. Turns out “they” have a point: since I began reading “literature” as opposed to… whatever the alternative is, I’ve actually discovered a few writers that have changed the way I look at life, not to mention the way I write. One of the most noteworthy is the poet E. E. Cummings, more commonly known as “e. e. cummings” or “the reason God invented Spell Check.” I first heard of Cummings in a choir classroom, of all places – and now that you’ve heard that I was a choir boy who read fantasy novels, you most likely have questions which I’ll answer by saying, “Yes, I did, in fact, get beaten up in school.” The chamber choir of which I was a member performed a Cummings poem set to music, which begins:
“i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes”
In high school, I liked the poem because it seemed to be giving grammar teachers all over the nation the proverbial bird. However, as I’ve grown and matured (stop snickering!), I’ve come see beyond Cummings’s tendency and found real wisdom in his writing. Consider the following passage from a lecture Cummings gave at Harvard University:
“My theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from original; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of burlesk, viz. ‘Would you hit a woman with a child?— No, I'd hit her with a brick.’”
Violence against women is funny.
Cummings, I guess, is partly to blame for my poetry. And I’m not ashamed to be a poet, because, really, I can’t imagine doing anything else. I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since fourth grade, when I wrote that blasted poem about leprechauns. Fifteen years later and I can still recite the whole thing by memory:
“Every St. Patrick’s Day Morning
Get up at the crack o’ dawn.
The little people be dancin’ about
Enjoyin’ the mornin’s spawn.
These tricky and sneaky people
Have gold they give away
But only if you can catch one
On glorious St. Patrick’s Day!”
Did I even know what “spawn” means?
Well, a lot of people seemed to like that glittering pile of what I then alleged to be poetry. My oldest brother, who was twelve at the time, asked me to repeat the poem for him several times. He probably just got a kick out of watching me, because every time I recited it, I jumped up and down and flapped my arms like a retarded penguin.
Writing gives me an outlet. It allows sides of my personality that don’t normally get to come out and play (like the spastic penguin) to express themselves. So I can talk a bit more about how I hate touching people (and how I want to get over that), share the (I think) remarkably profound experience I had walking barefoot by the home I grew up in, and explore exactly why I think the story of Alice in Wonderland is so darn fascinating. Plus, since I write all of these opinions and experiences, I can send them out, share them, in the hopes that someone out there will agree.
Of course, since I write all of these opinions and experiences into POEMS, it’s a bit futile, something akin to putting out messages in bottles in the middle of a desert. Still, maybe someday, some poor, haggard traveler will trip over the bottle as he crawls through the sand. He’ll dig the bottle up, turn it over in his hands, and then angrily break it against a rock because there’s no water in it.
(I feel like I should apologize to D&D players, fantasy writers, women, penguins, and the rest of the world which I referred to as “the teeming masses,” but I’m not going to)
For some reason, I feel like I have to defend myself every time I tell anyone I want to be a poet. I imagine that when someone asks what I want to do with my life, and I answer, “I want to be a writer,” all they hear is, “I want to live in my parents’ basement until I’m thirty-five and obese with Cheetos stains on all of my clever novelty tee-shirts” or “I want to be mistaken for a homeless man, with wild, unkempt hair and exactly three warts on my nose, until my chronic depression and savage alcoholism drive me to stick my head in an oven.” (Sorry, Sylvia).
Writing, especially poetry, never seems like the most practical option. When I got into college and declared as a math major, I cited practicality. “I can get a job with math because math is practical.” By the way, Webster’s dictionary defines “practicality” as “a prostitution of one’s hopes and dreams. See also ‘conformity.’” Look it up.
But a lot of the stigma I perceive against writers may actually be projected on the “teeming masses” from my own biases. When I declared as a Creative Writing major, I expected that my classes would be full of hermitic nerds with second-hand jackets as patchy as their beards and spiral notebooks full of handwritten fanfictions about Hermione Granger’s passionate love affair with Legolas from Lord of the Rings. These social orphans generally refer to themselves as “fantasists.” The rest of us call them “nerds.”
For a long time during my childhood, I actually aspired to join up with the fantasists. I read fantasy novels. My first real exposure to fantasy literature came the summer when I was eight years old: my father introduced me to the Dragonlance series of novels. If you’ve never heard of Dragonlance, then you probably have friends.
Today I almost blush to admit that I genuinely liked reading stories about Schwarzeneggerian titans slaying dragons with their large toenails and wooing women dressed like they came out of a ninth-century Victoria’s Secret catalog. But those books actually contributed to my academic success in grade school, surprisingly enough. Nearly every year, I had a certain requirement for reading pages, usually in the 500-1000 range. I averaged at least double that every time, accumulating hundreds of points of extra credit while my muscles melted into limp balloons filled with Jell-O and all those other “normal, adjusted” children went OUTSIDE.
I’ve long since abandoned fantasy novels for the more respectable realm of “literary fiction.” An Oxford study I just made up identifies three distinguishing characteristics of literary fiction:
1 – The good guys don’t always win.
2 – Good storytelling is less important that making a point.
3 – Everyone has sex all the time, and no one likes it.
The great ethereal “they” say that all great writers should be great readers first. Turns out “they” have a point: since I began reading “literature” as opposed to… whatever the alternative is, I’ve actually discovered a few writers that have changed the way I look at life, not to mention the way I write. One of the most noteworthy is the poet E. E. Cummings, more commonly known as “e. e. cummings” or “the reason God invented Spell Check.” I first heard of Cummings in a choir classroom, of all places – and now that you’ve heard that I was a choir boy who read fantasy novels, you most likely have questions which I’ll answer by saying, “Yes, I did, in fact, get beaten up in school.” The chamber choir of which I was a member performed a Cummings poem set to music, which begins:
“i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes”
In high school, I liked the poem because it seemed to be giving grammar teachers all over the nation the proverbial bird. However, as I’ve grown and matured (stop snickering!), I’ve come see beyond Cummings’s tendency and found real wisdom in his writing. Consider the following passage from a lecture Cummings gave at Harvard University:
“My theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from original; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of burlesk, viz. ‘Would you hit a woman with a child?— No, I'd hit her with a brick.’”
Violence against women is funny.
Cummings, I guess, is partly to blame for my poetry. And I’m not ashamed to be a poet, because, really, I can’t imagine doing anything else. I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since fourth grade, when I wrote that blasted poem about leprechauns. Fifteen years later and I can still recite the whole thing by memory:
“Every St. Patrick’s Day Morning
Get up at the crack o’ dawn.
The little people be dancin’ about
Enjoyin’ the mornin’s spawn.
These tricky and sneaky people
Have gold they give away
But only if you can catch one
On glorious St. Patrick’s Day!”
Did I even know what “spawn” means?
Well, a lot of people seemed to like that glittering pile of what I then alleged to be poetry. My oldest brother, who was twelve at the time, asked me to repeat the poem for him several times. He probably just got a kick out of watching me, because every time I recited it, I jumped up and down and flapped my arms like a retarded penguin.
Writing gives me an outlet. It allows sides of my personality that don’t normally get to come out and play (like the spastic penguin) to express themselves. So I can talk a bit more about how I hate touching people (and how I want to get over that), share the (I think) remarkably profound experience I had walking barefoot by the home I grew up in, and explore exactly why I think the story of Alice in Wonderland is so darn fascinating. Plus, since I write all of these opinions and experiences, I can send them out, share them, in the hopes that someone out there will agree.
Of course, since I write all of these opinions and experiences into POEMS, it’s a bit futile, something akin to putting out messages in bottles in the middle of a desert. Still, maybe someday, some poor, haggard traveler will trip over the bottle as he crawls through the sand. He’ll dig the bottle up, turn it over in his hands, and then angrily break it against a rock because there’s no water in it.
(I feel like I should apologize to D&D players, fantasy writers, women, penguins, and the rest of the world which I referred to as “the teeming masses,” but I’m not going to)
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Introduction to Me
So there's this meme going around on Facebook right now - and I swore I'd never participate. Well, turns out I'm a sucker. One of my friends who's been home sick today practically begged me to fill it out.
I've been blogging for a while on Facebook, but I've been thinking about "expanding." I guess this meme gives me a good jumping-off point.
Here it goes: Twenty-five things you probably never knew about S.R. Braddy:
1 – I won my first poetry contest back in second or third grade – basically by rewriting the lyrics to a Sesame Street song performed by *shudder* Elmo.
2 – In high school, I sang bass in a five-man a cappella group called “The Grasscutters.” We got the name from my friend’s mom. On the CD we eventually cut, you can hear my voice crack during “In the Still of the Night.”
3 – To date, I’ve participated in six musicals: Oklahoma!; Kiss Me, Kate; Li’l Abner; Once Upon a Mattress; Anne of Green Gables; and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I love doing musical theater, but I hate watching it.
4 – I also love to sing classical music (especially in Italian), but I hate listening to it.
5 – My first crush was on a girl named Angela Slagowski in sixth grade. As a result, I think everyone should have a crush on someone with a Polish surname at least once in their lives.
6 – I have trouble reading books longer than 250-300 pages. I love stories, and I’m impatient to finish one and get on to the other.
7 – I majored in English, I took an entire class on Shakespeare, I’ve been in Shakespearean plays, and I read Shakespeare for fun… and I’ve never read Macbeth.
8 – My favorite moment in video games is in Final Fantasy III (FFVI, if you’re a purist): Celes Chere, an Imperial general, performs an opera.
9 – I love lighting squirrels on fire in Psychonauts.
10 – I memorized the closing theme song to the game Portal before ever actually playing the game.
11 – Most of the love poetry I’ve written (to date) has been written about one girl. She knows who she is.
12 – I’ve written at least two poems inspired by my mom’s cooking. It’s that good.
13 – I watch The Office almost solely because I love the relationship between Jim and Pam.
14 – While growing up, I was actually jealous of how much our cat, Otis, liked my little brother. Of course, Otis probably hated me because of how often my friend Mike and I would tackle him while screaming, “Murder the cat!”
15 – Nothing makes me angrier than doing poorly at a video game.
16 – I started college as a junior with over 60 credits.
17 – I changed my major and minor about five times and still graduated in four years.
18 – Since my favorite comic book stories have been running since the 60s or longer, I pick and choose which storylines I consider to be “canon,” regardless of whatever the companies themselves say.
19 – I’m secretly glad that Pushing Daisies got cancelled before it ran out of steam, and I hope the same thing happens to The Office.
20 – I actually want to be a Sunday School teacher in my church.
21 – I practice an evil super-villain cackle when I’m by myself – even when I’m outdoors.
22 – The most rewarding thing for me about doing the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was learning to do handstands. I still do them.
23 – During my first year at college, two of my favorite television shows were Blue’s Clues and Hamtaro, an anime aimed at 6-year-old girls.
24 – I caught all 150 of the original Pokémon. (By the way, I must point out that Microsoft’s Spell Check actually caught the accent in the word Pokémon)
25 – I care enough about spelling things correctly to add the accent to the word “Pokémon” when prompted to by Spell Check.
I've been blogging for a while on Facebook, but I've been thinking about "expanding." I guess this meme gives me a good jumping-off point.
Here it goes: Twenty-five things you probably never knew about S.R. Braddy:
1 – I won my first poetry contest back in second or third grade – basically by rewriting the lyrics to a Sesame Street song performed by *shudder* Elmo.
2 – In high school, I sang bass in a five-man a cappella group called “The Grasscutters.” We got the name from my friend’s mom. On the CD we eventually cut, you can hear my voice crack during “In the Still of the Night.”
3 – To date, I’ve participated in six musicals: Oklahoma!; Kiss Me, Kate; Li’l Abner; Once Upon a Mattress; Anne of Green Gables; and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I love doing musical theater, but I hate watching it.
4 – I also love to sing classical music (especially in Italian), but I hate listening to it.
5 – My first crush was on a girl named Angela Slagowski in sixth grade. As a result, I think everyone should have a crush on someone with a Polish surname at least once in their lives.
6 – I have trouble reading books longer than 250-300 pages. I love stories, and I’m impatient to finish one and get on to the other.
7 – I majored in English, I took an entire class on Shakespeare, I’ve been in Shakespearean plays, and I read Shakespeare for fun… and I’ve never read Macbeth.
8 – My favorite moment in video games is in Final Fantasy III (FFVI, if you’re a purist): Celes Chere, an Imperial general, performs an opera.
9 – I love lighting squirrels on fire in Psychonauts.
10 – I memorized the closing theme song to the game Portal before ever actually playing the game.
11 – Most of the love poetry I’ve written (to date) has been written about one girl. She knows who she is.
12 – I’ve written at least two poems inspired by my mom’s cooking. It’s that good.
13 – I watch The Office almost solely because I love the relationship between Jim and Pam.
14 – While growing up, I was actually jealous of how much our cat, Otis, liked my little brother. Of course, Otis probably hated me because of how often my friend Mike and I would tackle him while screaming, “Murder the cat!”
15 – Nothing makes me angrier than doing poorly at a video game.
16 – I started college as a junior with over 60 credits.
17 – I changed my major and minor about five times and still graduated in four years.
18 – Since my favorite comic book stories have been running since the 60s or longer, I pick and choose which storylines I consider to be “canon,” regardless of whatever the companies themselves say.
19 – I’m secretly glad that Pushing Daisies got cancelled before it ran out of steam, and I hope the same thing happens to The Office.
20 – I actually want to be a Sunday School teacher in my church.
21 – I practice an evil super-villain cackle when I’m by myself – even when I’m outdoors.
22 – The most rewarding thing for me about doing the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was learning to do handstands. I still do them.
23 – During my first year at college, two of my favorite television shows were Blue’s Clues and Hamtaro, an anime aimed at 6-year-old girls.
24 – I caught all 150 of the original Pokémon. (By the way, I must point out that Microsoft’s Spell Check actually caught the accent in the word Pokémon)
25 – I care enough about spelling things correctly to add the accent to the word “Pokémon” when prompted to by Spell Check.
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